History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense

Strategy, Money, and the New Look,

1953-1956
HISTORY OF THE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

Alfred Goldberg, General Editor

Volume I: Steven L. Rearden, The Formative Years, 1947-1950 (1984)

Volume II: Doris M. Condit, The Test of War, 1950-1953 (1988)

Volume IV: Robert J. Watson, Into the Missile Age, 1956-1960 (1997)
HISTORY OF THE OFFICE

OF THE

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

Volume III

STRATEGY, MONEY,

AND THE

NEW LOOK

1953-1956

Richard M. Leighton

Historical Office

Office of the Secretary of Defense

Washington, D.C. • 2001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Includes bibliography and index.

Contents: v. 1. The formative years, 1947-1950/ Steven 1. Rearden -

v.2. The test of war, 1950-1953/ Doris M. Condit - v. 3. Strategy, money,

and the new look, 1953-1956/ Richard M. Leighton - v.4. Into the

missile age, 1956-1960 / Robert J. Watson.

1. United States. Dept. of Defense-History. I. Goldberg, Alfred,

1918- . II. Rearden, Steven 1., 1946- . III. Condit, Doris M.,

1921- . IV. Leighton, Richard M., 1914-2001. V. Watson, Robert].,

1920- . VI. United States. Dept. of Defense. Historical Office.

UA23.6.R4 1984 353.6'09 84-601133

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001

ISBN 0-16-050948-3
Foreword

This publication, Volume III of the History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, is concerned with the first three and a half years of the

Eisenhower administration-1953-1956. The hallmark of these years was

the constant struggle of the administration to hold down the cost of

national defense and balance that cost against an array of post-Korea cold

war challenges. For President Eisenhower the budget balancing priority

was almost an obsession. His firm belief that a sound and fundamental

economy was the bedrock on which all national policy had to be based

manifested itself powerfully in all considerations of the national budget,

and especially in the national defense budget, the dominant element. This

volume, therefore, seeks to demonstrate and develop the interlocking

relationship between the economy, strategy, and money in the making of

a national security policy that came to be known as the New Look.

The New Look had its antecedent in the immediate pre-Korean War

policies of the Truman administration, which had begun to emphasize the

role of airpower and nuclear weapons in an effort to diminish reliance on

the manpower-intensive ground forces and hold down the cost of national

defense. The Korean War frustrated the overt implementation of this policy

because of its demands for large ground forces, but important advances

occurred in the buildup of strategic nuclear airpower during the war that

would facilitate that transformation. Thus, for its New Look strategic air

component, the Eisenhower administration inherited and embraced, within

the constraints of the budget, needed essential elements-a fast-growing

Strategic Air Command being equipped with jet bombers, rapidly expanding stockpiles of nuclear weapons, beginnings of ballistic missile

development, and revolutionary advances in electronics. All of these could

make it possible for the New Look to fulfill its widely perceived promise

of a "bigger bang for a buck."
ii Foreword

The author has organized and shaped his account of these years with

the budget at the center, around which revolved issues of strategy, technology, interservice competition, and the state of the national economy.

This approach affords an illuminating and near-exhaustive examination

of the total budget process-from the earliest planning and consideration

to the final executive branch determination and through the sometimes

comprehensive congressional reviews before becoming law. Strategy,

Money, and the New Look offers a revealing picture not only of the key

dynamic in national security decisionmaking during the Eisenhower era,

but of the central and dominant role that is generally played by the budget

in forming government policies.

The period saw a transition then in the shaping of the u.s. military

establishment. The Eisenhower administration succeeded in gradually reducing the size and cost of the armed forces, but not as much as it had

hoped to. The technological revolution in weaponry on which the New

Look intended to rely in place of the large manpower requirements for

ground forces, greatly increased the costs of military materiel, further

frustrating efforts by Eisenhower and Secretary of Defense Charles E.

Wilson to hold down the defense budget. The many uncertainties, contingencies, domestic pressures, and international instability and threats

that always had to be taken into account prevented the administration

from pursuing a steady course of action toward its goal. Nevertheless, on

balance it is fair to conclude that Eisenhower and Wilson did their best

to adhere to their basic policies and made clear and measurable progress

in the desired direction.

The book's intensive focus on strategy and the budget meant that

other topics, relating chiefly to intelligence and logistics, received only

brief mention or were omitted. The huge scale and diversity of potential

source materials required a high level of selection and discrimination by

the author. From this effort has come a scholarly, highly readable, and

insightful account of an important period in American military and

national security history.

Richard M. Leighton held the Ph.D. degree from Cornell University

and served as a historian with the Army Service Forces during World War

II. With the u.S. Army Historical Division after the war he was co-author

of Global Logistics and Strategy, a two-volume history that is the definitive work on the subject for World War II. Subsequently, as a historian

and professor at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces for a number

of years he also edited the quarterly journal Perspectives in Defense

Management. In the years he spent in the OSD Historical Office creating

this authoritative work, Dick Leighton was a much loved and greatly
Foreword iii

esteemed colleague. Tragically, Dr. Leighton died as the volume went

to press.

Interested government agencies reviewed Volume III and declassified and cleared its contents for public release. Although the text has

been declassified, some of the official sources cited in the volume may

remain classified. This volume was prepared in the Office of the Secretary

of Defense,but the views expressed are those of the author and do not

necessarily represent those of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

ALFRED GOLDBERG

Historian, OSD

Preface

In January 1953 the Republicans, after 20 years in the wilderness,

were jubilant over their takeover of the White House. They were

confident that Dwight D. Eisenhower, their war-hero president, would

wrap up the war in Korea, bring the troops home, reduce military spending, cut taxes, stabilize the economy, and get on with other peacetime

business. A symbol of this vision of peacetime prosperity was one of

the president's first appointees, the new secretary of defense, Charles

Erwin Wilson, president of America's largest corporation, General Motors,

which had borne a large share of munitions production during World

War II and the Korean War. Eisenhower considered him the logical choice

to run the huge Department of Defense, the acid test of "manager of

bigness." Wilson was a deep admirer and loyal supporter of the preSident,

but no belittler of his own worth, nor backward in stating his own

views, even when they ran counter to the president's.

The distinctive defense policy of the first Eisenhower administration following the Korean War came to be called the "New Look." The

term described the reduction and realignment of the military services to

peacetime proportions and airpower-oriented forces, with a radical shift

of emphasis from ground forces and tactical airpower to strategic airpower. The shift was the more striking by contrast with the Korean

conflict's large land armies and close-support tactical air forces. The

"New Look" also continued the previous administration's response to the

challenge of the dawning age of nuclear weapons. By the end of Eisenhower's first administration, the nation's nuclear arsenal included a wide

range of atomic and thermonuclear bombs and the first generation of

intercontinental (ICBM) and intermediate-range (lRBM) missiles.

Eisenhower's prime architects in developing the "New Look" were

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Admiral Arthur Radford,

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The views of the other chiefs tended
vi Preface

to be colored by their service interests; General Matthew Ridgway was

frankly hostile, as might be expected in light of the Army's reduced

status under the "New Look," while Air Force Chief of Staff General

Nathan Twining, for similar parochial reasons, usually favored it. For his

part Wilson did not lack detractors. His gaffes both exasperated the

president and delighted his opponents, but the crosscurrents of dissent

among the chiefs of staff over the "New Look" infuriated the president

even more at a time when he was trying to induce a broad consensus

on national defense policies. Wilson was relatively unmoved by these differences and continued to support the president, whose confidence in

his defense secretary was correspondingly enhanced.

Books need editors. This one had several and was especially fortunate

in its general editor, Alfred Goldberg, a gifted editor who combines

compassion with a striving for perfection. His organization is responsible

for writing the history of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, bringing together for the purpose a small corps of professional historians.

Working together under his leadership, this group has achieved a rare

atmosphere of collegial association-an academic-style "History Department" unusual in the government. Our many years of personal and

professional association have left me with a deep appreciation of his

character, his mind, and his dedication to his work and to friends

and colleagues.

Ronald Hoffman, professor of history at the College of William and

Mary, was associated with this project from its inception and performed

much of the research involved. In addition he helped shape the conceptual scheme of the volume to an important degree. His many specific

contributions to portions of the volume are duly noted with great

appreciation.

To Ronald Landa lowe an enormous debt of gratitude for his incalculable support in many areas of administration and research and for

an important substantive contribution to the writing of the book. I thank

him as well for persuading me (a reluctant candidate) to become computer literate while pursuing research for the book.

Stuart Rochester I thank for his able assistance as Dr. Goldberg's

deputy in many areas of administration and his astute editorial touches

in preparing the final version of the manuscript. I am greatly indebted

to others who made contributions to the preparation of this book.

Robert J. Watson, author of Volume IV in this series, exchanged helpful

suggestions and ideas with me. Lawrence Kaplan and Edward Drea,

authors of succeeding volumes, provided similar assistance.
Preface vii

Alice Cole, Roger Trask, Dalton West, and especially John Glennon

and Max Rosenberg performed indispensable editorial services that

helped shape the book and provide strong assurance of its accuracy. To

them lowe a special vote of thanks. Ruth Sharma, Josephine Dillard, and

Carolyn Thorne deserve appreciation for the demanding technical

and administrative skills they brought to the preparation of several drafts

of the manuscript.

The Directives and Records Division of OSD, especially Jesse McNeal,

made it possible to secure access to Department of Defense records for

the period, which are held by the National Archives and Records Administration, where highly competent archivists greatly eased the task of finding records. I profited greatly from research visits to the Dwight D.

Eisenhower Presidential Library at Abilene, Kansas, and subsequent

assistance from obliging archivists at the Library.

Many authors thank their wives in prefaces or dedications for

enduring patiently the time spent in writing their books. I acknowledge

not merely my wife's endurance of the long years, but her constant

encouragement and support. lowe her heartfelt thanks for having entered

into the spirit of the work and rendering valuable assistance in research

and writing. She was indispensable to completion of the book.

RICHARD M. LEIGHTON
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Contents

Prologue: Atomic Weapons and the End of the Korean War 1

I. New Bosses in the E Ring

Mr. Wilson Comes to Washington.

What's Good for General Motors.

"Engine Charlie" Wilson: A Portrait

II. Reorganizing Defense

Wilson Takes Charge

The Committee Follows Instructions.

The Unified Commands.

The joint Chiefs and Their Chairman

Streamlining OSD .

The Congressional Hurdle

The Hoover Commission Proposals

Unintended Consequences

III. Management and Budget.

"Gray Eminence"

The Budget Process.

The Elusive Unobligated Balances

Hoover Commission Reforms

IV Shrinking the Truman Budget.

Reconnoitering.

Focus on Defense .

Opening Skirmishes in Congress.

Initial Attacks on Spending.

Dodge's Budget Exercise

5

5

9

12

21

21

25

27

29

32

33

35

36

44

45

49

52

58

65

65

67

71

73

74
x Contents

Key Decisions 78

The Interpretation of NSC 149 80

The Air Force Reacts 82

The Pressure of Unexpended Funds 85

End-April Outlook . 87

yo Defense Goes to Capitol Hill: The FY 1954 Budget. 88

The Debate Begins: The Myth of the

Five Billion Dollar Cut 88

The OSD Team Makes Its Case 91

The Air Force Takes Center Stage. 97

General Vandenberg's Day in Court. 101

Congress Splits the Difference 110

VI. Debating Defense of the Continental Vitals. 114

The Legacy. 114

The Spring Study Groups 118

The Bull Report: Mounting Costs. 121

The Soviets Go Thermonuclear 125

The Debate Over NSC 159 126

The September Decisions 128

Stretching Continental Defense 130

Continental Defense joins the System 135

VII. Economy and Strategy Decoupled:

The October 1953 Budget Crisis 140

BoB Initiatives, july 1953 140

Pressures for a Balanced Budget. 143

The Eight Billion Dollar Gap 144

The New joint Chiefs 146

Solarium: Containment Reaffirmed 148

The New Chiefs Weigh In 151

Scheduling Problems 153

The joint Chiefs Stand Pat 155

Redeployment, Nuclear Weapons,

and the Soviet Threat 157

Showdown. 161

The 21 October Decisions 164
Contents xi

VIII. Cutting Manpower . 168

Preliminary Skirmishing 169

Dodge Applies Pressure. 170

The Army Targeted. 173

Wilson in the Middle 175

Wilson Acts 178

A Smaller and Leaner Army. 180

IX. Containment's New Testament 184

Soviet Threat, Free World Weakness 185

New Emphasis on Retaliation 188

Reduction of the Soviet Threat 194

Nuclear Weapons and Redeployment. 195

X. The New Look Takes Form 205

The Everest Committee . 206

The New Strategy and Posture 209

Ridgway Objects, Stevens Demurs 211

Selling the New Look 214

Massive Retaliation. 216

The Debate Begins. 220

A Party Line Takes Shape 223

Dulles's Second Thoughts 226

The New Look Demystified 227

XI. Congress and the New Look: FY 1955. 231

First New Look Budget: Presidential Preview. 231

Presentation: Briefing the Committees 235

The Military Perspective. 242

Wrap-up 251

XII. Basic Strategy and the FY 1956 Budget:

Pressures to Expand 256

Reactions to Recession and the Indochina Crisis 256

The Guidelines Debate: A New Look at NSC 162/2? 264

XIII. Continental Defense: Ambivalence Compounded 277

Views of Continental Defense 278

Sprague's Alarms and Reactions. 281

The President's Dilemma 286

The November 1954 Progress Reports and Effects. 287
xii Contents

The Wedemeyer Committee 289

The No-Hurry Approach. 292

Little Progress . 294

New Alarms 297

The Growing Nuclear Threat 298

The Humphrey Factor 302

XIV Basic Strategy and the FY 1956 Budget:

Decision to Retrench. 307

Wrapping up the Guidelines: The Budgetary Impact 308

The Mobilization Base: Wilson's About-Face 311

Cuts and Reclamas: "Adjusting" the Service Budgets 316

BoB Sounds the Alarm: The Add-on Threat 319

The New Look Back on Track 326

XV Updating Basic National Security Policy:

NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 334

DoD's New Hard Line 335

The Emerging Soft Line: Dulles Takes Charge. 338

Wilson Backs Off 340

Ridgway's Interlude 344

The Administration Refines Its Position 346

The Planning Board Compromises 348

Anticlimax in the National Security Council . 351

The Soft Line Affirmed (NSC 5501) 353

Postscript . 356

XVI. Congress and the FY 1956 Budget 359

An Airpower Defense Budget 360

The Squeeze Problem 363

Ridgway and the Formosa Crisis. 364

Stevens Backs the Army Cuts 366

House Budget Hearings: Win Some, Lose Some 368

Senate Hearings 371

House Hearings and Floor Debate 374

The Senate: Symington Wins One for the Marines. 376

XVII. The 1955 Bomber Gap Flap 379

The Moscow Flybys. 379

Publicity Firestorm. 381

B-52 Acceleration 388

The Sci-Tech Threat. 389
Contents xiii

Senator Jackson's Twelve Questions 393

Taking Stock and Looking Ahead 395

A New Doomsday Prediction 396

XVIII. Minutemen and Veterans 399

"20th Century Minutemen" and Its Critics 400

The Military Take Charge: The Wensinger Plan

and NSC 5420 404

Back to the Drawing Board. 407

The House: Trainees and Race 412

Senate: Further Compromise. 417

Conference: The National Reserve Plan 420

XIX. Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 423

Alarm Bells 423

The Killian Timetable . 425

Continental Defense on Trial 427

Dissecting the Timetable 429

The Ballistic Missile Threat. 431

ICBM Priority: Higher Than Highest? 436

The Great IRBM Competition 437

Wilson's IRBM Decision. 443

The Vulnerable Deterrent 445

Counting the Costs-For Now 448

XX. Updating Basic Strategy: NSC 5602/1 449

Beware the Spirit of Geneva! 449

Revision of NSC 5501 Gets Under Way 454

Estimate of the Situation: Old Wine in a New Bottle 456

The Debate Polarizes 457

The Local Aggression/Subversion Threat. 461

Defense Tries to Reshape NSC 5602 . 466

XXI. Preparing the Last New Look Budget. 471

Hughes's Abortive Budget Exercise 471

Guidelines: "Spend Less!" 474

Manpower Targets . 475

BoB Dissects the Service Budget Estimates 477

The Army Is Different . 478

Wilson Raises the Spending Target 482

The President Decides 483

The Final Product . 486
xiv Contents

XXII. Military Assistance 489

Squeezing the Truman Program. 490

Aid and the Economy Drive 493

The Accounting Mess: Partial Cleanup 496

The FY 1956 Program 499

Congressional Actions 501

The FY 1957 Program 504

New Weapons 508

Through the Congressional Wringer . 511

Foreign Aid Prognosis: Poor. 513

XXIII. Indochina: Roots of Engagement . 517

The American Dilemma. 517

The Letourneau Plan 521

Laos: A New Theater? 522

The First O'Daniel Mission 524

New Team in Paris. 527

O'Daniel Tries Again 530

XXIV. Dien Bien Phu and After. 533

The Agony of Dien Bien Phu 535

Dulles's Grand Design 536

The Debate Continues 539

Geneva and Manila 540

Making Do with Diem 542

The Collins Mission. 544

Exit French Indochina 546

The Training Program 547

Postscript: Saving the Leftovers 549

Xxv. Defense of Western Europe: Confronting Reality 551

Picking Up the Reins 551

Paris in the Springtime: Retreat from Lisbon. 555

NATO and Emerging Strategy 558

Toward a New Atomic Partnership 564

Alternatives to EDG. 566

Paris in the Winter: "Agonizing Reappraisal"

and More 569

Demise of the EDC. 572

Broadening the New Look 576
Contents xv

XXVI. Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 578

West German Entry into NATO 579

Settlement of the Trieste Dispute. 583

The Austrian State Treaty 588

Yugoslavia: A Partial Success 591

NATO's Adoption of MC 48 . 599

Balancing Military and Political Options. 603

XXVII. Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 605

The Air Force's Preemptive Strike 608

Land and Sea . 609

Ridgway's Cold Ashes 610

Taylor's Turn 613

Wilson and Radford for the Defense. 615

The Air Force Takes the Stand 616

Tactical Retreat: The Supplemental 620

The House Goes Along 624

Senate Maneuvers . 625

Wilson Drops the Ball 527

XXVIII. The Great Airpower Debate 631

The Symington Committee Hearings Begin 631

General LeMay Sounds Off . 633

Naval Strategic Airpower? 636

Competitive Publicity 638

Taylor's Colonels 640

Wilson Takes Charge 641

Wilson's Worst Hour 646

TWining's Russian Visit. 648

The Symington Committee Report 650

XXIX. Strategic Perspectives 654

A Newer Look? 654

War Planning . 659

Taylor Challenges Massive Retaliation 661

The Eisenhower-Radford Plan 664

Air Force Perspectives 666

Flexible Response and Other Army Strategies. 668

The Navy: Independent Player 670

XXX. Conclusion. 673
xvi Coptents

List of Abbreviations.

Notes.

Note on Sources and Selected Bibliography

Index.

Charts

1. Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1 April 1953.

2. Office ofthe Secretary of Defense, 30 June 1953

Tables

680

684

755

775

24

31

1. Congress and the FY 1954 Defense Budget 113

2. Service Manpower Proposals for 1954-55 155

3. Approved Personnel Strengths for FY 1955 180

4. Everest Committee Proposal 206

5. National Security Budgets, 1950-55. 232

6. The FY 1955 Defense Budget in Congress 254

7. Personnel and Forces, FY 1957 Program 260

8. Service Budget Submissions for FY 1956,4 October 1954. 317

9. 1954 Personnel Projections 328

10. Major National Security Programs Proposed for FY 1956 362

11. President's Defense Budget for FY 1957. 487

12. President's FY 1957 National Security Budget 607

13. The Approved FY 1957 DoD Budget 629

Photographs follow page 336.
Prologue

Atomic Weapons and the

End of the Korean War

When Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed the presidency on 20 January 1953-more than two and a half years after the Korean War beganarmistice talks to end hostilities in Korea had been under way since

July 1951. Although fighting had continued throughout the period

and the North Korean and Chinese Communist forces more than doubled

in size, the United Nations ground forces, strongly supported by airpower, held their own. 1 The early chaos and disorganization of the

American military effort had given way to a coherent application of

power. 2 The South Korean army of eight divisions in 1950 initially

performed poorly but had significantly improved by 1953. The Truman

administration proceeded cautiously in strengthening the hand of President Syngman Rhee, who continually pushed for a large combat force, out

of fear his unpredictable behavior and obsession to reunite the country

might deepen already critical political and military problems. Nor could

the weak Korean economy realistically support an expanded military.

Despite these concerns, the cost of maintaining U.S. troops in Korea and

the domestic pressure to reduce their number finally persuaded President

Truman to authorize in October 1952 an increase of the Republic of Korea

(ROK) army to 12 divisions. The administration also initiated preliminary

planning to expand the army to 20 divisions by mid-1954, a force theoretically able to assume responsibility for holding the front line. 3

While the situation facing the United Nations Command in Korea by

the time of the 1952 presidential election had improved greatly, its

commander, General Mark Clark, did not feel he possessed sufficient

strength to achieve a military victory. Clark believed that to coerce the

enemy into accepting an armistice would require bombing targets in

1
2 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

China, establishing a naval blockade of China, and perhaps launching a

major ground offensive. He also raised the possibility in late 1952 of

using atomic weapons in Manchuria and North Korea, an action that

had indeed been under consideration since Truman convened the first

war-crisis meeting on 25 June 1950 at the immediate start of the North

Korean attack. 4

When Eisenhower, as promised in his election campaign, visited Korea

in December 1952, he made clear his opposition to a major ground campaign. His four-day visit did not lessen his aversion to expanding a war

that he regarded as an expensive diversion in a peripheral theater. He

modified Truman's position against employing small tactical atomic

bombs by agreeing to reopen the question of their potential use. Enthusiastic about the prospect of turning over more of the fighting to the South

Koreans, the president indicated his willingness in principle to endorse

an expansion of the ROK army to 20 divisions. 5

As armistice talks got under way again in late April 1953, a number

of issues divided the United States and South Korea, particularly the

latter's insistence on a mutual security agreement that would provide meaningful assurances in the event of a future invasion. Later, at the end of

May, Eisenhower expressed his willingness under certain conditions to

conclude such an arrangement. 6 The forcible repatriation of unwilling

prisoners attracted the greatest public attention. Although Eisenhower

continued to adhere publicly to the stated U.S. position that no prisoners

would be forced to return to North Korea or China, he made it clear to

his top staff that he did not want this or any other matter to either prolong or scuttle the negotiations. When the talks appeared to be slowing

in May, he authorized an expanded bombing campaign, a move the North

Koreans and Chinese countered by significantly stepping up ground action.

The heightened military activity formed the context for the administration's intensive review of the atomic option. Prior to the escalation in

fighting, National Security Council discussions regarding the employment

of atomic weapons had proceeded in a discursive fashion. Now the subject

took on real urgency, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff presenting six different scenarios for ending the war, most envisioning the possible use of

atomic weapons. 7 After the NSC reached a seeming consensus on 20 May

to employ atomic weapons both strategically and tactically-that is within

and outside the Korean peninsula-the administration communicated its

resolve to the Chinese and North Koreans through Prime Minister

Jawaharlal Nehru of India (by Secretary of State Dulles in person to

Nehru on 21 May), President Chiang Kai-shek of Nationalist China, and

lower-level officials engaged in the armistice discussions. 8 Both Eisenhower and Dulles believed the message had the desired effect. 9 Although
Prologue 3

extremely heavy fighting continued well into June and the subject of

the prisoner return remained a thorny issue-especially after President

Rhee ordered the release of all non-Communist North Korean prisoners

in mid-June-the adversaries finally signed an armistice on 27 July 1953.

The agreement provided for a divide generally along the 38th parallel,

the same line that had separated the two Koreas at the outbreak of fighting in 1950.

If the outline of events that brought about the armistice in Korea is

familiar, the Eisenhower administration's deliberations on the potential use

of atomic weapons merit further consideration. The subject is particularly

relevant in light of "Operation Solarium," the re-examination of the containment doctrine ordered at this time by the president. Eisenhower's

purpose entailed more than a periodic review of an existing strategy.

Rather he asked the NSC to consider adopting a more aggressive posture

that would incorporate the use of atomic weapons as one of its most

prominent features. The coincidence of the Solarium examination and the

administration's discussions about the use of atomic weaponry in Korea

is thus important in making an assessment of Eisenhower's willingness

to order an atomic attack in 1953. 10

Although the president indicated that he was prepared to employ

atomic weapons both within and outside Korea to bring the war to an

end, the depth of his commitment has been open to question. One close

analysis of Eisenhower's efforts to stop the Korean conflict has argued

that the NSC's 20 May decision, which included hitting targets in China

with atomic bombs, contained too many contingencies to constitute a

definitive decision. It notes particularly the president's statement that

implementing the plan would require a year of preparation. Neither the

position taken by the president on the 20th nor his follow-up action

authorizing the transfer of atomic weapons to the military for deployment

is, in this analysis, persuasive evidence of Eisenhower's determination. 11

There is another reading of the evidence that suggests otherwise.

Four actions taken immediately after 20 May document the president's

aggressive stance and his determination to strike hard, and with atomic

weaponry if necessary, to break the stalemate and prevent the Communist

offensive from subverting the armistice talks. First-as Dulles stated in a

1956 Life article-the administration conveyed to the Chinese its intention to use atomic weapons if the talks did not produce positive results.

Second, the administration told General Clark to present the U.S. stand on

the POW issue as the administration's final offer. Third, Clark also received directions to inform the top Communist commanders, General Kim

II Sung and General Peng Dehuai, that the talks had arrived at the final

stage. And fourth, on 3 June, Charles Bohlen, the U.S. ambassador in
4 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Moscow, conveyed the same message to Soviet Foreign Minister V. M.

Molotov. 12 Another important consideration involved the sharp increase in

the level of fighting. A great Communist offensive commenced on 25 May

and mounted in intensity, reaching a climax in the second week of June.

These actions set the scene for the White House 30 May meeting,

attended by eight people, including the president, Secretary Dulles,

Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, General J. Lawton Collins, chief of

staff of the Army, General Clyde D. Eddleman, Army deputy assistant chief

of staff for military operations, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern

Affairs Walter S. Robertson, Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Nash,

and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs U. Alexis

Johnson. The minutes of the discussion reveal that the president, while

forgoing strategic atomic bombing in Manchuria and China-a campaign

that would not in any event be mounted quickly-was willing to employ

tactical atomic weapons if necessary.

At the outset of the meeting the President inquired of General

Collins whether the present conditions of the Communist attack

in Korea were such as to make it feasible and desirable to employ

atomic weapons against the enemy. He inquired specifically

whether the new atomic artillery tested at Frenchmen's Flat

could be effectively employed if it were available in Korea at

this time. After some discussions of the point the President concluded that if the armistice negotiations break down it will be

imperative immediately to discuss with our allies the necessity

of using every available military resource, including atomic

weapons, to bring a conclusion to hostilities. The President

emphasized that the weapons would be used tactically and that

he saw no reason why our allies should disagree on the employment against enemy troops. 13

If halting the Korean War required the use of atomic weapons

Eisenhower seems, at least in early June, to have been disposed to act.

The subsiding of the Communist offensive later in June ended the threat

to derail the armistice talks and presumably rendered moot the possible

use of atomic weapons.

The extent to which the atomic threat influenced the Communists

to cease their offensive and resume armistice talks is, of course, conjectural. For certain, however, the administration had succeeded in

ending hostilities and setting the stage for a thorough reappraisal of

national security policy intended to give new shape to strategy and the

size and composition of the U.S. military establishment.
CHAPTER I

New Bosses in the E Ring

Washington, D.C., 20 January 1953, 11:30 a.m. A bright, unseasonably

mild day, hotels jammed, beauty parlors dispensing "Mamie bangs" at $2

each, street vendors' stands displaying GOP elephants and other Republican regalia, festive crowds in the streets, especially along Pennsylvania

Avenue awaiting the inaugural parade. In a traditional rite of passage

symboliZing the transfer of power, outgoing President Harry S. Truman and

President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower drive together, mostly in unfriendly

silence, the few blocks from the White House to the Capitol for the

swearing-in ceremony-the last scene of a transition that one Eisenhower

biographer called "the most hostile of the twentieth century." The Marine

Corps band plays "Hail to the Chief" a last time for President Truman,

before he and Mrs. Truman depart for home in Independence, Missouri.

Eisenhower's inaugural address, thoughtful but (wrote one critic) "too

much a product of staff work to be eloquent," is memorable chiefly for the

simple and moving opening prayer, hastily composed that same morning

by the president-elect himself. 1

Mr. Wilson Comes to Washington

As one of the "eight millionaires"2 of the incoming administration's

cabinet, General Motors president and Secretary of Defense-designate

Charles E. Wilson brought credentials of leadership at least as distinguished

as those of any of his colleagues. The new president, whom Wilson had met

during World War II, early on placed him at the top of his short list of prospective appointees to the Defense post, based on his reputation as "one of

the ablest of our executives in big corporations." Years before, Wilson had

5
6 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

already made a name for himself at Westinghouse as a brilliant electrical

engineer, later moving to General Motors where, in 1941, he succeeded

William S. Knudsen as president. During World War II GM, by then the

world's largest private corporation, produced daily more than $10 million in military equipment, $10 billion overall-almost one-fourth of the

production of tanks, armored cars, and airplane engines, almost half of

the machine guns and carbines, two-thirds of the heavy trucks, and threefourths of the Navy's diesel-engine horsepower, not to mention several

thousand aircraft for the Navy. His nomination to be secretary of defense

was announced on 20 November. 3

In Washington Wilson found himself at age 62 among "his kind" of

people, leaders in the private sector, whose presence in the administration

evidenced Eisenhower's admiration for them and sharing of their conservative bent, as well as recognition of the business community's support

during the election campaign. The new cabinet included two distinguished

corporate lawyers, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Attorney

General Herbert Brownell, and Treasury Secretary George M. Humphrey,

former chairman of M. A. Hanna and Company of Cleveland. As budget

director, Eisenhower selected Joseph M. Dodge, former president of the

Detroit Bank. By Eisenhower's deliberate choice, the cabinet contained not

a single experienced government administrator. "Anyone," he told his diary,

"who can, without great personal sacrifice, come to Washington to accept

an important governmental post, is not fit to hold that pOSt."4

Wilson's selection also reflected the president's desire for a skilled

industrial manager to run the Defense Department's huge procurement,

storage, transportation, distribution, and other logistical functions. Equally

important, as would soon become apparent, he did not want his defense

secretary to involve himself in foreign policy or strategy as Wilson's predecessor Robert A. Lovett had done or, indeed, given the president's own

military experience and competence, even in many areas of military policy

that would normally fall within the secretary's purview. Early on, Eisenhower made the point bluntly: "Charlie, you run defense. We both can't do

it, and I won't do it. I was elected to worry about a lot of other things than

the day-to-day operations of a department." "Running" Defense meant, in

large part, implementing national security policy, not making it. In this

sense Eisenhower was his own defense minister-but as his principal

adviser on defense Wilson would of course influence policymaking in

many ways.5 In addition, he became an effective spokesman and lightning

rod for the administration in elucidating and defending its frequently

controversial positions on national security issues.

In manning his new empire Wilson, taking his cue from the president's cabinet appointments, recruited from the business world. Robert T.
New Bosses in the E Ring 7

Stevens, his nominee to head the Army, was a wealthy textile manufacturer; after two years he would be replaced by Wilber M. Brucker, formerly

governor of Michigan. For Navy secretary, he chose Robert B. Anderson, a

Texas banker and oilman and heavy contributor to Eisenhower's election

campaign. His Air Force secretary, Harold E. Talbott, was formerly chairman

of North American Aviation and of the Republican National Finance

Committee, and a Chrysler Corporation executive. In 1955 he was to leave

office under a cloud for using Air Force stationery in promoting a private

company in which he was a partner. Roger M. Kyes, a vice president at

General Motors, was Wilson's first deputy at Defense. After his departure in

May 1954 he was followed by Robert Anderson, in turn replaced in the

Navy secretaryship by Charles S. Thomas, head of a West Coast chain of

men's clothing stores. 6

Wilson regarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) as a sort

of holding company, and the three military departments as subsidiaries.

Within OSD the most important entity was the office of the comptroller,

headed since its creation in 1949 by Wilfred J. McNeil, who had attained

the rank of rear admiral during his wartime service with the Navy. Over

the years McNeil had made himself well-nigh indispensable to four successive defense secretaries not only as technical adviser on fiscal, especially

budgetary matters-the Defense budget was prepared, in its final stages,

in his office-but as an adviser on policy in general. Perhaps equally important, as a Defense witness in budget hearings he had won the confidence

and admiration of successive congressional appropriations committees.

Eisenhower, who had crossed swords with him during the 1949 budget

hearings, had no reason to share this confidence, and at first perceived him

as only an unneeded holdover. But Republican legislative leaders thought

otherwise, as did Wilson, and the president was persuaded to withdraw

his veto of McNeil's retention. It was to prove one of Wilson's most fortunate choices. 7

Also fortunate, in an only slightly less critical sector, was Wilson's

decision to retain Frank C. Nash, assistant to the secretary for international

security affairs, as his principal adviser on Defense overseas operations,

particularly foreign aid. Later in 1953 Nash's title would be changed, along

with some of his responsibilities, to assistant secretary for international

security affairs, one of the six new assistant secretaries (whom Wilson

sometimes called his "vice preSidents") created in the legislation implementing the Rockefeller Committee' recommendations. Donald A. Quarles,

a vice president of Bell Laboratories and of Western Electric, was Wilson's

assistant secretary for research and development, which replaced the

* See Chapter II.
8 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Research and Development Board in the Rockefeller Committee reorganization.s Closely related was the Office ofApplications Engineering, a special

creation of Secretary Wilson, headed by Assistant Secretary Frank D.

Newbury, at 74 the oldest of the "vice presidents," a retired engineer and

vice president from Westinghouse. The Munitions Board was absorbed by

the Office of Supply and Logistics under Charles S. Thomas and later

Thomas P. Pike, formerly an oil well drilling contractor in California. The

assistant secretary of properties and installations was Franklin G. Floete,

a South Dakota building contractor. Two of the new assistant secretaryships-Legislation and Public Affairs, and Health and Medicalwere headed, respectively, by a Nebraska publisher, Fred Seaton, and

Dr. Melvin A. Casberg, a prominent physician and medical administrator,

and later consultant to DoD.9

A unique and ingeniously contrived product of the British and

American tradition of subordinating military to civilian authority, the Joint

Chiefs of Staff were heirs of the unchartered body that had served, under

the president, as the core of the national high command during World War

II. Since then they had acquired statutory respectability and a new and

influential, if less dominant, role in the unified military establishment as

military advisers to the president and secretary of defense and as planners

and coordinators of national military strategy. The Joint Chiefs inherited by

the new administration in 1953 comprised the three military service chiefs

and a non-voting chairman. Like the other chiefs, the chairman was appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for a two-year term

with eligibility for reappointment. However, he was denied command

authority over the other chiefs, each of whom was also empowered to

make independent recommendations to the president or the secretary of

defense. 10 The Joint Chiefs retained a measure of their wartime "high command"role (e.g., war planning and strategic direction of military forces) with

modifications suitable to a peacetime environment. Each of the chiefs, apart

from his membership in the corporate JCS, was subordinate to the civilian

secretary of his department. Like the secretary of defense vis-a-vis the president, his relationship to his civilian secretary was that of a military adviser.

Unlike the crowd of new VIP appointments filling the Pentagon's E

Ring in January 1953, the Joint Chiefs were temporary holdovers, since

their terms of office ran to midyear and later. Except for Chief of Naval

Operations Admiral William M. Fechteler and Marine Corps Commandant

General Lemuel Shepherd,* they were old friends of the president. He was,

* The Marine Corps commandant was not a full-time member of the JCS; he participated

only in matters relating to the Marine Corps. During this period reference was generally to

a JCS of four members.
New Bosses in the E Ring 9

however, under heavy pressure from the Taft wing of the Republican

Party to replace all of the chiefs as too closely identified with Defense

programs now targeted for budget cuts. They aimed particularly at

Chairman Omar N. Bradley, a West Point classmate who had commanded

the Twelfth Army Group under Eisenhower in Europe during World War

II, because of his public support of Truman's Europe-oriented policies and

alleged neglect of air and sea power. By the end of August, all the "old"

chiefs except Shepherd, whose four-year statutory term extended to the

end of 1955, had retired. II

The most important replacement was Admiral Arthur W. Radford, the

commander in chief, Pacific, slated to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs

when Bradley retired on 14 August. In 1949 Radford had been a leader in

the "revolt of the admirals" against unification.* On the other hand, he was

an ardent champion of airpower, with a World War II record of uncompromising toughness against the Japanese. More recently he had favored

the "unleashing" of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists on Formosa against the

Chinese Communists. These credentials endeared him to the Republican

right and made him an ideal spokesman for the more Asia-oriented foreign

and military policy they demanded. Wilson had met him in December on

the trip to Korea, where he accompanied the president-elect, and at the

latter's request "sized him up" for the JCS chairman job. Radford apparently

convinced him that his views on unification had changed radically since

1949 and were now in accord with the administration's. Wilson and Eisenhower were impressed, as well, by Radford's view (which was to become

a core tenet of the "New Look") that U.S. forces were dangerously overextended, especially in the Far East, and should in large part be redeployed

back to the Western Hemisphere to constitute a strategic reserve. Clearly,

Radford made a deep and, as it turned out, lasting impression on Wilson,

who came to rely on his judgment in military matters second only to

the president's. 12.

What's Good for General Motors

When the new cabinet was sworn in on the afternoon of 21 January,

Wilson was conspicuously absent. The Senate Armed Services Committee,

in hearings on the 15th and 16th, had questioned his credentials for holding a cabinet position. 13 Specifically, the committee cited his and his

wife's large holdings of General Motors stock and prospective cash and

• See Steven L Rearden, The Formative Years, 1947-1950, vol I in History of the Office of

the Secretary of Defense, 410-22.
10 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

stock bonuses over the next four years, valued at more than $3 million, as

a potential obstacle to the effective and proper execution of his responsibilities as secretary of defense. These holdings seemed to some of the

senators, Republicans as well as Democrats, potentially in conflict with a

nearly 90-year-old statute that prohibited government officials from transacting business with a corporation in which they had financial interests. 14

In practice, many businessmen having such interests had entered government service without divesting themselves of their holdings, usually

resigning from their firms and assigning to non-interest third parties any

dealings with them. Wilson's predecessor at GM, William Knudsen, had

adopted this course during his World War II government service. On the

other hand, Stuart Symington, Truman's Air Force secretary, and Louis

Johnson, his secretary of defense, had both sold their corporate stocks

when entering government service. 15

Wilson, who had expected his nomination to sail through the Senate

without trouble, was taken aback. He readily agreed to resign from GM and

assured the senators that he would not personally handle any negotiations

with that firm, but he refused to sell his stock because of the heavy capital

gains tax involved. Republicans on the committee reluctantly accepted this

decision, but the leading Democrats (one of whom was Symington, whose

own divestiture had cost him $67,000 in taxes) opposed his nomination.

It was during this argument that Wilson made the remark that, as widely

misreported, passed into history as the hallmark of his confirmation hearings and a much celebrated gaffe. Asked whether he believed he could

make a decision in the interest of the United States even if it were

"extremely" adverse to GM's interest, he replied with an emphatic affirmative, adding, "for years I thought what was good for our country was

good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist.

Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country."16

Wilson's biographer, Bruce Geelhoed, cited several statements made

by him at congressional hearings during World War II that limited the

connection to the first part of the quote above, i.e., without the "and vice

versa," suggesting that this was and remained Wilson's true intent. In both

the earlier and the current situations, however, Wilson did not explicitly

place his country's interests above General Motors' interests, but simply

refused to admit the possibility of a conflict, as in his testimony before a

House committee in May 1943: "Our business is so tied up with the lives

of the people, ... and having the standard of living that we have established in this country, that we cannot conceive how our company can be

prosperous when the country isn't prosperous."17
New Bosses in the E Ring 11

In January 1953, unfortunately, his view regarding a possible conflict

of interest was precisely what the committee wanted to know, and his

ambiguous response to the question understandably ruffled their feelings. For the public and many reporters, of course, the distinction was too

fine to be worth explaining. What came through was the simple political

verdict that, as the Washington Evening Star put it, "even if he gave up

his financial connections, he could scarcely quit thinking as his fellow

industrialists think," i.e., GM would always come first. The "breast-beaters,"

Eisenhower recorded, "had a field day."18

Leverett Saltonstall and other senators urged Wilson to sell his stock to

avoid further embarrassment to the administration, and on the night of the

inauguration the president himself told him he could not take the Defense

post unless he did so. Wilson asked for a few hours' delay, but the next

afternoon yielded and informed the president he would give up both his

stock and the promised bonus. When the hearings resumed on 23 January,

Wilson announced his decision. 19

A more critical phase of the hearings was yet to come. The Democratic members of the committee, especially Sen. Richard Russell, the

ranking Democrat, were now concerned with the method of divestiture of

the prospective bonus, cash and stocks. These were to be paid in installments over the next four years, with the stipulation that Wilson not do

anything "inimical to the interests of General Motors" -such as, he

explained, taking employment with a rival firm. But suppose, he was

asked, he awarded a defense contract to such a firm? No, Wilson replied,

his contract provided that no action by him while serving as secretary

of defense would be construed as "prejudicial" to the interests of General

Motors. Then should he not sell his stock bonus immediately, in order

to preclude the possibility that he might in the interim seek to drive up

its value by his actions as secretary? Wilson explained that he could not

legally transfer any part of the bonus until he actually received it. Russell

demanded that he pledge to sell his bonus stocks before taking office.

This, too, was impossible, Wilson pointed out, because he could not

legally alter his agreement with General Motors without the consent of

the stockholders; the best he could do was to promise to give to charity

the profit if the stock increased in value.

And so it went, through a long morning session. "I really feel,"

Wilson wearily told Russell at one point, "you are giving me quite a

pushing around," and he remarked to another senator that the committee

would do him a favor if it rejected his nomination. Finally, during a short

recess, Wilson called a General Motors legal counsel, who was persuaded
12 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

to accept the course that Russell had demanded: convert the stock portion

of the bonus into cash at current market value. Satisfied, the committee

voted unanimously to approve Wilson's candidacy. On the Senate floor

some Democrats opposed the nomination, but it was confirmed by a

large margin. 20

Wilson emerged from this experience seemingly unscarred, although

he believed his grilling by the Armed Services Committee was politically

driven and that the sacrifice of his holdings served no useful purpose.

"The problem," he wrote a friend soon after, "was really a political and

public relations one, rather than a factual or legal one." The remarkably

parallel case of Treasury Secretary Humphrey, who had earlier represented

his company, M. A. Hanna, in urging Congress to support construction of

the St. Lawrence Seaway, but nevertheless was allowed after perfunctory

discussion to retain his stock, strongly suggests a double standard by the

two committees involved, Armed Services and Finance.

Eisenhower, who in 1952 had placed his own holdings in an irrevocable trust for the duration of his incumbency, worried that Wilson's

treatment would make it more difficult to induce able people to enter

governl;llent service. He felt (as Wilson did) that nominees for high office

should be men of such demonstrated integrity as to be above suspicion

of improper behavior and that the president alone should be held

responsible for taking appropriate action in cases where this assumption

proved unwarranted. "The likely eventual result" of the existing confirmation system, he confided to his diary, "is that sooner or later [presidents]

will be unable to get anybody to take jobs in Washington except business

failures, political hacks, and New Deal lawyers. All of these would jump

at the chance to get a job that a successful business man has to sacrifice

very materially in order to take. But it is the carrying of the practice to

the extreme that will eventually damage us badly."21

"Engine Charlie" Wilson: A Portraif!2

"I know how interested you must be," wrote Wilson, a few days after

his stormy Senate confirmation, to his old General Motors mentor,

Alfred P. Sloan, "in what is going on with relation to my appointment as

Secretary of Defense. 1 appreciate your great interest and 1 thought 1

would like to write you the first letter 1 am writing from my new office

in the Pentagon." It was an affectionate letter, with a hint of nostalgia

beneath the boyish first-day-on-the-job enthusiasm. Not surprisingly, in

the light of his recent Senate ordeal, he enclosed a copy of his first directive, which concerned the conduct of procurement officials. 23
New Bosses in the E Ring 13

Charlie Wilson was not a careful dresser. As befitted his station and

corporate image, his suits were of good quality (preferably dark blue) and

conservative design. But the image was often tarnished by the white ash

sprinkled over the front of the jacket from the cigarette that habitually

dangled over his lower lip. Sometimes a button was missing. A portly man

in his early sixties, five feet ten, 185 pounds, Wilson was loud, gregarious,

opinionated, stubborn, sometimes insensitive. Some Washingtonians could

not imagine how such a man had managed to become the head of the

biggest corporation in the world. 24

Many historians and observers of the Eisenhower era, while differing widely on specifics, share this unfavorable impression. Conceding the

miracle of his success at General Motors, his detractors generally hold that

he did not measure up to the job of secretary of defense. "The president's

greatest cabinet disappointment," concluded Elmo Richardson, one of

Eisenhower's early biographers. "A bundle of banalities and suspicions,

Wilson habitually wavered between moments of self-doubt and bouts of

truculence."25 More recently, Douglas Kinnard contended that Wilson had

little influence in the development of strategic policy, that his effectiveness

diminished during his tenure as secretary, and that the president ultimately held him in low regard, while the other two powerful cabinet

officials, Dulles and Humphrey, grew in stature,z6 James Schlesinger, a later

defense secretary, similarly observed, "the early years of the Eisenhower

administration until Secretary Gates were not the high point for the Secretary of Defense."27 And Adam Yarmolinsky, a special assistant to Secretary

Robert S. McNamara, later noted that, unlike his boss, in his opinion the

first secretary "to exercise the full authority of the office," Louis Johnson

and Wilson "reigned with a good deal of bluster, but they did not rule."28

Stephen Ambrose, one of Eisenhower's most approving biographers,

also was no admirer of Wilson, whom he described as, "the most outspoken, self-confident, bluntest, and ill-informed member of the cabinet."

In time, according to Ambrose, Eisenhower lost confidence in him owing

to his perceived failure to control the Pentagon-"certainly he had never

turned out missiles the way he had turned out automobiles"-but, like

many others, he was allowed to remain because he was loyal. 29

Other scholars have been less harsh. Charles C. Alexander, an Eisenhower biographer writing in the mid-seventies, described sympathetically

Wilson's efforts for four and a half years against the pressures of the cold

war to "hold down the most demanding and profligate sector of the

federal budget, military spending."30 Charles S. Maier, in his introduction to

George B. Kistiakowsky's memoirs, complimented Wilson for his managerial style of encouraging "a rip-roaring rivalry among the Armed Forces
14 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

for new roles and weapons" that actually served to stimulate the production of effective missiles. 31 In his full-length study of Wilson's tenure at

Defense, Geelhoed emphatically disagreed with an army of critics to

conclude that, despite his "narrowly provincial" outlook and foot-in-mouth

penchant for uttering embarrassing public statements, Wilson was a major

asset of the Eisenhower administration. As manager of the Defense Department, the job for which he was hired, Wilson "proved to be a durable,

pragmatic, and competent executive."32

A rather different perspective came from Emmet John Hughes, the

president's speechwriter. Hughes gave the secretary high grades as the

quintessential representative of big business. "Wilson personified, occasionally almost to the point of caricature, a classic type of corporation

executive: basically apolitical and certainly unphilosophic, aggressive in

action and direct in speech-the undoubting and uncomplicated pragmatist who inhabits a world of sleek shining certitudes. Like most of his

colleagues he felt utterly free of any selfish political ambitions, and he was

given to saying, 'I'm just in this damn town to get a job done.'" Conceding

that he was also an "uncompromising simplifier of issues," Hughes nevertheless recognized in Wilson "strength, of one kind or another." Whether

in cabinet meetings or testifying before Congress, he always maintained

"almost imperturbable self-assurance"; he loved to talk, hated to listen.

And for those who had to listen, more than a little could be too much.

Wilton B. Persons, one of Eisenhower's conference coordinators, who had

more exposure to Wilson's loquacity than most, after one especially long

cabinet session scribbled a note to Hughes of Wilson's interminable

"dogmatic irrelevancies." "From now on," it read, "I'm buying nothing but

Plymouths."33 Sherman Adams, the president'S chief of staff, lacked

Hughes's easy tolerance, perceiving Wilson as an unalloyed and incorrigible bore, whose long-winded bromides were an unfair ordeal for those

forced to listen to them. Worse, in Adams's view, his shallowness and

vanity were uncompensated by competence in his job. He "leaned" on the

president for direction on small details, and was weak and indecisive in

managing his department. 34 Secretary of State Dulles once characterized

Wilson as a "glorified office manager," and Army Deputy Chief of Staff

for Plans and Research Lt. Gen. James M. Gavin referred to Wilson as "the

most uninformed man, and the most determined to stay so, that has ever

been Secretary."35

On the other hand, the press loved Wilson, and although opinions of

his competence and influence varied, they appreciated him as a reliable

fount of good copy. His quick tongue and alert mind made his news conferences lively theater. He loved to tell stories, had no real pretensions, and
New Bosses in the E Ring 15

could laugh at himself. He collected critical political cartoons of himself

and kept them on display in an anteroom next to his office. Describing the

display years later, his military assistant recalled: "My secretary's husband

was a White House photographer, and they both knew the press and the

cartoonists here in town, so she would get the original and would have

it framed before the day was over. That was the greatest collection that

Mr. Wilson took with him when he left office. He and his family loved it."36

Naturally, several of the cartoons pictured him with his foot in his

mouth, including, of course, the unfortunate "what's good for General

Motors" comment. More serious was the press conference early in 1954,

soon after Dulles's speech unveiling the "massive retaliation" policy, in

which Wilson criticized officials who "rattled" the atomic bomb. In another

instance of bad timing later that year, while Dulles was trying to arrest

the decline of European support for NATO and for the establishment of a

European army, Wilson announced that the advent of advanced weaponry

might permit some reduction of American troop strength in EuropeY

Most indiscreet and least defensible of all, perhaps, was his action on

10 March 1954, the very day when Sen. Joseph P. McCarthy's attack on

Army Secretary Stevens reached its climax, in sending his limousine to

Capitol Hill to bring the Wisconsin senator to the Pentagon for lunch,

all without informing the president or anyone else in the White House.

Wilson's motives in this episode are obscure, but it is hard to imagine him

making such a move unless he believed the president would approve. It

may be that he thought a conciliatory gesture might be helpful at this particular juncture. McCarthy had just called to complain about Wilson's

remark at a press conference earlier that morning, at which he had

declared that McCarthy's charges about the Army "coddling Communists"

were "damn tommyrot." The president, informed only after the luncheon,

was furiOUS, recognizing that Wilson had naively allowed himself to be

lured into a trap. "We need acute politicians in those [high-level] positions,"

he bitterly told James Hagerty, his press secretary. "They are the only ones

who know enough to stay out of traps." Wilson had consistently defended

Secretary Stevens, however, and when McCarthy pressured him to appear

at the Army hearings, he refused, telling the senator in the presence of

reporters, "I didn't come down here to be a television actor." Wilson

authorized the Army, and arranged with his Michigan friend Sen. Charles

Potter, to release information on the efforts of McCarthy and his aide,

Roy Cohn, to ensure preferential treatment for David Schine, another

McCarthy aide, who had been inducted into the Army. He agreed to the

hiring of Joseph Welch, the Boston lawyer whose sharp wit and masterful strategy (which Wilson and his aides also helped to plan) served to
16 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

publicly discredit McCarthy in the eyes of millions of TV viewers who

watched the hearings. 38

Wilson was the president's loyal servant, but his occasional indiscretions, in word or in deed, as biographer William Ewald observed, "at times

could drive Ike wild." "Damn it," the latter once exploded, "how in hell

did a man as shallow as Charlie Wilson ever get to be head of General

Motors?"39 Hughes described Eisenhower's typical reaction when informed

of one of his gaffes: "the audible grinding of teeth, the strained tightening

of the mouth, and the slow, pained rolling of the bright blue eyes heavenward." Wilson, the president once complained, "is prone to lecture rather

than to answer," a trait that congressmen found especially annoying. "While

I think that he considers himself a master of public relations, he seems

to have no comprehension at all of what embarrassment [his indiscreet

remarks] can cause the secretary of state and me in our efforts to keep the

tangled international situation from becoming completely impossible."40

But the president also valued Wilson's "headknocking and organizational talents," his courage, and most important, the expertise in research,

engineering, and production that the president himself lacked and appreciated. These skills complemented, in a sort of tradeoff, Eisenhower's

preemption of the area of military policy, normally the province of a secretary of defense, in which the president himself was without peer and

made the important decisions. OSD Comptroller Wilfred McNeil defined

Wilson's greatest strength as production and procurement, exemplified

most spectacularly in the immense output of military equipment by

General Motors in World War II. Early in 1955, Alfred Sloan asked Wilson

for his views on the "how and why" of GM's success, for a history he was

writing. Wilson complied, and also sent a copy of his reply to the president, suggesting that he might be interested in its applications to current

defense policies and operations. More broadly, Wilson also sometimes

advised the president on general economic problems, usually drawing on

GM's experience in the automobile industryY

Eisenhower's dominance in the field of military policy is exemplified

by his decision on 21 December 1955 to authorize equal priority for the

parallel and concurrent development of intermediate-range ballistic missiles

(lRBMs) and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), possibly his single

most critical defense decision. It is significant, however, that the president

reached it only after Wilson had reassured him, against his deep misgivings, that in this instance simultaneous development of the missiles by

three services was feasible. Eisenhower was still skeptical about ballistic

missiles, at least at their then stage of development, and he was not confident that more money could be wisely spent. He feared that the country

did not contain the engineering talent necessary to sustain a parallel and
New Bosses in the E Ring 17

current development of such scope and complexity. And, not least, he

doubted that the military services could put aside their historic rivalry

and cooperate on the venture. The decision was one of very few, in the

area of strategic weapons, in which Wilson actually "sold" the president

on a major innovation. 42 Subsequent events proved both sound and historic

the decision to proceed with the missiles; arguably, the consequences of

holding back at that particular juncture could have been serious.

Without pretensions to expertise in the military and political fields,

Wilson generally shared the New Look view of the world: the overriding

reality of the two major Communist powers united in a grand design to

communize the globe, masterminded and directed from the Kremlin. He

perceived his own primary role as spearheading the effort to reduce

military spending below the high levels of the Korean War and maximizing

the effect of every necessary American dollar spent in the war against communism, lest its relentless demands push the country into bankruptcy. In

the spring and summer of 1954 the French debacle in Indochina raised the

specter ofa Communist tide sweeping over all Southeast Asia, plunging the

free world into disarray, undermining American leadership, and fostering

neutralism. For many, including Wilson, it called for a "soul-searching

review" of the basic tenets of the New Look, as he put it in a speech to the

U.S. Chamber of Commerce on 26 April 1954. At a meeting of the National

Security Council on 24 June, discouraged by the diminishing influence of

the United States over its allies, he stated that "the time for the 'agonizing

reappraisal' of U.S. basic security policy was at hand" since the whole effort

to build up military strength to combat communism seemed to have produced diminishing dividends. 43

The proposal was not pursued, but two weeks later he, or someone

at his instance, drafted a long letter to the president explaining what he

had in mind. The United States had become too dependent on military

solutions; what was needed was a "fresh new look" at policies toward the

underdeveloped world, "free of any suspicions of European colonialism"

and stressing actions-e.g., education and exchange programs-rather

than words. The letter also outlined a broad new economic development

approach, relying heavily on free enterprise and protection of developing countries against foreign exploitation. This, Wilson hoped, might

"reverse the slow paralysis of the Free World," revivify the Western coalition, and "assert our true leadership within it." Wilson probably did not

compose the letter-it was not his style-and apparently nothing came of

it. But fragments of its ideas surfaced from time to time in his remarks at

NSC meetings, and on several occasions he reverted to the theme of the

diminishing utility of military power. 44
18 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The president did not, however, regard this line of thought as one of

Wilson's long suits, even if he suspected its existence. In essence, he trusted

Wilson to run the Defense Department, in large part because he was confident that Wilson knew how to run a large organization. From the

beginning, as Wilson told Admiral Radford, he intended to run the

department much as he had run GM. He followed principles that he had

learned at the feet of the legendary Sloan, who believed that policymaking

should be centralized and its execution decentralized; the size and diversification of GM, Wilson told the president, posed essentially the same

organizational problems as the Defense Department. Wilson liked people.

He got along well with most of his associates, subordinates and superiors

alike, and even with many who did not have a high opinion of his abilities.

His instinct was to seek consensus. He tolerated disagreement well and

preferred to deal with people individually rather than in formal meetings.

His relations with the Joint Chiefs (except Army Chief of Staff General

Matthew Ridgway) were cordial and he tried hard, as he told his friend,

entertainer Arthur Godfrey, to promulgate a "team" attitude of mutual understanding and common purpose throughout the department. 45

Wilson's close associates almost uniformly regarded him as gentlemanly and fair. His military assistant, Marine Corps Col. Carey Randall,

vividly remembered his first meeting with Wilson. Having previously served

under Wilson's predecessor, Robert Lovett, Randall feared a conflict of

loyalties. "I told him that I admired President Truman and believed in

General Marshall and Mr. Lovett, and that if there was going to be any

criticism of their administration, I couldn't conscientiously change my

position .... He told me that he had always admired President Truman and

was proud of the Medal of Merit that he had from World War II, and that he

would never criticize one of those gentlemen at any time. So I got hooked

... and eventually became his primary assistant." Randall never regretted

his decision. Wilson, he said, "was the kindest, nicest individual. Everybody

that knew him loved him. He was the idol of General Motors. They wanted

to send their own pilots and planes back here to fly him; they weren't sure

that the Air Force and Navy were good enough. He worked interminably.

I usually came to work at 8:00 or shortly before. He would come in about

9:00, and if we got home at all, it was fine.,,46

At General Motors, Wilson had conducted retreats for the top executives at Lake Placid, New York, to foster a spirit of cooperation. The first

summer he arranged something similar at the Pentagon. The 100 or so top

civilian and military administrators were invited to gather at the Marine

Corps base at Quantico, Virginia, where they held business sessions in

the morning and devoted afternoons to golf, skeet shooting, and other

non-work activities. The first meeting was a big hit, and the Quantico
New Bosses in the E Ring 19

"Secretaries' Conference" became an annual event. Incidentally, Wilson

also saw to it that a special party was scheduled for the enlisted personnel

who had to work at the conferenceY

As a skilled manager, the secretary could combine spontaneity with

technique. Journalists who applauded his policies and programs were

encouraged to credit the entire organization and not Wilson personally. In

his directives to high-level colleagues he preferred to solicit suggestions

as to how a mandated objective could be achieved, rather than order them

to take specific actions. A shrewd bridge player, Wilson was also a cagey

manager, often taking some time and a circuitous route to get to the

point. Sometimes he seemed to cultivate the "ordinary guy" image. He and

his wife, for example, often refused the government transportation that

was always at their disposal and lined up with everyone else at the airline

counter at National Airport to buy tickets for their visits to Michigan. 48

But along with the folksy, bumbling, gregarious, jovial persona, Wilson

could also be serious and tough, very tough. This image emerged when

he was engaged in "his kind" of business-production and procurement.

In investigating manufacturing delays, for example, he could be unrelenting, scheduling conferences, appointing committees, seeking additional

expertise, and employing other tools for getting to the bottom of a problem.

Usually patient, he was also demanding and often worked with his staff

until late at night. When he visited a plant, little escaped his eye. Returning in October 1955 from a naval ordnance plant in Macon, Georgia, he

scolded the secretary of the Navy for shortcomings in the plant's production methods, unleashing an unbroken stream of technical criticisms:

this was Wilson in his element. When directives involving the production

of engines or other types of manufactured equipment became bogged

down in the military departments, Wilson wanted to know the technical or

administrative reason for the holdup. At home with engineering subjects,

he sometimes insisted on personally reviewing manufacturing schedules

for the important components of the country's defense structure. Wilson

knew his business. 49

He also understood bureaucracy and how to command assent. Several

months after taking office, he wrote the three military secretaries regarding the long history of challenges to the authority of the secretary of

defense by their departments. The central issue was whether the phrase in

the National Security Act that required that the three military departments

be "separately administered" was a limitation on the authority of the secretary of defense, especially with respect to functions assigned directly to the

military departments by statute. The Rockefeller Committee had concluded

"that such challenges have no basis in either the language of the laws in

question, or in the legislative history." Wilson asked if each of the service
20 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

secretaries accepted this interpretation and would abide by it. Thus confronted, all responded affirmatively and even, in the words of one of

them, "enthusiastically."50

Of Charles E. Wilson it can be fairly said that, on balance, he more

than held his own as secretary of defense. During his tenure defense costs

were reasonably contained, management reforms were enacted, and the

department was "run," as the president had directed, with considerable

efficiency. Moreover, he presided over a period of modernization that subsequently gave the United States a substantial lead over the Soviet Union

in nuclear weapons technology. Wilson knew that he was a good manager

and a trained engineer, and he drew on those strengths in administering

his department. Recognizing hislimitations as a defense strategist or military expert, he readily accepted as reality, without yielding the prerogative

of voicing his dissenting views, that the broad design of administration

defense policy would be shaped by the president. Wilson had enormous

respect for Eisenhower, both as a person and as an experienced military

thinker and commander. At the same time he knew his own worth, and

rarely betrayed any self-doubt. If he sometimes avoided making decisions

and appealed to the president for guidance on relatively minor problems,

it was because he was unfamiliar with many of the activities for which he

was responsible. But in those major sectors of defense that he understood-engineering, procurement, production, budgeting-he was

invariably unflappable, often tenacious, and willing to take on all critics

including the president. When on 2 October 1957 he entered his final

press conference, the assembled reporters greeted him with a standing

ovation. For a job well done, he had earned their respect. 51
CHAPTER II

Reorganizing Defense

"No more painful than backing into a buzz saw," was Secretary of

Defense Robert Lovett's wry characterization, shortly before leaving office,

of efforts to reorganize the Army's seven technical services.! He and many

others in the Truman administration believed, nevertheless, that these

services and the rest of the worn baggage inherited by the new unified

defense establishment five years earlier were ready for change. So did

presidential candidate Eisenhower, who charged in a major campaign

speech in September 1952 that unification of the armed forces was still

not working-"too much form and too little substance"-and that current

defense operations wasted "time, money, and talent with equal generosity."

The next administration, he said, should create "at the earliest possible

date next year ... a commission of the most capable civilians in our land

to study the operations of our Department of Defense." Soon after his

inauguration, the new president followed up this pledge by directing his

new defense secretary to submit by 1 Maya plan for improving the operations of his department, without doubt one of the most important

assignments for anyone in the administration during the next four years. 2

Wilson Takes Charge

Wilson lost no time in naming, on 19 February, a blue-ribbon committee to study the Defense Department and recommend improvements

in its organization. Headed by Nelson A. Rockefeller, chairman of the

President's Advisory Committee on Government Organization, the panel

included the president's brother, Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, Dr. Arthur S.

21
22 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Flemming, outgoing defense secretary Lovett, Dr. Vannevar Bush, David

Sarnoff, and JCS chairman General Omar N. Bradley. The committee coun"

sel was H. Struve Hensel. The committee was to be assisted by a five"man

staff headed by Don K. Price, and, appointed later, three distinguished

retired military officers as consultants: George C. Marshall, Chester W

Nimitz, and Carl A. Spaatz. 3 Welcoming the committee on 2 March, Wilson

told them that their mission was to devise an organization that would

"get the cooperation of the whole without destroying the initiative of

the pieces.,,4

Although reorganizing Defense was a campaign pledge to wrap up

what the new administration regarded as unfinished business inherited

from its predecessor, it was not in the main a partisan issue. Substantially

the same mix of views on the problem could be found in both adminis"

trations. The service secretaries in both administrations, especially the

Navy secretaries, were jealous of their prerogatives and resisted domination by the defense secretary. Conversely, Wilson's predecessor, Lovett,

had held that his office should be strengthened. 5 Truman's Joint Chiefs,

who carried over into the new administration to serve out their terms,

brought their views with them. The objects of contention were neither

absolute authority, nor total autonomy, but degrees of each---'and certainly negotiable.

At the same time the membership of the new committee-which

Wilson presumably had cleared with the president-suggested that the

chief purpose of the reorganization would be to increase the authority of

the secretary of defense. That aim had two prominent and aggressive

advocates on the committee, Lovett and Bush; another member, General

Bradley, could be counted on to support it up to a point, as could the

president's brother, Milton Eisenhower. The remaining members were

either neutral or moderate proponents of a strong defense secretary. The

key player in this lineup was Lovett. Highly respected by Republicans

and Democrats alike, he was probably the most knowledgeable expert on

defense organization. Even Marshall could not match Lovett's experience.

Lovett had recently analyzed his experience at length in his letter to

President Truman in November 1952 published in the New York Times on

8 January. Most emphatically he advised that the status and power of

the defense secretary, still ambiguous in his opinion, should be clarified

to ensure his authority over the military departments and the Joint Chiefs

and his primacy as the president's adviser on defense matters. Only in time

of war would the Joint Chiefs command and operate, and then under

the direction of the secretary, who in turn would report to the president

as commander in chief.6
Reorganizing Defense 23

Lovett's letter was a primary source for the committee's study as well

as for Wilson's own homework. On 26 February, responding to a request

from Chairman Rockefeller for guidance, Wilson wrote a seven-page

analysis of the organization problem, astonishingly detailed for someone

only a month into his new job. As might be expected, he began by putting

defense organization in the context of organization theory, the standard

dichotomies of staff-and-line, centralization-and-decentralization, headquarters-and-field, that he had learned at the feet of Alfred P. Sloan at

General Motors. "The most effective way to organize the Defense Department," he wrote, "is in the form of a decentralized organization for

administration (Army, Navy, Air) and a centralized organization (the

Defense Department itself) for coordinated policy and control." He would

not, in short, scrap the old edifice and replace it with, say, a monolithic

new structure framed along functional lines as some had proposed. But

within the old framework, he wanted a simpler, cleaner structure. 7

Wilson then laid out the bounds within which the committee would

be expected to work, cautioning that his memo was not his "formal

recommendation or final thinking." Clearly, however, it was intended to

be regarded as a quasi-mandate. The staff assumed that the committee's

mission was to "help the [secretary] organize the set-up the way he is

accustomed to function, more or less along the lines of his memorandum."

It stipulated that the three existing assistant secretaryships (comptroller,

manpower and personnel, and international security affairs) should be

retained, and the statutory boards replaced by new assistant secretaries

with a smaller competent staff and redefined duties, to which the secretary could add at will. 8

Wilson had little to say about the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a bundle of

issues in itself. Since its glory days as the high command at the president's

right hand in World War II and Korea, the JCS had declined, in the view of

one critic, into "a debating society rather than a vigorous strategic planning body, and ... a staff organization overloaded with [such] minor details

as ... how many coffee roasting plants should be operated by the Army."

Wilson proposed creating a deputy chairman as a fifth member, of equal

military rank to the other four and second ranking under the chairman.*

Presumably the deputy would relieve the chairman of some of his growing

workload but Wilson did not specify how. He had no suggestions regarding the overall role of the JCS, but did pick up Lovett's idea of adding a

"combined staff" of recently retired, still vigorous and healthy former

chiefs to advise the secretary on the effectiveness and balance of defense

* In 1986 the Goldwater-Nichols Act established the position of vice chairman of the ]CS.
CHART 1

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

1 APRIL 1953

1

------ - - -- --------------- -I

1 - - - -- - - -- - - 1 SECRETARY OF DEFENSE - ------- I

1 ARMED FORCES 1 1 I

1 POLICY COUNCIL 1 DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE I - -- - _.... - - - -- 1 1

I - --------- - J 1 DEFENSE 1 1

1 MANAGEMENT COUNCIL 1 1

L ----------- J 1

1

I I I I I I I I" - - - -

1 I ASSISTANT SECRETARY ASSISTANT SECRETARY ASSiSTANT SECRETARY GENERAL COUNSEL CHAIRMAN RESEARCH AND MILITARY LIAISON OF DEFENSE OF DEFENSE OF DEFENSE OFTHE DEVELOPMENT JOINT CHIEFS COMMITTEE ---- (Manpower and ---- (Legal and OF STAFF

(Comptroller) (International MUNITIONS BOARD BOARD TOAEC

Personnel) Security Affairs) Legislative Affairs)

I I

I I

RESERVE FORCES ,II DEFENSE SUPPLY I y WEAPONS SYSTEMS

POLICY BOARD MUNITIONS BOARD MANAGEMENT EVALUATION GROUP AGENCY

I I I I I I ASSISTANT TO THE ASSISTANTTO THE

DEFENSE MILITARY TRAFFIC DIRECTOR OF DIRECTOR OF SECRETARY SECRETARY DIRECTOR OF

MANAGEMENT STAFF SERVICE GUIDED MISSILES ADMINISTRATION ---- ---- INSTALLATIONS

(Public Information) (Health and Medical)

MILITARY DEPARTMENTS

I DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY I DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY I DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE
Reorganizing Defense 25

programs, and make "physical audits of what is going on." Finally, Wilson

asked for the committee's views on the question of the chiefs' voting

rights, and on Lovett's so-called "gray areas" of disputed jurisdiction. He

stressed his concern that the various defense entities below the OSD

level (the services, National Guard, Reserve components, etc.) be given full

opportunity to voice their opinions.9

The Committee Follows Instructions

Facing the president's desire for quick action and the members' own

demanding schedules the committee did not linger over its assignment.

After its initial meeting on 2 March it met 10 more times, mostly on

weekends, at the Pentagon. IO On 11 April it submitted its final report to

Wilson, who promptly forwarded it with his full approval to the president."

The report focused on the secretary's relationships with his principal

officials. In his letter of transmittal, however, the chairman stressed the

committee's belief that the secretary should also provide, through the three

military departmental secretaries, for a "thorough analysis and possible

revision of the organization and procedures" of those departments. Reinforcing this recommendation in his own message transmitting the approved

report to Congress, the president stated that the service secretaries had

been directed to initiate studies "with a view toward making those Secretaries truly responsible administrators, ... and attaining economies wherever

possible."12

Beginning on a grim note- "the continuing challenge of prOViding

adequate national defense without wrecking the national economy" -the

report moved on to the salient point that in 1947 Congress had established

a central organiZation to exercise direction, authority, and control over the

nation's defenses, and a decentralized organization for administration

through the three military departments. Experience had indicated that, while

its fundamental principles were still sound, the organization and procedures of the Department of Defense reqUired improvement (1) to establish

clear lines of authority and responsibility within the department, (2) to

enable the secretary to clarify service roles and missions, (3) to make effective use of modern science and industry in planning, and (4) to achieve

maximum economies without injury to military strength and its productive

support. To attain these objectives, the secretary must have (1) clear and

effective authority over the entire organization and control over its chief

personnel; (2) a system to provide "complete, accurate, and understandable" information for decisionmaking; and (3) an independent audit of

programs and performance, through inspection where necessary.
26 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The report's recommendations had five broad organizational aims:

(1) to make clear the authority of the secretary; (2) to clarify command

channels within the department, especially to raise the status of the secretaries of the military departments; (3) to enhance the status of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff as the top military planning and advisory body by clarifying the role of the chairman, improving the subordinate staff structure,

and clearly establishing executive responsibility for unified commands;

(4) to abolish certain statutory boards in the secretary's office and provide

him sufficient assistant secretaries to perform essential staff functions;

(5) to enable the secretary to ensure the promotional prospects of officers

assigned to his office. 13

Lovett's 18 November letter had noted "contradictions and straddles"

in the 1947 and 1949 national security acts regarding the powers of the

secretary and suggested that they should be clarified. On 26 February

the committee received a long memorandum from Roger Kent, Lovett's

general counsel still in office, concerning the "gray areas" in the department. Kent instanced cases in which the service secretaries had directly

challenged the secretary's authority, citing their prerogative under the

1947 act to "separately administer" their respective military departments.

Certain statutes enacted since 1947 had in fact vested authority directly

in the military departments, giving rise to the view that they were to be

administered independently of the secretary of defense, even though in

the same act he was given "authority, direction and control" over his whole

department, including the three military departments. Similarly, individual chiefs of staff and the military heads of certain technical services

and bureaus had claimed that in some areas they too were legally required

to act independently of their civilian superiors. In Kent's view-which

Lovett supported, and other executive agencies and previous organization

plans had adopted-the proper solution was to transfer all functions of

all agencies and employees of the department to the secretary, with

exceptions as necessary. 14

None of the experts who advised or submitted statements to the committee challenged the view that the secretary should have "complete and

effective authority" over the entire department. Ironically, it was one of

the committee's own senior military consultants who voiced the most

extreme opposition to strong secretarial powers. Admiral Nimitz, a blunt

spokesman for the Navy's resistance to unification, urged that the

authority of OSD be sharply reduced and that the secretary's role be

redefined to include that of chairman of the Joint Chiefs, with the principal function of extracting monies from Congress and seeing to their

proper expenditure. The secretary's office, Nimitz asserted, should be
Reorganizing Defense 27

divested of any authority over manpower and personnel, international

security affairs, legal and legislative affairs, the Munitions Board, the

Research and Development Board, and the Weapons Systems Evaluation

Group-and the admiral was confident that the secretary could find still

other functions that his office could do without. 15

Nimitz was a solitary champion of these views on the committee,

however. His colleague, General Spaatz, favored enhancing the authority

of both the secretary and the ]CS chairman. Meanwhile a new legal

opinion drafted by the General Counsel's office determined that corrective measures to "clarify" the secretary's authority would not be needed,

concluding that existing legislation already supported the "supreme"

authority of the secretary "to run the affairs of the Department of Defense

and all its organizations and agencies." It declared that "the power of the

Secretary of Defense extends to all matters arising in the Department of

whatsoever kind or nature; that the statute provides that the power and

authority of the Secretary are superior to the authorities possessed by

any other official, officer or member of the Department; that the Secretary's power in the Department is the superior power irrespective of

when or how any other individual's power was derived." 16

Convinced by the new ruling, the committee recommended that

the superior power of the secretary should be "confirmed by decisive

administrative action, and if necessary by statutory amendment," presumably to protect it against future challenge. On the other hand, the three

military departments should "continue to be separately organized and

administered by their respective Secretaries subject to the direction,

authority, and control of the Secretary of Defense." The secretary, finally,

exercised his authority "subject to the overriding authority of the President as Chief Executive and Commander in Chief," who was, moreover,

free to deal directly with subordinates of the secretary of defense,

including the military chiefs of the services. In time of war the president as

commander in chief could be expected to assume much more active

command over strategic operations, "but this is not in any way inconsistent with the National Security Act provision 'that the Secretary of

Defense shall be the principal assistant to the President in all matters

relating to the Department of Defense."'17

The Unified Commands

Having thus established the primacy of the secretary within his

department, the report next asserted the similar status of the three military
28 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

departmental secretaries within their respective departments: "The

Secretary of each military department carries full responsibility for the

administration of his department. No witness disagreed with the principle

that the military chief of each service should be completely subject to

the direction of civilian authority." Owing to the elusive character of the

distinction between civilian and military affairs, parallel civilian and military channels linking the defense secretary with each service secretary

and each military service chief would be administratively impracticable.

The president and the secretary of defense would normally communicate

with a military service chief or other military officers through the appropriate civilian secretary. In emergencies the communication might go

directly to the recipient, but even then "such a channel of communication

does in no sense take the military chief of a service out from under his

responsibility to the Secretary of his military department, or relieve him

of the obligation to keep his service Secretary fully informed." Effective

implementation of this principle, the report added, might require

adjustments in the internal organization and procedures of each military department. 18

This elucidation of the service secretaries' status derived mainly from

an ongoing controversy over the role of the military service chiefs as

executive agents of unified commands. The Key West Agreement of 1948"

had provided that when a unified command was created, the Joint Chiefs

should designate one of their members as executive agent for the command.

Under this provision, for example, they had later designated Army Chief of

Staff General]. Lawton Collins executive agent to administer the unified

command in Korea. Subsequently Collins had asserted that when wearing

this hat he reported to the secretary of defense through the Joint Chiefs,

rather than through his superior, Army Secretary Frank Pace. The latter

had promptly taken the issue to Secretary Lovett. Assistant Secretary

Coolidge, whom Lovett assigned to deal with the problem, proceeded to

write a legal opinion that when the chiefs established a unified command,

the executive agent (specifically the Army chief of staff) was not independent of supervision by the secretary of the Army. The JCS, he argued,

should be required to "treat the Secretary of a military department whose

Chief of Staff has been appointed their agent as if the department itself

had been appointed." Lovett reportedly had decided to adopt this course,

but Truman left office before the issue could be brought before him. 19

Soon after the new administration took over, the issue was revived

when the chiefs submitted a new unified command plan for Europe, following the traditional practice of designating a particular military service

• See Rearden, Formative Years, 393-97.
Reorganizing Defense 29

chief as executive agent for each overseas command. General Counsel

Kent recommended that Wilson confront the issue squarely. If the unified

command plan were approved in its present form, he pointed out, "it

could be argued that Secretary Wilson had ratified the Key West paper";

that paper should be amended to provide for appointment of a military

department as executive agent. Following the line of reasoning elucidated

by Lovett, Kent, and others, the Rockefeller Committee accordingly declared

that the executive agent provided by the Key West agreement was "undesirable." The committee recommended that the Key West agreement be

revised accordingly, and that all orders transmitted by a unified command

specify that they were issued by direction of the secretary of defense. 2o

During the hearing, General Bradley voiced the concern of the Joint

Chiefs that the military might be unable, under this procedure, to exercise

operational control over their forces, particularly in an emergency. In their

last working session, the committee clarified the language of the report

to ensure, "that, for the strategic direction and operational control of forces

and for the conduct of combat operations, the military chief of that department should be empowered to receive and transmit orders and to act for

that department in its executive agency capacity."21

The Joint Chiefs and Their Chairman

One of the basic aims of the reorganization was to improve the

machinery of strategic planning, centered in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and

its supporting staff and committees. Eisenhower shared the belief of many

critics in a basic weakness of the JCS system-a tendency of the chiefs

and especially their committees and the Joint Staff-to be excessively

influenced by loyalty to their respective services and by traditional service biases. This tendency, the Rockefeller Committee asserted, must be

resisted. JCS plans must "provide for the defense of the Nation as a whole."

The chiefs "must rise above the particular views of their respective services and provide the Secretary of Defense with advice which is based

on the broadest conception of the national interest."22

A major anomaly in the existing defense structure was the dual role of

the Joint Chiefs as planners and advisers and as administrators and commanders, the former prescribed by the National Security Act of 1947,

the latter by subsequent delegation. One of the committee's first

recommendations was that the Key West agreement be revised to eliminate command functions delegated to the JCS by the secretary of defensenotably in the establishment and administration of unified commands, as
30 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

mentioned earlier-"in order to enable them to work more effectively as

a unified planning agency." In its planning role the corporate JCS also

benefited from the practical experience of its individual members as

chiefs of their respective services in implementing JCS plans. But the committee looked primarily to the JCS chairman, with enhanced powers, to

organize the subordinate structure of the JCS and the Joint Staff with a

view (1) to freeing the chiefs to concentrate on their primary function

of strategic planning, and (2) as the president later put it, to divorce

"the thinking and the outlook of the members of the Joint Staff from

those of their parent services and to center their entire effort on national

planning for the over-all common defense of the nation and the West." To

this end the committee recommended that selection of the director of the

Joint Staff be subject to the approval of the secretary, and assignments of

officers to the JCS committees and to the Joint Staff be subject to approval

of the chairman. To give the secretary a basis for full understanding of

the background of each issue in making decisions, it was important also to

bring into the planning process at all levels the independent views of

other parts of the secretary's office and the expertise of scientific and

technical specialists. 23

The report recommended a variety of additional responsibilities for

the JCS chairman, more or less inferable from the provision of the National

Security Act. He should prepare JCS meeting agendas and help the chiefs

"to prosecute their business as promptly as practicable." For example, to

send matters referred to the JCS, if he saw fit, back to the secretary for

proposed reassignment to a military department; to appoint consultants

to the JCS from outside the department; to set up ad hoc committees to

advise the JCS; and to determine which matters should be referred to the

chiefs or delegated to other JCS bodies-in effect, with the help of the director of the Joint Staff, to serve as a general manager of the JCS system. 24

The committee expressed particular concern for strengthening the

role of the Joint Strategic Survey Committee aSSC), senior advisers to the

JCS on overall strategy. Officers assigned to this group needed to have an

exceptional grasp of strategic matters, not only in their traditional international context but especially with respect to the effects of new weapons.

They should also be chosen for their demonstrated emancipation from

traditional service biases and appreciation of the need for integration of

service plans. The committee urged that the JSSC be reinforced with

prestigious civilian scientists, both physical and social, as well as with

outstanding retired officers, and that it be given an important role in the

integration of new weapons into the armed forces. 25
CHART 2

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

30 JUNE 1953

r - - - - - - - - - - - - - SECRETARY OF DEFENSE - - - - - - - - - - - - - -,

1 I

- - - -'- - - , DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE - - - ...J - - - , 1 ARMED FORCES I

I

SPECIAL ASSISTANTS I 1 JOINT SECRETARIES 1

1 POLICY COUNCIL (as designated) 1 - - - - - - _I I' I' - - - - - - _I

./

I I I I I I ASSISTANT SECRETARY

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ASSISTANT SECRETARY ASSISTANT SECRETARY JOINT CHIEFS OF DEFENSE (Manpower and GENERAL COUNSEL OF DEFENSE OF DEFENSE

---- OF STAFF ---- (International (Comptroller) Personnel) C (Legislative Affairs)

IRE!ERVE FORCES POLICY BOARD I 0 Security Affairs)

M

M

A

N

D

/

I I I I I I ASSISTANT SECRETARY ASSISTANT SECRETARY ASSISTANT SECRETARY ] ASSISTANT SECRETARY ASSISTANT SECRETARY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE OF DEFENSE OF DEFENSE OF DEFENSE OF DEFENSE OF DEFENSE ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- (Research and (Applications (Supply and (Properties and (Health and (Atomic Energy) Development) Engineering) Logistics) Installations) Medical)

,

MILITARY DEPARTMENTS

I I DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY I DEPARTMENT OFTHE NAVY I DEPARTMENT OFTHE AIR FORCE
32 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Streamlining OSD

Of all the proposed organizational reforms, elimination of the

Munitions Board commanded widest support. Given statutory sanction in

1947,* it consisted, like other Defense boards, of representatives from the

military departments sharing equal power with the civilian chairman.

From its inception it had been a hotbed of interservice rivalry, which

intensified during the Korean War when it was overwhelmed by an

unanticipated large-scale mobilization. Another statutory agency, the

Research and Development Board, on the other hand, had had the good

fortune to receive a new charter from Secretary Lovett in May 1952,

under which its chairman functioned, in effect, as an assistant secretary.

The Rockefeller Committee recommended that both boards be transferred

to the secretary of defense and their functions divided between three

assistant secretaries: supply and logistics, research and development, and

applications engineering. 26

The disposition of these two statutory boards was part of a sweeping

reorganization of defense functions contemplated by the committee. The

statutory board (or agency) form of organization, the committee argued,

was too rigid and unwieldy and should be replaced by assistant secretary

positions to which the secretary could flexibly assign functions as required.

The three existing assistant secretary positions-comptroller, international

security affairs, and manpower and personnel-should be retained with

their present responsibilities, and five more created to absorb the functions

of the two eliminated boards, the Defense Supply Management Agency, the

Office of Director of Installations, and the Office of Legislative Affairs. In

addition the general counsel should be raised to assistant secretary rank. 27

This reshuffle of existing functions was viewed, the president confidently asserted at the end ofApril, as "the key to the attainment of increased

effectiveness at low cost in the Department of Defense." As a "simple token

testimony" he pledged an OSD staff reduction of about 500 people. 28

In its final recommendations, the committee deplored the professional

stigma that, despite official denials, seemed to be fastened on military officers

assigned to OSD. It urged the secretary of defense to insist on full cooperation by the military departments "in assigning highly qualified officers"

to all OSD agencies and in assuring them that such service would offer

important opportunities for career advancement. It was imperative,

moreover, that officers serving there "do not lose standing in their respective services through a lack of appreciation of the importance of this

assignment or of the accomplishments of the individual officer while

• It was the successor to the Army-Navy Munitions Board, created in 1922.
Reorganizing Defense 33

on such duty. At the present time, many officers feel that assignment in

the Office of the Secretary of Defense isolates them from their service

and deprives them of an equal opportunity for promotion with other

officers of the same age and rank." In general the committee held that

civilian OSD officials should have exclusive authority to write formal

efficiency reports for military personnel serving under them, and military

departmental secretaries should direct their selection boards to give the

same weight to OSD service as to military service elsewhere. 29

The Congressional Hurdle

Wilson forwarded the committee's report to the president on 13 April.

On that same day Rockefeller and staff director Don Price conferred with

Wilton B. Persons and Bryce Harlow of the White House staff on the

tactics of submitting the plan to Congress. The group decided to submit

it as an executive reorganization measure, the president's preference. It

would not require statutory passage and allowed the legislators 60 days to

"take it or leave it." On the 23d, in a meeting between the president and

congressional leaders, the omens were judged to be favorable. Informal

contacts with both houses continued. By the beginning of the next week

an agreed draft of the president's message had cleared the Justice Department, as private briefings continued. On 30 April the president officially

transmitted his message, and copies were made available to the press.30

The president's message transmitting Reorganization Plan No. 6,as it

was now labeled, briefly reviewed the circumstances that had led him to

conclude, after six years of experience under the National Security Act,

that the defense establishment was "in need of immediate improvement."

The Communist powers had chosen, he said "to conduct themselves in

such a way that these are years neither of total war nor total peace." Nevertheless, he was convinced that the Defense structure was fundamentally

sound, and would not be adversely affected by the changes now proposed.

He stressed three major objectives: (1) The military establishment must

rest firmly on basic constitutional principles and traditions, chiefly on a

"clear and unchallenged civilian responsibility," essential not only to preserve

democratic institutions but also to protect the integrity of the military

profession. Military leaders "must not be thrust into the political arena

to become the prey of partisan politics." (2) Because adequate defense

demanded more of the nation's resources than anticipated, "maximum effectiveness at minimum cost is essential." (3) Finally, it was imperative to

develop "the best possible military plans," incorporating the "most competent

and considered thinking ... military, scientific, industrial, and economic."31
34 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

After encountering no hurdles in the Senate, the plan ran into hostile

fire in the House, primarily over the new powers accorded the JCS

chairman. This issue set the tone of the debate. Behind the criticism

lurked the suspicion that the plan reflected a power play by the Army

members and their supporters on the committee with the backing of

Commander in Chief Eisenhower-aimed at "Prussianizing" the high

command by centralizing power in a large, Army-dominated general staff.

In the immediate postwar years the Army had led the march toward unification and the concept of an integrated general staff with a single chief

of staff. A prominent retired National Guard general and leading critic of

the Army charged that it "has engaged in an unrelenting struggle for

power."32 Throughout May unfriendly articles appeared from time to time.

On the 30th, Rep. Leslie C. Arends of Illinois, Republican Whip and member of the Armed Services Committee, released to the press a letter he

had written the president along with the latter's response. Speaking to

Arends's question, "Does the proposal in any way represent a step toward

our having an overall armed forces General Staff comparable to the

Prussian General Staff?," the president answered at length: "The plan does

not give the chairman of the Joint Chiefs command powers over the

other three members of that body, it does not give him a vote in their

proceedings, it does not ..." and so on down a long list of other attributes

describing the popular image of the "Prussian" General Staff.33 Meanwhile,

the chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, Clare

Hoffman, a bitter foe of the National Security Act and enlarged powers

for the JCS chairman, had introduced on 27 May a resolution providing

that all aspects of the plan should take effect except those relating to

that issue. Several weeks later he ordered a hearing on the resolution.

Testifying before the House committee, Rockefeller, Kyes, and Dodge

argued that the purpose of the chairman's enlarged powers was, in

Kyes's words, "to afford the responsible official the managerial latitude

normally given to any management head and to remove management

detail from the heavily burdened members of the JCS."34

On 22 June the House Government Operations Committee, belying

earlier signals of a favorable disposition toward the reorganization plan,

approved Hoffman's resolution to delete the clauses that increased the

power of the JCS chairman. Two days later, it rejected the entire plan.

But on 29 June, after intensive administration lobbying, the full House

decisively reversed the committee's vote, 235 to 108. On 30 June the

reorganization plan became effective. 35
Reorganizing Defense 35

The Hoover Commission Proposals

Organization of the Department of Defense subsequently became a

major object of inquiry by the Commission on Organization of the

Executive Branch of the Government (known as the Second Hoover

Commission).* Recommendations in June 1955 by its Committee on

Business Organization in the Defense Department resulted in the merger

of the assistant secretaryships for research and development and for

applications engineering, and establishment of the Defense Science Board.

Another recommendation, to organize the administration of research and

development uniformly in the service departments under an assistant

secretary in each, although approved by the administration, failed in

Congress in 1956, along with a proposal to raise the assistant secretary of

defense for international security affairs to under secretary level. 36

A more difficult problem addressed by the commission concerned

the changed position of the Joint Chiefs in OSD resulting from their exclusion from the chain of command. The 1953 reorganization had intended

to make the JCS a staff agency with a purely planning and advisory role,

while increasing OSD participation in formulating defense policy. But as

the system evolved, the secretary's office, with its augmented corps of

assistant secretaries, became a business-oriented bureaucracy devoted

largely to applying fiscal and managerial controls to the services' procurement, supply, and other logistic operations. Apparently, this trend accorded

with Wilson's wishes and suited his view of OSD's proper role in the DoD

firmament. But it also deprived the JCS of the leaven of civilian experience and outlook that the Rockefeller Committee had hoped to infuse

into the formulation of defense policies and strategic plans. Also, the

service chiefs tended to be even more focused than before on the daily

business and special interests of their respective services, contrary to the

intent of the 1953 reorganization that they delegate their administrative

duties and cultivate broader perspectives. Late in 1955 one of them estimated that he spent only 18 apparently unrewarding hours a week on

Joint Staff work, which he regarded as more than ample. As a corporate

entity the JCS came to be centered in the office of the chairman and the

Joint Staff and the committee empire that the former controlled. 37

One of the staff working papers of the Hoover Commission roundly

criticized these developments, asserting that the chiefs were still immersed

in details, devoted too little time to broad planning, and were too partisan.

The recommended remedy was to give the secretary "a high level group

to advise directly in the field of strategy, missions [and] force levels." This

• The predecessor Hoover Commission had carried out a similar study in 1948.
36 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

proposal harked back to a similar one by Lovett and McNeil, rejected by

the Rockefeller Committee with the argument that such a staff would

overlap or conflict with the role of the JCS. As an alternative the committee

had recommended strengthening the Joint Strategic Survey Committee by

adding to it distinguished scientists and outstanding retired officers. Little

was done to adopt these proposals, and the JSSC continued to function in

the JCS system much as before. The Rockefeller Committee had also

regarded the expansion of the secretary's office by the addition of several

new assistant secretaries as a kind of alternative to the proposed new committee, and in the end opted for that solution because of the perceived

need for individuals of elevated rank and salary to provide the desired

talent and prestige. 38

Unintended Consequences

Missing from the blessings that Eisenhower told Congress and the

nation he expected to flow from the Defense reorganization was a solution to the apparent inability of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to function as a

corporate body. Lovett and other critics tended to see this as the principal

challenge facing the secretary and one of the most compelling reasons for

strengthening his authority and that of the JCS chairman. 39 Eisenhower

had grown up with parochial service attitudes in the Army, and as a young

officer presumably shared them. But from early in World War II he had held

high leadership positions in national and multinational organizations

in which single-service points of view were often irrelevant or counterproductive. Long before he reached the White House he had shed these

attitudes, and apparently saw no reason why mature and intelligent

individuals in high positions should not be expected to do likewise. In

mid-1953, with the Korean quagmire behind him, he moved quickly to

replace the Truman chiefs of staff, whose terms expired shortly, with a

new set selected before his inauguration, a distinguished group of officers

whom he repeatedly praised thereafter as possibly the most able ever

appointed to these posts. 40

For one of them, Admiral Arthur Radford, recruited from commander

in chief, Pacific, to replace Bradley as JCS chairman, he had especially high

hopes. An odd choice, Radford had opposed unification and been a leader

of the "Revolt of the Admirals" in 1949. But the admiral persuaded both

Eisenhower and Wilson that he had changed his spots and was ready to

support Eisenhower's national strategy, involving sharp reductions in

conventional forces and defense spending and more emphasis on atomic
Reorganizing Defense 37

weapons and airpower. Apparently he asked for no commitments on

treatment of the Navy. But in May, before Radford assumed his new post,

Eisenhower demanded from him a sort of "prenuptial" agreement in the

form of a public statement that his confirmation as JCS chairman would

require a "divorce from exclusive identification with the Navy," that

henceforth he would be loyal to the Defense Department as a whole and

would serve as "champion of all the services, governed by the single

criterion of what is best for the United States." How much of Radford's

conversion was genuine and how much opportunism is not clear, but for

practical purposes it was complete. From then on he was the "president's

man," his chief military adviser and spokesman, his most reliable supporter

against the often fractious service chiefs, and a persuasive vindication of

his "belief that a chief of staff or commander such as Radford could be

weaned from partisan loyalty to his own serviceY

But except for Radford the new Joint Chiefs did not shed their

service loyalties and biases. Indeed, the president's constant criticism of

these attitudes may have served to intensify them. For his part, Eisenhower

apparently was surprised and disappointed, and soon incensed by the

persistence of attitudes which he could only regard as self-serving lack of

vision. His reaction revealed not only the depth of his own "emancipation,"

but his unwillingness or inability to recognize any validity in these

opposing viewpoints. Why, indeed, should he have expected otherwise?

Each of the new chiefs now found himself in a position to which he

must have aspired for many years. To be chief of staff of his own service

was the traditional ultimate goal of every ambitious officer. To be told at

this juncture-the beginning of a new administration and the end of a

debilitating and frustrating war-that he must not strive to expand his

service, or take on new missions, or compete with his sister services,

flew in the face of the whole military culture.

Eisenhower's hope that the services could work together without

friction like a well-oiled machine under a single coordinated plan in which

each service played a fixed assigned role was shown to be unrealistic from

the beginning. The service chiefs were persistently competitive, each

demanding more resources than the administration was willing to give

and lacking in sensitivity to the possible repercussions on the needs of

other services or the national economy. "Every recommendation made by

the military authorities," Eisenhower complained, "seems to be for an

increase in strength or in money or both." Recalling that the Army, his

own service, had held on to its horses for 50 years after cavalry had

become obsolete, he remarked that he had yet to hear of any service

being willing to give up something. Each service chief should, he insisted,
38 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

subordinate his identity to that of a team member of national military

advisers to the president. He should even initiate reductions in his

program, including transfers of a function to another service that could

perform it more efficiently and cheaply. 42

The services were also incorrigibly image-conscious. Each publicly

flaunted its sophisticated new weaponry, advanced doctrine, and asserted

role in the ultimate defeat of the Communists, while engaged in an endless

competition for headlines and broadcast time. Most of this was normal, if

flamboyant, public relations activity, aimed at improving service morale.

Some was more covert and politically motivated, ostensibly conducted

behind the back of the service chief or secretary. In the spring of 1956

the "competitive publicity," as an exasperated Eisenhower called it, reached

such a pitch that he took all three service chiefs "to the woodshed" in

his office, castigating them for leaking information, some of it classified,

to the press. 43

Service competition also found a public outlet through the testimony offered at congressional hearings on the Defense budget. Service

spokesmen, while praising their own service's weaponry and performance,

on occasion disparaged those of their service rivals. Eisenhower angrily

lectured the chiefs on this practice. A service chief of staff, he declared,

"should not present just the picture of his own service alone. Each service

supplements the other in over-all military strength. Those testifying should

not make it look as though each does the job alone."44

Eisenhower's most serious grievance against the chiefs pertained to

their refusal, or inability, to accept wholeheartedly all the prescriptions of

his new national cold war strategy, the so-called New Look, worked out

and supposedly agreed to by all of them in the fall of 1953 and winter of

1954. Occasionally he protested that he did not expect them to "abandon

their basic convictions" and that he laid no claim to ultimate wisdom in

these matters. Practically speaking, this meant little. A dissenter was

entitled to a hearing (with Admiral Radford in watchful attendance and

Col. Andrew]. Goodpaster busily scribbling for the record). Once heard, if

he failed to change the president's mind, he was expected to refrain from

airing his dissent publicly or from stirring up arguments in official circles. 45

The framing of the New Look strategy and its subsequent development

over the next three years are traced in detail in later chapters, but its effect

on Eisenhower's deteriorating relations with the chiefs can be summarized here. The core elements of the New Look centered on heavy reliance

on nuclear airpower; modernized but drastically reduced ground forces,

concentrated as far as practical in and near the continental United States;

and integrated air-ground-sea continental defense forces. Indigenous allied
Reorganizing Defense 39

forces, aided by U.S. support forces and materiel as needed, would provide

for their own defense against Communist aggression. The whole system

was designed to be affordable under peacetime cold war budgets and

adequate for the nation's defense over the long haul. The Air Force had

assured preeminence as the chief arsenal of the nation's nuclear and conventional airpower, with nuclear-armed long-range ballistic missiles only

a few years down the road. By mid-1956, war plans assumed, a war with

the Soviet Union would be fought with nuclear weapons and initiated by

air strikes against one or both homelands. The Navy had a secondary, more

specialized role with its nuclear and conventional sea power, including

carrier-borne aviation and supported by the Marine Corps' amphibious

forces with their own tactical aviation. Since naval carriers could also

project nuclear air strikes against an enemy's coastal regions, the Air

Force and the Navy together held a de facto monopoly of offensive

airpower, soon to be enhanced by the nuclear submarine armed with

mid-range nuclear ballistic missiles. These two services were thus principal beneficiaries of Defense budgets. The Air Force's budget actually

continued to grow despite peacetime economies, and the Navy's suffered

only moderate reductions.

The Army, traditional home of the nation's land power and the dominant service during the Korean War, found itself relegated to underdog

status through massive force and budget reductions. Subsequently, although

it shared with the Navy the building of the first intermediate-range ballistic

missiles, it was denied an operational mission for them. Its first chief of

staff after the war, Matthew B. Ridgway, a Korean War hero and NATO

supreme commander, fiercely resisted the New Look manpower cuts as

best he could short of insubordination. For his pains Eisenhower brushed

off his protests as "parochial." Retiring in mid-1955 after only a twoyear term, Ridgway continued the fight with speeches and magazine

articles. 46 His successor, Maxwell D. Taylor, a World War II hero and Far

East commander, was a more formidable adversary, both politically and

intellectually. He became chief of staff at a time when the pace of the

, growing Soviet threat had suddenly quickened, with major advances, both

technical and quantitative, in airpower and nuclear capabilities. By 1956

these advances had brought alarmingly nearer than preViously anticipated

the attainment of parity between the two powers in their capacity to

destroy each other by surprise attack. For the first time an all-out general

war, precipitated by reciprocal fear of being attacked first, seemed a real

possibility.47

Taylor did not settle for mere protests of personnel cuts. His answer

to what he viewed as the administration's overweening emphasis on a
40 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

cold war strategy of "massive retaliation" proposed the first coherent

alternative strategy the president had yet had to confront. Later known as

"flexible response," it stressed deterrence and measured response at all

levels of aggression, with balanced forces, conventional as well as nuclear,

appropriate to the task. Massive retaliation remained on the menu but,

as Taylor pointed out, the National Security Council itself had already

declared an all-out Soviet air attack on the United States as the least likely

of all contingencies in a situation of nuclear parity. The most likely

Communist strategy was seen as a "nibbling" expansion through local

and proxy aggression and fomented insurrection and subversion, mainly

in underdeveloped and vulnerable Third World countries as already demonstrated in Southeast Asia, Greece, Guatemala, the Philippines, and elsewhere. The priorities of effort for dealing with these challenges, Taylor

believed, should be ordered accordingly. 48

These views put him on a collision course with the president. Confronting him (by invitation) in his office in May 1956, Taylor challenged as

unrealistic the assumption in the current 1960 war plan that a war with

the USSR would necessarily start with an all-out nuclear attack by one or

both sides. Far more likely, he argued, it would come "through a succession

of actions and counteractions." Since not only big wars, but small ones, as

well, must be deterred, diverse types of forces were needed. "We should

first calculate what is needed for deterrence and provide that; we should

then provide the requirements for flexible forces usable in small wars, and

finally put what remaining effort we have into the requirements for fighting an all-out war."49

Eisenhower rejected Taylor's reasoning. Tactical nuclear weapons, he

went on, had "come to be practically accepted as integral parts of modern

armed forces" and should therefore be freely used in small wars wherever

appropriate. However, the United States should generally not "tie down

our forces around the Soviet periphery in small wars," but rather build up

indigenous forces in the regions threatened. It was folly to contemplate

moving large numbers of divisions overseas in the early months of an

all-out war. "Massive retaliation ... is likely to be the key to survival ....

Planning should ... [assume] the use of tactical atomic weapons against

military targets in any small war in which the United States might be

involved." Taylor's position, the president implied, was motivated by understandable nostalgia for "the same great role [for the Army] in the first year

of war in relation to the other services as formerly." Regrettably the "Chiefs

of Staff still thought much too much each in terms of his own service."

The Army should recognize that its new role, to maintain order at home in

the initial stages of war, was "truly vital." He was confident that the nation's
Reorganizing Defense 41

security required primary reliance on nuclear weapons. He did not claim to

be "all wise in such matters," but "he was very sure that as long as he ... [was]

President he would meet an attack in the way indicated."50

From the president's vantage point the new JCS "system" would seem

to offer rock-solid support for his defense policies. Radford "rubbed in"

Taylor's defeat, pointing out that the president's decision supported the

majority view of the Joint Chiefs.51 In fact, a majority of the chiefs, knowing that the president had already made up his mind, dutifully went

along. This was another of the JCS decisions against the Army that on major

issues over the past three years had become almost the norm. Wilson's

almost ritual concurrence simply added another nail. The real decision

was the president's. All the others were only decisions to advise.

Public relations disasters confirmed the president's growing discontent with the way the 1953 reorganization was working out. Although only

the Army's chief of staff had openly and fundamentally opposed the New

Look strategy, only the Air Force chief, its principal beneficiary, had supported it with any enthusiasm, but without abating his open efforts to

gain larger appropriations. None of the chiefs had shown any concern,

except as directed by higher authority on particular issues, for the impact

of his service's rising demands in treasure or resources on the health of

the national economy which, next to the Communist menace, the president

regarded as the single greatest threat to the nation's security. "In working

for permanent security," he lectured the Joint Chiefs in March 1956, "we

must give due consideration to the right 'take' from the economy-one

which will permit the economy to remain viable and strong."52

Even Wilson and Radford, the president's two Defense stalwarts, were

not totally undemanding. Wilson's loyalty to the president was beyond

question, but as head of the hungriest of the agencies feeding on the

economy, he felt obliged periodically to defend its needs and interests,

including even service protests against budget and manpower cuts.

Prospective increases in DoD spending over the next few years, he protested to the NSC on one occasion, "were not the result of extravagance,

but were based on the realities which we faced.... The problem ultimately

gets back to the basic matter of U.S. commitments and U.S. troop deployments." Discussing the rapid growth of Soviet airpower, he "opposed the

view that we should simply sit where we are. We should speed up, should

increase both our production of B-52s and our production of new fighter

aircraft. Otherwise we could not honestly go before the people of the

United States and honestly tell them we were staying ahead of the

Russians."53 At a meeting of the NSC on 17 May Wilson confessed that

"try as they would, he and Admiral Radford simply could not carry out
42 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

their commitments on the basis of the budgets on which the Defense

Department now operates." Radford agreed. 54

A few days earlier Eisenhower reached a decision that "some reorientation of the whole organization ought to be made sometime next

year." The kind of "reorientation" he had in mind revealed the extent to

which he had lost confidence in the service chiefs as key elements of

the machinery for developing defense policy, and, conversely, his continued reliance on Wilson and Radford to ride herd on the system. The

authority of these two, already strengthened in the 1953 reorganization,

he wanted further enlarged, while the services would be reduced to "a

more operational, less policy role," making the chiefs, in effect, "assistants

to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-Leo giving him the power to select

and reassign them. The Chiefs would then have the duty of implementing

policy within their own service-not of developing over-all policy."55

The president had in mind other changes aimed at curbing the chiefs'

propensity to make trouble when "off the reservation": requiring prospective appointees to take an oath to accept decisions once made,

and officials who served in the Pentagon not to disclose any "security

information" after retirement, as well as other rules for statements on

government policies by retired officers. Eisenhower also began to

reconsider instituting a senior defense advisory staff, a new, more senior

military committee ("senior officers divorced from service") modeled on

one he had set up when chief of staff. 56

Eisenhower found less fault with the civilian than with the military

side of the 1953 reorganization. Perhaps because he was less involved

than Wilson in the selection of the service secretaries and in subsequent

dealings with them, he seemed to expect less of them than of the service

chiefs. Most ofthe latter were former associates or old friends, whose opposition he seemed to regard almost as a betrayal. His complaints of the service

chiefs' performance, both indiVidually and as a corporate group, were not

matched by similar strictures concerning the secretaries. The latter, indeed,

offered less resistance than the chiefs to the president's policies. 57

Nothing was done in 1956 to implement Eisenhower's few remarks

on Defense reorganization.* During the presidential election campaign the

* In 1956 Congress finished the task begun in 1948 of codifying the laws governing the

military establishment (Titles 10 and 32). Inadvertently, the new legislation incorporated

old provisions that gave command authority to the chief of naval operations and the

Air Force chief of staff, thus conflicting with the president's authority to put units of those

services in unified commands. As it happened, this issue was never raised. For some reason

the Army chief of staff received no command authority, remaining legally an adviser to

the secretary of the Army. See Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 163-64; Semiannual

Report of the Secretary of Defense, January 1 to June 30, 1956, 11; PL 1028,84 Cong

(10 Aug 56).
Reorganizing Defense 43

topic was relegated to a back burner, and Wilson did not seem eager to

have his responsibilities enlarged, as the president desired. The following

June he stated emphatically that he regarded the existing organization of

the Defense Department as "sound" and "responsive to the President, the

Congress and the American people." He urged the purveyors of radical

changes "to advocate them only after the most careful thought and when

experience has proved that they are necessary."58

Over the horizon and unexpected was the next Soviet "surprise,"

Sputnik. It would bring a new sense of urgency and lend impetus to a new,

more far-reaching reorganization of the Defense Department in 1958.
CHAPTER III

Management and Budget

Charles E. Wilson was no stranger to his future boss in 1952; he and

Eisenhower had been acquainted for several years, and, even before the

1952 election, he had let the general know of his willingness to serve in

an Eisenhower administration. l In 1952 Wilson stood at the pinnacle

of a brilliant career. Reputedly the nation's highest-paid business executive, Wilson in 1953 headed the world's largest private corporation in a

highly competitive technology-based industry in which managerial

competence was a driving force and a prerequisite to survival.

All this was known to Herbert Brownell and Lucius Clay, Eisenhower's

chief talent searchers, who recommended Wilson for the post of secretary

of defense-in time to join the president-elect's entourage on the preinauguration trip to the Pacific in December 1952. For Eisenhower, what

counted most about Wilson was his demonstrated competence in managing bigness, the salient characteristic of the Defense Department. For

other departments the president chose executives primarily for their

expertise or experience in their departments' fields of endeavor. Unlike his

predecessors, Wilson had no experience or acquired knowledge in foreign

or military affairs, credentials that would not have been required by a

president of Eisenhower's military and international stature. What the

president did need and want was a seasoned executive who could effectively implement his defense policies and run the vast Pentagon empire,

the world's biggest purchaser and user of armaments technology. Wilson

seemed to be custom-built for the job, an executive who would not be

daunted by bigness. At first he seemed to be daunted by something else,

perhaps the unfamiliarity of the managerial problems he initially

encountered. DoD was an administrative headache, plagued with inherited

organizational and management troubles, some of them historic, awaiting

44
Management and Budget 45

long overdue solutions. Whatever the reason, Wilson apparently sought

early on to have weekly conferences with the president. But Eisenhower

quickly put a stop to that, telling Wilson, "Charlie, you run defense." Wilson

got the message, and his self-confidence quickly returned. Thereafter he

ran DoD more or less as he had run General Motors, minus the profit

imperative-dealing with the familiar problems of production, procurement, and personnel management-and in this vast arena he soon

became, wrote a biographer, "a spokesman and management specialist

for the administration."2

"Gray Eminence"

In managing the Defense Department Wilson benefited greatly from

the services of his comptroller, Wilfred]. McNeil, the most valuable of the

officials retained from the departing administration. A high school dropout

from a small town in Iowa, McNeil had come a long way since leaving

home, successively a Navy enlistee in World War I, a bank cashier and

small town bank president, an automobile distributor, an executive at

the Des Moines Register. As circulation manager at the Washington Post

beginning in 1934, he seemed to be headed for a promising career in the

newspaper business. But during World War II he took a new turn. As a

Navy reservist he rose to the rank of rear admiral, and Navy Secretary

James v. Forrestal made him his fiscal director and a key player in his

budgetary reforms. McNeil was thus "present at the creation" in 1947

when Forrestal became the first secretary of the new National Military

Establishment and brought him from the Navy Department to serve as

his special financial assistant. Later, his was a guiding hand behind

Forrestal's successful efforts to promote the 1949 amendments to the

National Security Act. Title IV of the amendments established the position of comptroller of the Defense Department, with responsibility for

advising and assisting the secretary in performing departmental budgetary

and fiscal functions, and also outlined uniform budgetary and financial

procedures to be administered by the OSD comptroller and the newly

created Army, Navy, and Air Force comptrollers.

McNeil became the first comptroller under Title IV. From this new

vantage point he devised, and persuaded Congress to adopt, a more rational

structure for the DoD budget. Until this time, the services had received

their appropriations in more than a hundred separate compartments with

which service budgeteers were forbidden to tamper; appropriations were

annual, expiring on 30 June, the end-date of each fiscal year. In McNeil's
46 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

system funds were grouped in a few broad functional, non-organizational

categories, such as procurement, maintenance and operations, and research

and development, which, for the first time, enabled Congress and the secretary of defense to compare the funding of like activities across

organizational lines. He also persuaded the key congressional committees

to remove from the services and consolidate in OSD the apportionment

procedures, which regulated both the amounts of money to be spent, and

the rates at which funds could be obligated. Henceforth the comptroller's

office in OSD received and endorsed the services' apportionment requests

and forwarded them to the Bureau of the Budget. 3 This provided McNeil

with enormous influence in the operation of the department.

Long before the Eisenhower administration took over, McNeil had built

for himself a solid base of respect and trust, bridging party lines, in the

congressional committees and staffs that dealt with DoD finance. Over the

years he had followed a few simple, common sense rules for dealing with

members of Congress: never confront them with unpleasant surprises;

whenever possible, settle "hot" issues before going public; expect congressional wrath when programs and policies unpopular with legislative

constituencies-such as base closings-generate unfavorable publicity;

always ensure that information provided to Congress is prompt, accurate,

and comprehensive; give Congress credit for all favorable developments,

up to and including acts of God. As Forrestal's fiscal director, he had

persuaded the secretary not to follow the common practice of padding

the budget request: "I think we ought to go [only} for what we ought to

have," he said, "and try to prove it." Later, this decision paid off when

Congress awarded the Navy almost all of the amount requested, and on

another occasion approved the full amount of a customary emergency fund

even though only a small fraction of it had been used the year before."

McNeil qUickly gained the trust and respect of his boss, Secretary

Wilson. Possessed of an uncommonly lucid and analytical mind, the

comptroller was more than a fiscal policy expert. In many difficult policy

areas-weaponry, strategy, procurement, foreign affairs-his Navy and

OSD experience, backed by military service in both wars, had given him a

broad and versatile competence, and, even more important, a sophisticated,

firsthand familiarity with congressional politics. This background enabled

him to expound with confidence and knowledge on a wide range of

issues that Wilson, loquacious and self-confident but unclear in expression

and not notably well informed outside the range of his own experience,

could not address persuasively. Placed at Wilson's service in many forums,

especially Congress, where McNeil's credentials were already established,

these skills provided the secretary a formidable administrative tool. Much
Management and Budget 47

of McNeil's expertise derived from the assistance rendered him by an

exceptionally expert staff that he had chosen with an eye to high quality.

In overall defense policy McNeil exercised influence so transcendent

that his recommendations were virtually assured of approval and implementation. Early on, he convinced Wilson that the budget was a potent

mechanism for controlling the direction and monitoring of policy. This

conviction dovetailed neatly with the president's view that defense policies

must not exceed the limits of what the country could afford, both immediately and for the long haul-perhaps the most fundamental tenet of

the Eisenhower New Look. Early in 1953, when the large FY 1954 defense

budget proposed by the Truman administration was under critical examination in the National Security Council, Budget Director Joseph Dodge

raised the question "whether we can afford to keep absorbing our

resources at this rate and maintain our free and democratic way of life."

Eisenhower promptly suggested, to forestall the tendency of defense costs

to creep upward with the piecemeal approval of proposals and plans,

that every program supported by the defense budget should contain a

financial appendix, or its equivalent, showing its estimated cost and

predicted impact on policies. 5

This procedure, while not invariably adhered to, served henceforth

as a useful curb on overambitious programming, whether in the initial

formulation of defense budgets or during their subsequent journey to

final executive and legislative approvaL Similarly, it tended to deter proposals of unaffordable objectives in other policy documents, notably the

annual Basic National Security Policy issued by the NSC. Certain ambitious

or visionary "declaratory" policies-affirmations of far-reaching aims left

largely unimplemented-could become embarrassing, such as the proclaimed intention, inherited from the 1952 presidential campaign, to roll

back communism in eastern Europe. Eisenhower did not explicitly

repudiate it until late in 1953.

A seriously planned "roll back" strategy was so foreign to Eisenhower's

thinking, as reflected in the emerging New Look, that it never really

approached realization. But the cold war attitude it reflected, a determination to respond aggressively to Communist encroachment anywhere,

had deep roots in the armed services and indeed in the national psyche.

Whenever it surfaced in the National Security Council or other high-level

forums, it usually yielded quickly to counsels of prudence or economy,

or both. But Wilson and McNeil were wary of initially modest proposals

that, if pursued without an eye to possible costs and other long-term

implications, might develop a life of their own and spin out of controL

One such instance was the clamor in the spring of 1954 to rescue a large
48 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

French Union garrison trapped by insurgent Viet Minh forces at Dien Bien

Phu, in northwestern Indochina. There were fears that Communist China,

supporting the Viet Minh, would engulf Indochina and sweep over the rest

of Southeast Asia. Wilson and McNeil firmly backed the president in

resisting pressure to intervene, which enjoyed some support in the JCS

and even within OSD. Dien Bien Phu fell, but the sky, contrary to some

predictions, remained in place.6 Later, following the 1956 anti-Communist

risings in Hungary and Poland, McNeil opposed moves to exploit this'

apparent opportunity to undermine Soviet dominance of eastern Europe,

warning that the Soviets would go to war rather than back down under

such a provocation. 7

Apart from such crises, there was continuing tension, in many forums

from the NSC on down, between the military services' asserted requirements for implementing their commitments and responsibilities and

the administration's efforts to hold down spending-in effect, a conflict over

the size and shape of the DoD budget, McNeil's primary area of responsibility and expertise. Wilson had a twofold responsibility to the president

in this endeavor, advisory and executive: to recommend, and to implement,

policies and actions for pursuing the economy goal. The latter was the

corporate executive's normal function; the former was more demanding

of initiative and ingenuity, and it was especially here that McNeil showed

his worth. "Where the Comptroller ... participates in the making of

decisions," he once confided to a congressional committee, "is in attempting to ... force upon the attention, of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint

Chiefs of Staff, or the secretaries of the military departments, the costs

and other implications of what is happening in various operations of the

Department of Defense. If you do not feel the proper attention has been

given, you point out the problem [and] ... force a considered solution."g

In this role, by virtue of Wilson's reliance on him, McNeil served as

an executive vice president for fiscal affairs, exercising effective control

over spending levels for most major defense programs. He had many

counterparts, of course, all along the chain of command from post commanders to the president, most of whom routinely depended on the

advice and specialized knowledge of trusted aides in making decisions in

areas outside their own field of expertise. But McNeil's role, if not unique,

was certainly special by virtue of the key importance of the preparation

and administration of the defense budget. McNeil was sometimes referred

to, in fact (although he later professed not to remember), as Wilson's

"gray eminence."*

* The allusion was to Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602-61), first minister to Louis XIV of

France during the early years of his reign.
Management and Budget 49

The Budget Process

McNeil might as aptly have been called "Mr. Budget," had not that

title belonged more properly to the head of the Bureau of the Budget. In

the Defense Department, however, the budget was indisputably McNeil's

turf, his familiarity with it the source of his power. "Several budgets are

with us all the time," he explained to an audience of newspaper editors

in April 1954. The FY 1950 and FY 1951 budgets still fueled current

operations, programs funded with FY 1952 and FY 1953 money were under

way, and still others now being initiated were authorized in the FY 1954

budget, as would be some in the FY 1955 budget soon to be passed by

Congress. Finally, plans were now being prepared for implementation

under the FY 1956 budget. 9

Normally budget preparation began soon after the beginning of the

calendar year with a top-level review, by the National Security Council and

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of the basic national strategic posture, objectives,

and policies, with the Joint Chiefs' attendant recommendations of force

goals and military strength needed to execute them. About May the NSC

reviewed and modified the JCS recommendations, approved some, and

by the end of June transmitted the necessary directives through OSD to

the services. Soon thereafter, at an informal conference of top DoD officials at the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, the services would be given

approximate budget targets and an opportunity to vent their initial reactions. During the summer the military department comptrollers developed

their respective cost estimates and submitted them in September.

Then came the climactic event of the whole process, a joint BoBOSD analysis of the by now thoroughly picked-over budget. Although

referred to as a "markup" this phase actually involved a markdown. The

services received a report of the revisions and where they found the cuts

unacceptable they contested the comptroller's decision by filing an

appeal or a "reclama" (a federalese term suggesting noisy contention). At

first these appeals spun off a sideshow of negotiations between McNeil's

staff and representatives of the military departments. Those that could not

be resolved at this level were taken to the secretary for what became

known during Wilson's tenure as the "big tent shows." Each service was

given a day to present its case against the analysis compiled by McNeil.

The respective adversaries sat across from one another along a lengthy

table while Wilson, very much in juridical fashion, sat at the head. Generally

all of the rulings were prearranged between Wilson and McNeil. The

secretary would grant some of the service's requests but in the main

he supported his comptroller. Early in December, the product of these

negotiations was submitted to the president and NSC for a final working
50 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

over, and in January was forwarded to Congress as part of the proposed

federal budget. 10

Defense financing was measured by three closely related dollar

figures: new obligational authority (NOA) or appropriations, planned

obligations, and expenditures. NOA represented the funds Congress

authorized the Treasury to deposit to the various accounts-major procurement, operations and maintenance, public works, military personnel,

research and development, etc.-that made up the budget of each military

service department and of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The total

amount of NOA for each account, comparable to a line of credit issued by

a bank, was entered on the books of the Treasury as the maximum amount

that could be drawn upon for spending within that appropriation account.

No cash was actually involved in this transaction; the Treasury did not

have to borrow funds or have cash on hand beyond the amount needed

to meet current day-to-day expenditures. ll

Planned obligations measured the level of new financial activity

anticipated for the fiscal year, for example the civilian and military personnel to be employed and the volume of contracts to be placed for

goods and services. Obligations for a particular fiscal year often exceeded

the new appropriations for that year, since certain still unobligated funds

carried over from previous years' appropriations were also available for

obligation. How this happened can be illustrated by the obligation

sequence for a Forrestal-class aircraft carrier. Complying with DoD policy,

as instituted by McNeil before the first contract was let, Congress always

appropriated all the funds needed to build a ship, or carry out a project

of similar magnitude. A Forrestal carrier cost about $200 million, most of

which (about $152.5 million) was obligated in the first year by the basic

contract, plus another $12.5 million for long lead-time items like boilers

and turbines. During the next four years about $35 million would be

obligated for equipment, consumable stores, and various adjustments. 12

Expenditures, the third budget category, were the total amount of

checks drawn on the Treasury from obligated funds to pay personnel and

for purchased goods and services, regardless of the years in which they

were ordered. Since the flow of expenditures in a particular year could

not be accurately predicted, it had to be estimated. 13

Which of these three categories best reflected the direction and

emphasis of defense policy was a subject of continuing debate among

defense policy makers. One view held that new appropriations were the

factor most directly related to current policy and planning. Obligations

and expenditures represented the sequential actions by which past

decisions were implemented. To meet a current demand, i.e., to pay a
Management and Budget 51

bill, funds must first be raised, then obligated, and finally expended. 14

In terms of new obligational authority, DoD appropriations tended to be

relatively stable over the Wilson years, holding steady between $34 billion

and $36 billion during the FY 1954-57 period. Nevertheless, the distribution of appropriated funds among services and within appropriation

categories could vary significantly. In FY 1956-57, Air Force appropriations soared while Army appropriations plunged, partly owing to major

policy changes. Each year's new appropriations, moreover, represented

only part, although the most important part, of available assets. A major

source of additional funds for DoD planners was the backlog of still

unobligated prior-year appropriations, particularly for several years after

the Korean War, when the Army, for example, financed its procurement

needs wholly from these funds. Another source was the earnings of the

military departments from reimbursement for goods and services provided

in military assistance programs. Other factors affecting the total of NOA

were the occasional transfers of funds by Congress from one appropriation account to another, and rescissions that cancelled the appropriation

authority granted by a previous bill. Hence an administration's decisions

in a given year to spend appropriated funds were reflected by obligations,

rather than appropriations, whether or not the actual expenditures were

made in that year or later. For that reason, McNeil came to believe that

obligations reflected current policy more accurately than either

appropriations or expenditures. 15

McNeil also believed that the procedures of the financial management

system should be sufficiently flexible to enable its participants to seize

opportunities for economy and efficiency and reap the rewards thereof. To

this end he succeeded in having the principal procurement, construction,

and research and development funds converted from annual to "no year"

appropriations, Le., continuing appropriations which did not expire with

the fiscal year on 30 June. With annual money, as McNeil put it, "once they

[a government agency] make a contract, that's it. Even if they don't need

the damn stuff afterwards, they still get [it] delivered .... [But with

no-year money] you could go up to June 30 [or later] and not buy the

stuff. ... You can cancel it and buy what you do need."16

Another illustration of McNeil's pursuit of flexibility and economy

was his aforementioned advocacy of full initial funding for multiyear

projects such as aircraft carriers. He also believed that project managers

should have built-in procedural incentives to economize, for example,

by being allowed to shift to other projects the funds saved by completing a project under budgeted cost. He also assisted contractors burdened

by cost overruns to secure government-guaranteed loans. As an obvious
52 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

incentive to encourage companies to proceed expeditiously, however, he

made them responsible for the interest payments on the new financing.

Within the military establishment, McNeil believed, mutual dissatisfaction between suppliers and users was normal and healthy. Building on

that concept McNeil created first during his tenure in the Navy, and later

throughout all of the DoD, various stock funds. The principal objective was

to confront the user of an item with the cost. For example, a particular

component of a military department might be assigned to provide paint

and common hardware supplies or assume responsibility for performing

printing services for its particular branch of the service or in some cases

the entire DoD. To initiate such an operation an agency or agencies would

be established and capitalized. Other components within the military

departments would receive operating and maintenance budgets from

which they could purchase paint or contract for printing services in accordance with their needs and priorities. The choice of the rate and amount

of the spending would thus be up to the user who might be a base commander. As these transactions occurred the common supply agency, with

the resources it had acquired through its sales, would employ its financial

earnings to replenish its stock in anticipation of future demand. In the

most optimistic of circumstances the various stock and industrial fund

operations would only have to be capitalized once. By FY 1957 the assets

of the various stock funds were $8.2 billion and those of the industrial

funds $1.8 billion. 17

The Elusive Unobligated Balances

Perhaps the most baffling and persistent aspect of fiscal management that Wilson and McNeil had to deal with was that of controlling

the accumulation of unobligated balances-the unspent and not yet

obligated funds earmarked for specific purchases that remained at the end

of each fiscal year. These ballooning sums-$15.7 billion at the end of

FY 1954-frustrated them and, even more, the House and Senate Defense

appropriations subcommittees, whose members suspected that the money

was being used for purposes other than those specified in the original

appropriation. Major deviations, such as reprogramming or transferring of

funds from one major account to another-say, from procurement and

production to maintenance and operations-required prior authorization

by the appropriate congressional committee. But shifts of funds within

a single budget category were permitted-say, a decision to purchase

more bombers and fewer transports, or tanks instead of trucks. As an
Management and Budget 53

architect of the arrangement McNeil defended this latitude, arguing that

it enabled the services to correct second best choices that, at the time,

seemed clearly justified. 18

The disagreement over the use of unobligated funds headed for a

showdown in 1955. As hearings on the FY 1956 Defense budget began in

February, the House Appropriations Subcommittee confronted McNeil with

the embarrassing record of erroneous forecasts of unobligated carryovers

from FY 1954. Starting at $6.9 billion in January 1954 the estimates had

risen a year later to $15.7 billion including the separate public works

budget. 19 Meanwhile, for the current year, FY 1955, the administration was

already predicting an unobligated balance of $11.7 billion. 20 The figures

left the administration vulnerable to charges of sloppy procurement

planning, as well as wasteful hoarding of unneeded funds that ought to

be returned to the Treasury. "Why," demanded the exasperated subcommittee chairman, Democratic Rep. George H. Mahon, "can you not do a

better job of estimating your requirements at this time when the President says that we are in the midst of a peacetime economy?,,21 The pileup

of unobligated FY 1954 carryovers may in good part be explained by

the need to make huge adjustments in procurement after the end of the

Korean War in July 1953. The cancellations, cutbacks, and stretchouts of

programs inevitably caused the larger than usual pileup.

Some of the legislators had fond memories of the pre-1952 appropriation system, under which, for the big military procurement and

construction programs, Congress provided a combination of cash appropriations for the short lead-time items that would be paid for during

the fiscal year, and unfinanced contract authority for the longer leadtime items that could be paid for later. The system made for low

unexpended balances but, as McNeil pointed out, it resembled buying

on the installment plan-"little money down and low monthly payments

during the first year"-without much awareness of total costs, duration

of payment schedules, or the often concealed costs of the credit thus

extended. Now, in 1955 some of the unfinanced contract authority

provided back in FY 1951 remained unliquidated. In FY 1952, McNeil

recalled that this committee "wisely and courageously" instituted full

initial funding of approved multiyear procurement and construction

programs, even though it would require larger initial appropriations.

This enabled Congress to review these programs in their entirety before

financing them, including specific numbers and prices of aircraft, ships,

missiles, tanks, etc. DoD thus had assurance that each delivered aircraft

or tank would have all its component parts, while Congress would not

have to deal with a series of half-finished projects partially financed by a
54 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

previous Congress, and now needing additional financing to protect the

original investment. Defense programming improved, he argued; the

taxpayer got more for his money. 22

The system did, however, generate at the end of each fiscal year large

unexpended and unobligated balances committed, in varying degrees, to

specific designated purposes in following years. While advance financing

in full was fundamental to the system, early obligation of all the funds

would defeat its purposes. Sound management demanded careful timing

of obligations to bring maximum returns through lower prices, shorter

production times, better designed equipment, and economies of scale. Short

lead-time components of major equipment should be contracted for later

than long lead-time components, lest they be overtaken by design changes

or improved versions. A ship's armament, for example, should be ordered

long after contracts were placed for the hull and machinery.

It was essential, therefore, that sufficient funds in any appropriation

be held for future years beyond the budget year to assure payment of the

additional costs needed for completion of the projects launched in that

year-thus maintaining uninterrupted production from one fiscal year to

the next. How much was enough? For a program comparable in size and

scale to the current one (FY 1956), McNeil believed a carryover of $4.5

billion to $5 billion (about $2 billion less than the current forecast) would

be about right. 23 It was not one of his more prescient judgments. The

transition from war to peace following the July 1953 armistice was

attended by prolonged turbulence in all sectors of DoD administration,

not least in contract administration.

A major landmark of the general postwar shakedown was the passage

in August 1954 of Section 1311 of the Supplemental Appropriations Act

of 1955, one of the most important financial reforms undertaken during

Wilson's tenure. This law established for the first time a firm definition of

what constituted a recordable obligation. It gave OSD authority to require

the military departments to report precisely their year-end unobligated

balances estimated under the new criteria. Formerly they had registered

funds in appropriation accounts as obligated under a variety of arrangements, many ambiguous, some patently deceptive. The Air Force, the service

whose practices were the most creative, frequently considered money as

obligated once a letter of intent was received from a supplier to provide

a particular item or service, a practice almost unavoidably inaccurate since

the actual working out of final arrangements might entail years of

negotiation. A large volume of recorded obligations could, of course, be a

useful lever for justifying larger appropriations. The Air Force, McNeil

once remarked, had two accounting systems, one for internal management,
Management and Budget 55

the other for congressional appropriations. The impact of the Section

1311 legislation on Air Force accounting of unobligated carryovers was

dramatic, resulting in a massive "deobligation" of recorded obligations

which in a few months swelled an estimated FY 1956 unobligated carryover from $3.84 billion to $7.67 billion. 24

Implementing the Section 1311 procedures was not a weekend task.

For months following the passage of the legislation, OSD and service staffs

labored over the preparation of revised contract procedures in compliance

with the exacting specifications of the statute. More months passed

awaiting approval by the General Accounting Office. Meanwhile the detailed

forecasting of year-end unobligated balances dragged on, involving, for

each service budget account, projecting and aggregating both obligations

and deobligations. This involved simultaneously reducing (by obligating)

and augmenting (by invalidating previously validated obligations) the total

of available unobligated funds.

The process had been chancy enough in 1954, when the early forecasts

had understated the carryover by 125 percent. In 1955 the more exacting

criteria imposed by Section 1311 on the validating of obligations threatened to make early forecasts even less accurate, especially since detailed

instructions for applying the new criteria had not yet been promulgated. 25

Through February, March, and April 1955 the forecasts held remarkably

stable, but in Maya new forecast rose to $14.2 billion, 21 percent above

the original. The House Appropriations Committee, already skeptical, saw

this development as confirmation of its suspicion that large unobligated

balances were a device to weaken congressional control of the purse

strings. The committee angrily demanded more accurate forecasts, reminding McNeil of his recent assurance that a $4-to-5 billion carryover would

be adequate for all legitimate purposes and warning that carryovers must

diminish. In June the Senate Appropriations Committee was even less

forgiving, expressing "strong disapproval" of both carryovers and unobligated balances. All pipeline items, it asserted, should be reviewed

annually by the committee, and it planned to work closely with DoD and

Treasury in the future "to the end that unobligated balances be reduced

to a minimum and a pay-as-you-go policy be established and carried

out." In other words, the practice of carryovers should be "terminated

without delay"-presumably to be replaced by the pre-1952 contract

authorization system. 26

The Section 1311 legislation of August 1954 was closely followed

in September by another, equally momentous measure concerning the

financing of military assistance. Hitherto the program had been administered for the president by the Foreign Operations Administration,
56 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the funds being allocated and transferred through the secretary of defense

to the military departments, which thus controlled the fiscal operations and

bookkeeping procedures. The services were supposed to maintain separate accounts for their own needs and for military assistance, resulting

in a bookkeeper's nightmare because of transfers and assemblies from

different components. A flagrant but well established abuse of the system

involved the procedure of double costing, by which the services charged

the military assistance program the full price for old and depreciated

equipment, sometimes adding transfer expenses. 27

By the mid-1950s the military assistance program had become, in

effect, a slush fund used by the military services to stretch their procurement budgets-a normal practice, in their view. During the Korean War,

at a time when both the Air Force and the military assistance program

had placed large orders for the F-84 aircraft, trouble with its engine was

seriously slowing production. Under a wartime first-things-first philosophy,

for a time most of the new aircraft destined for military assistance were

diverted to the Air Force while their costs were charged to the MDAP

account. The Air Force planned to rehabilitate these fighters after the

war and return them to the MDAp, but other considerations intruded and

the issue remained long unresolved. 28

With the end of hostilities in Korea, OSD had moved to correct the

basic problem-the decentralization of military assistance administration

to the military departments. "It is the view of this department," Secretary

Wilson wrote Budget Director Joseph Dodge on 15 October 1953, "that

all funds appropriated for military aid should be appropriated directly to

the secretary of defense and not to the military departments." The resulting legislation, Section 110 of the Mutual Security Act of 1955, made the

secretary of defense the agent of the president to administer military

assistance funds, and OSD became the authorizing agency for all military

assistance expenditures. In OSD the Office of the Assistant Secretary for

International Security Affairs set up item schedules and procedures for

reimbursing the military departments for supplies and services provided

to the aid program. In sum, Section 110 placed the reimbursement to

the military departments for military assistance, as McNeil put it, "on

a COD basis."29

This procedure allowed OSD to justify, from both its own perspective and that of the services, the amount of unobligated funds to be

retained by the services to meet both short-term and long-term demands,

i.e., adequate supplies on hand backed up by an operating production

base, and assurance of adequate funding for long-term negotiations. OSD

and the Army, for example, agreed that about half of the $1.6 billion in
Management and Budget 57

unobligated funds available in 1955 would be needed in the Army's procurement account to meet both its own and military assistance needs.

The financial leverage afforded by sizable unobligated balances was vital

to the smooth running of a military assistance program administered on a

reimbursable basis.30

When Wilson and McNeil appeared before the House Appropriations

Subcommittee in February 1956 to defend the FY 1957 budget, they faced

the real possibility that the two houses would join to carry out the threat

of the Senate committee, the preceding June, to "terminate without delay"

the practice of unobligated carryovers. Without waiting to be reminded,

McNeil made this the lead topic of his presentation. He acknowledged

a disappointing 36 percent increase in the previous year's forecast of

unobligated balances at the end of FY 1956, upcoming at the end of

June, and, for the end of FY 1957, a forecast balance almost as large.

McNeil blamed this poor showing, in part, on the 1954 legislation redefining obligations and integrating military assistance financing with Defense

financing. The new legislation tended to increase the size of unobligated

carryovers, because in essence, it stretched out the obligation/spending

process by generating a variety of anticipated and unforeseeable needs that

could not be met by the immediate obligation of available funds, or, much

less, by the cumbersome and lengthy process of new appropriations. The

new procedures were a natural outgrowth of the system of advance financing of multiyear procurement programs, which was still anathema to

some congressmen. Grumbled Rep. Jamie L. Whitten, (D-Miss.), "You have

more money than you will spend this year?"31

At this point in the hearings, McNeil used a familiar term-

"commitments" -to which he proposed to give a new application. Briefly,

it referred to transactions for which negotiations were well advancedprocurement directives issued, bids requested, the government virtually

"committed"-but not yet to the stage where they could be legally classified as obligations under Section 1311. McNeil proposed to report these

funds as unobligated but "committed" ("earmarked," as Kansas Rep.

Errett P. Scrivner reminded him such funds used to be called) so that

the transactions could be completed early in the next fiscal year, contracts

placed, and the funds duly recorded as obligated. McNeil estimated that

"committed" funds would comprise about $3.8 billion of the forecast $8.1

billion unobligated carryover at the end of the fiscal year. Uncommitted

funds, $4.3 billion plus the $1.9 billion of future reimbursements, had

been set aside for long lead-time projects and other important anticipated purposes such as probable engineering changes and procurement

of spare parts. The balance between committed and uncommitted funds,
58 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

McNeil thought about rightY Apparently none of the committee members

noticed that, by separating out nearly half of the unobligated funds, the

most predictable half, McNeil had reduced the forecasting problem by

almost that much, leaving a much smaller margin of error.

For his overall budget presentation, the comptroller had prepared

and displayed with obvious pride a large flow chart depicting in a

single multi-column table the department's fiscal plan for FY 1957 general

appropriation accounts, by appropriation and by service. "It is the first

time," marveled Representative Scrivner, "I have ever seen your entire

money picture put on one page." He revealed that the forecast unobligated

balance of $8.9 billion for the end of FY 1956 would be augmented by

an estimated $2.9 billion of anticipated reimbursements from military

assistance reservations outstanding as of 30 June 1956, creating a total

of $11.8 billion. 33

McNeil forecast that if recorded obligations actually matched current

expectations, the unobligated balance for the end of FY 1956 would be

$11.8 billion including military construction money and military assistance reimbursements. For the end of FY 1957 he estimated a $10 billion

carryover, including $1.9 billion in military assistance reimbursements. 34

When McNeil appeared before the subcommittee the following year, in

March 1957, the members were evidently confident that the unobligated

balances problem had been resolved. His last year's forecasts had been

nearly on target. He also directed his hearers' attention to the downward

trend in annual unobligated balances: from $15.7 billion at the end of

FY 1954, to $12.8 billion at the end of FY 1956, to the now current forecast of $10.5 billion for FY 1957. 35

Hoover Commission Reforms

Budget and management reform initiatives by Wilson, McNeil, and

Congress took place against the backdrop of broader reform of the

executive branch. The promotion of efficiency and economy ill government ranked high on the agenda of the new president and his party.

Wilson had moved promptly in the spring of 1953 to implement this

agenda in his own department using the Rockefeller Committee report and

Reorganization Plan No.6 as the vehicle of change.* On 10 July, Congress,

at the president's urging, agreed to a review of the entire executive

branch. The president then appointed a 12-member Commission on

Organization of the Government of the Executive Branch (4 members

* For the Rockefeller Committee reforms and Reorganization Plan No.6, see Chapter II.
Management and Budget 59

selected by the president, 8 by Congress) to develop recommendations

for reducing expenditures, eliminating duplication and non-essential

services (especially those that competed with private enterprise), redefining the functions of officials and agencies, and consolidating functions

and activities of a similar nature. As his first appointee, Eisenhower chose

former President Herbert Hoover, whom the commission (five Democrats

and seven Republicans) then elected as its chairman.

Despite its broad mandate, the commission gave particular attention

to the Defense Department, devoting 9 of its 19 reports wholly or substantially to that agency. The most important of these, the Report on Business Organization of the Department of Defense, was written by a

subcommittee on business organization headed by Charles R. Hook,

board chairman of the Armco Steel Corporation. Of the 349 recommendations made by the commission, in April 1956 OSD reported that it had

accepted all but 49. 36

While the commission's recommendations ranged over the whole

span of Defense activities, suggesting a potential of up to two billion

dollars in savings annually, most of them were aimed at the department's

methods and organization for conducting business. The recommendations had four primary objectives: (1) to improve coordination within

OSD and between OSD and the services, (2) to improve the management

of services and supply functions common to the military departments,

(3) to make personnel policies more effective, and (4) to upgrade the

quality of financial management.

With respect to the first, the commission criticized the handling

of the budget process, in which civilian control was exercised largely

through the review of service requirements by the assistant secretaryl

comptroller. Instead, the commission proposed the creation of a new

high-level office to supervise the review and analysis of defense plans and

requirements, participating with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in this process

from the beginning. The commission further suggested redesignating four

of the existing assistant secretaries of defense, as well as the corresponding assistant secretaries in the three military departments, as "management

assistant secretaries" with broad authority to formulate policy for logistics,

research and development, personnel, and financial management.

These sweeping recommendations met a chilly reception in DoD, and

for the most part were not accepted. As Secretary Wilson pointed out, they

went far beyond and ran counter to the recently enacted Reorganization

Plan No.6. Moreover, many of the problems of cooperation cited by the

commission had already been addressed by Wilson through enhancing

the role of the deputy secretary of defense, clarifying office charters to
60 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

establish lines of authority, and instituting better analysis and review

procedures at the military department and assistant secretary levels. 37

The second objective required improving logistic management among

the services. Pointing to the Navy's widely publicized possession of a

60-year supply of canned hamburger and other oversupply horror

stories-"tremendous trifles," Secretary Wilson wryly called them-the

commission proposed to bring the administration of common supply and

services under efficient, businesslike management. This modern miracle

would be brought about by creating a new agency, possibly coequal with

the military departments, to administer these activities for all the armed

forces. Wilson thought the idea had merit but believed the same purpose

would be better served by another method, the single manager system,

already in place and functioning, whereby one of the military services

provided a single category of supply or service for all of them. The Army,

for example, was already the single manager for procurement of food and

clothing, and was expected soon to take over similar responsibility for

petroleum, medical supplies, and photographic materials. 38

The commission's proposal also called for the reduction, in some

cases termination, of transportation services and other commercial-type

activities operated by the military services, and turning them over to

private enterprise. For transportation, the commission proposed the

creation of a central traffic director to manage the shipment of goods

and personnel for all three services. Of the myriad other activities-post

exchanges, commissaries, bakeries, laundries, dry-cleaning plants, tree

and garden nurseries, automotive repair shops, shipyards, cobbler shops,

coffee roasting plants, and others-300 of the nearly 2,000 such facilities

already were scheduled to be eliminated by late 1956. Closure of the Navy's

shipbuilding and repair facilities was never seriously considered,

however, and post exchanges and commissaries, those pillars of service

morale, were of course retained. To the annoyance of the president,

privatization was delayed and complicated by a congressional stipulation

incorporated in the FY 1956 budget mandating that no commercial or

industrial facilities could be terminated without assurances to the appropriation committees that no additional costs would be involved. 39

The commission stressed the desirability of placing more civilians in

logistics and supply administration, and also in other major military

planning positions, in order to further the third objective. Fully approving, Wilson launched the process of redefining the roles of military and

civilian personnel, assigning Carter L. Burgess, the assistant secretary for

manpower and reserve affairs, the task of restructuring job requirements

and career path lines. An interservice committee appointed by Burgess
Management and Budget 61

established a new definitional framework for civilian positions and

proposed procedures for enhancing the attractiveness of senior-level

government service. 40

With regard to the fourth objective, upgrading financial management,

most of the improvements advocated in this category were proposed by

a task force established by Wilson soon after the Hoover Commission's

creation in July 1953-the Advisory Committee on Fiscal Organization

and Procedures. Chaired by Charles P Cooper, a former vice president and

director of AT&T, it consisted mainly of major corporation executives,

with a few bankers, academics, and DoD officials-including McNeil. Its

immodest aim was to develop a "more effective, simplified, standardized,

and modernized system [conducive to] sound financial management and

expense control.,,41 McNeil's involvement in the Cooper Committee's

activities in 1954 and 1955 became one of the more intriguing episodes

of his long Pentagon career.

The committee began with a survey of accounting systems in the field,

dividing itself into seven working groups, each assigned to study specific

types of military installations and activities. Including technical staff, the

committee ultimately employed 150 people and filed 20 reports. McNeil

hoped for three significant changes, which he explained in detail to the

chairman. First, he wanted a clear determination of OSD's role in auditing

the budgets of the three military departments. Second, he urged correction of situations at places like the Atlanta General Depot, where a single

activity received its funding from 130 different allotments or suballotments; funding channels and responsibilities should be simplified

to enable Congress and the administration to measure with reasonable

accuracy the cost of a particular function. Finally, McNeil recommended the

creation of a single management channel for the flow of financial information between OSD and the services. Currently, he pointed out, all

financial reporting from the military departments went through the

service secretary's office before coming to. OSD. Until responsibility for

financial management in the armed forces was assigned to organizational

units that reported directly to the secretary of defense or a designated

assistant secretary, many findings, particularly derogatory ones, would be

buried and elude remedial action. 42

McNeil was destined to be disappointed. The first draft of the committee's report, written by Paul Green, a member of the committee,

appeared in mid-August 1954. It confirmed McNeil's fears. He was most

outraged by the report's criticism of accounting practices associated

with one of his favorite programs, industrial and stock funds, whose

real benefits, in his opinion, lay "outside the narrow field of accounting."
62 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Even the accounting section of the report, which McNeil had initially

rated fair, he now considered "impracticable and incomplete," because the

procedures it recommended would apply only to resources consumed, a

minor element of defense expenditures, not to equipment or materiel

procured. But the report's most basic fault was its failure to relate the

budget and accounting methods to appropriation funding. As a result, the

proposed system would not provide timely information on funds used to

accomplish a given task. 43

Facing McNeil's threat that he would not sign the report in its existing form, Cooper and Green bowed to his criticisms and consented to

revise it. Or such, at least, was McNeil's understanding. Late in September

the agreement broke down and Wilson appointed McNeil to chair a group

representing OSD and the military departments to review the report and

make recommendations for its implementation. 44 McNeil, his wrath

mounting, was unwilling to wait. On 23 September, after an unproductive and obviously frustrating telephone wrangle with Cooper, he

fired off a long, argumentative letter, denouncing the study panel's work

procedures as ineffective and uncoordinated, its failure to encourage

communication and discussion among the members, the superficiality of

its investigation, and its undue haste to reach conclusions. He recited his

substantive criticisms of the draft report, and reiterated his refusal to put

his name to it. Later the same day, after further reflection, McNeil sent

Cooper another letter announcing that he would rewrite the entire report

himself and submit it directly to the secretary of defense. 45

The story had a final chapter. On 26 October McNeil reported to

Wilson that Cooper had admitted that he had rushed the report through,

even though incomplete, in order to satisfy the accounting group of the

Hoover Commission, thus avoiding a detailed investigation of the

Pentagon. Most of McNeil's criticisms were well taken, he said, and he

acquiesced in the decision to submit separate proposals. 46

Weeks later a now mollified McNeil reported the outcome to Deputy

Secretary Robert Anderson: he had completed his rewrite of the report,

drawing heavily on other studies as well as working papers prepared

by the committee's sub-working groups (apparently not previously

examined). The revised paper was, he thought, a good job, incorporating methods of finance and accounting adapted to the realities of life in

the Defense Department. It had been submitted to all members of the

Cooper Committee, the Bureau of the Budget, the three military services,

key members of Congress, former Defense Secretary Robert Lovett, the

Hoover Commission, and the defense committee of the American Institute

of Accountants. 47
Management and Budget 63

Lovett praised McNeil's report enthusiastically, complimenting the

author for having simplified accounting to the level of understanding of

the "knuckleheads around." Wilson apparently was less pleased, not

necessarily with McNeil's report, but with the fact that the financial

reform effort had bogged down for months in the production of not one

but two rival reports, reflecting contrasting points of view and possibly

incompatible recommendations. In any event, Wilson turned the Cooper

and McNeil reports over to the Hoover Commission, asking for recommendations on what to do with them. 48 Ultimately the commission made several

valuable technical adjustments, but improvements in financial management during the Wilson era were incremental rather than comprehensive.

The Hoover Commission recommended that the department's budget

and those of all other federal agencies be placed on an accrued expenditure basis. Wilson fully endorsed the recommendation, as well as the

related ones that followed, and directed their application in the military

departments. A major consequence of these reforms, reflecting one of

McNeil's chief preoccupations, was the development of accrual accounting

methods for financial accounting of property and construction, and the

extension of stock and industrial funds to include the bulk of wholesale

and retail supply items and maintenance facilities. 49

The Hoover Commission also examined the area of research and

development. Its principal recommendation, to combine OSD's R&D

activities with application engineering, was also approved, and eventually

in 1957 the two offices were merged. Wilson also supported the proposed

establishment of R&D assistant secretaries in the military departments,

but Congress blocked this move. The commission also urged more generous funding of scientific pursuits, including basic research, resulting in the

establishment of the Defense Science Board to coordinate and promote

weapon-related scientific research. 50

Congress and the public looked on the Hoover Commission favorably

as a presumed deterrent to excessive defense spending, a reputation the

commission understandably did not seek to discourage. In 1957 the Citizens

Committee for the Hoover Commission confidently "estimated" that savings "reasonably attributed to the Commission's work" had amounted to

$235 million, 10 percent of the government's total savings in accounting

operations reported by the Comptroller of the United States. This claim

aroused both amusement and annoyance in OSD. Requested in 1957 to

comment by the House Appropriations Committee, Secretary Wilson

conceded many qualitative improvements resulting from commission

recommendations, but also noted "unsupportable claims of great

monetary savings" by the commission's "over-zealous supporters." There
64 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

was no meaningful way, he argued, to isolate the effects of the recommendations from the department's continuing efforts to eliminate waste

and achieve greater economy and efficiency, 51 Since Hoover task force

reports, he went on, were not issued until May and June 1955, obviously

none of the savings in FY 1955 could be attributed to the commission's

recommendations, Moreover, in all of the areas singled out by the citizens'

committee-a new cataloging program, stock standardization, closing

of military supply depots, improved transportation rates, and morethe measures responsible for them had been instituted well before the

middle of 1955, And the largest single saving-a reduction of $585 million in unnecessary inventory-was not a product of the commission's

findings at all, but of the stock fund system created long ago by Title IV

of the National Security Act. Indeed, Wilson complained, "despite their

demonstrated worth as highly effective management tools," the commission showed scant awareness, in its report on business organization in

his department, of the significant role of working capital funds. 52

From the beginning in 1947 the Department of Defense had been the

biggest management problem in the U.S. government, because it was the

biggest department in money and people. Moreover, it had the unique

mission of safeguarding national security, which gave it special status,

and it had a complex organization that made centralized control difficult,

Wilson inherited a Department of Defense that was more than twice as

large as it had been three years before and was spending three times as

much money. Eisenhower's determination to cut back the size and cost of

the military establishment created powerful pressures for more efficient

and economical management and aggravated internal tensions, particularly between the military services. The management and financial reforms

initiated or responded to by Wilson and McNeil, in the main represented

positive steps toward more effective use of limited resources. Their efforts

were part of a never-ending process of adjustment and change in the

operation of the Defense Department, always subject to intense congressional and public examination and criticism.
CHAPTER IV

Shrinking the Truman Budget

"This Budget," President Truman stated at the beginning of his

annual budget message to the Congress on 9 January 1953, "has been

prepared under unique circumstances. It is the first Budget since the

.adoption of the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution to be presented

to the Congress by a President who will leave office a few days after its

transmission."] And, he may have said to himself, "and thus not face the

ordeal of defending it." For Eisenhower, the inherited FY 1954 budget was

the first serious internal challenge his administration had to face, substantive as well as symbolic. In no sense a lame duck effort, since its

preparation had begun long before the campaign, the budget represented

the Truman administration's best shot, a fiscal charter it would presumably

have been prepared to live by had the Democrats won the election. No one

thought that the new Republican administration, still breathing hard

from the campaign and still intoning the charges and promises that had

helped to win it, would take a benign view of this legacy. On the other

hand, the Truman submission could not be rejected out of hand. Government and its expenses went inexorably on, and the new Congress would

have to approve a budget before the next fiscal year (beginning 1 July) was

much advanced. Most of the inherited budget would have to be accepted,

if only because there was not enough time to prepare a brand new one. 2

Reconnoitering

Truman had requested new appropriations totaling $72.9 billion, of

which the Defense Department's share was $41.3 billion, almost 57 percent. 3

This $41.3 billion figure was to become the principal target of the new

65
66 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

administration since, even with the "halo effect" of national security, the

sheer size of the DoD budget offered the most visible target and the best

prospect for substantial savings. The urge to cut reflected more than mere

partisan animosity or the automatic impulses of an administration dedicated to fiscal conservatism. At Truman's invitation, Joseph M. Dodge,

Eisenhower's budget director-designate, had attended the final stages of the

new budget's formulation during November and early December, learning

a great deal about the hard choices that had to be made. As he reported

to Eisenhower during these pre-inaugural weeks, the emerging document,

despite large reductions in the requests submitted by various departments,

was coursing at full speed down the path of deficit financing begun with

the onset of the Korean War in 1950. Projected expenditures were still

expected to incur a deficit of some $9.9 billion for FY 1954 piled on top

of deficits for previous years. 4 And this was only the beginning. Under the

system of congressional appropriations instituted in 1951, the government

was authorized to incur contractual obligations in one year that would

be settled in some future year. As a consequence, a mountain of mostly

war-related unspent obligations had accumulated, dwarfing the gap

between annual income and outgo. Eisenhower later recorded: "What we

did not previously know was that our predecessors had piled on top of

this mountainous debt additional C.O.D. purchases-largely in defense

contracts-with no income whatsoever in sight to pay for them upon their

arrival over the next few years. These purchases totaled more than $80

billion-more than all the expenditures of the federal government put

together from 1789 through World War 1."5 That the president and his

advisers could have been unaware that unspent obligations existed seems

improbable. No doubt it was the huge amount that startled and upset him.

Furthermore, Dodge warned of a 10 percent reduction in federal

income that would occur if Congress permitted certain wartime taxes to

lapse automatically. The excess profits tax was due to expire on 30 June;

the 11 percent increase in personal income taxes adopted in 1951 would

expire on 1 January 1954; and still other taxes would expire in 1954.

Republicans in Congress were eager to speed up the timetable for tax

cuts. When the new Congress convened in January, Daniel A. Reed (R-N.Y),

chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, introduced a bill to

advance the income-tax reduction by six months to 1 July 1953. These

changes could cost the government an estimated $3.9 billion in lost

revenue in FY 1954 and about $8.3 billion in FY 1955. 6

At a pre-inaugural meeting with Eisenhower and his cabinet designees

on 12 January, Dodge projected the Truman programs against estimated

revenue and predicted a resulting cumulative deficit of $56 billion by
Shrinking the Truman Budget 67

mid-1957. It would be very difficult, moreover, to reduce current levels of

spending substantially over the next few years. Assuming a continuation of

the cold war, the huge national security sector looked to Dodge essentially

irreducible, unless the nation's strategic goals and military programs were

fundamentally reoriented. Similarly, nothing much could be done soon to

reduce the permanent statutory programs-debt service, veterans' benefits,

price supports, grants-in"aid to states, social security-which accounted

for another 18 percent of federal expenditures. The miscellaneous 12

percent remaining-the basic running expenses of the country-while

more vulnerable, represented too small a part of the total to yield quantitatively significant savings. Even by heroic efforts it was not certain,

Dodge feared, that the budget could be balanced by mid-1956; mid-1955

was absolutely out of the question. 7

Except for Eisenhower and Humphrey, whom Dodge had kept informed

as the budget picture unfolded, the group assembled at the Commodore was

stunned by the bad news. "Until that moment," Attorney General Herbert

Brownell later recalled, "the rest of us had no idea how bad the financial

state of the government was."8 Eisenhower remained philosophical: the

budget would be balanced eventually, if not as soon as had been hoped.

Meanwhile another cherished Republican goal, cutting taxes, would also

have to be postponed, lest the impending deficit grow even larger. In

his State of the Union message on 2 February, the president warned:

"Reduction of taxes will be justified only as we show we can succeed in

bringing the budget under control .... Until we can determine the extent

to which expenditures can be reduced, it would not be wise to reduce

our revenues."9

Focus on Defense

The attack on the Truman budget began formally on 3 February with

letters from Dodge, now presiding over the Bureau of the Budget, to each

federal department and agency head, setting forth the administration's

approach to the budget review. Reflecting the budget director's pessimism

regarding the prospects for achieving an early budgetary balance, the

letter stated that the review could only "take the initial steps toward that

goal" by defining "how far we can go in that direction in the fiscal year

1954," and thus "set the stage for the fiscal year 1955," the first year for

which the administration could construct a budget wholly its own. 10 For

Dodge and the president, cutting the Truman budget down to size was

only the beginning of a process, which might take years, of leading the
68 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

country back into the paths of fiscal responsibility, of forcing a government which had produced only four budget surpluses in the past 20 years

to live within its means. ll Dodge's own estimate at this time, assuming the

expiration of wartime tax legislation and the resulting loss of revenue,

was that the budget could not be balanced until 1958.12

Dodge's letter wasted little time on the inherited fiscal problem or

its causes: a national debt already over $265 billion, pushing the statutory

limit of $275 billion; a prospective deficit of $15.8 billion for the two

years 1953 and 1954; and accumulated unexpended appropriations far

exceeding the new obligational authority requested for FY 1954. To gain

control Dodge wanted to halt and turn back the rising tide of both current expenditures and new obligational authority, and "critically examine

existing programs." A series of stern "it is the policy to" paragraphs spelled

out some of the specifics: reduction of government personnel; restrictions

on construction; no increases over the January rate of obligations without

complete justification and specific approval; and an immediate intradepartmental review looking to a "downward adjustment of program

levels." Each agency was "to translate these guides into proposals for

specific revisions" of the 1954 budget and to submit them by 2 March to

the Bureau of the Budget, along with proposals for legislative changes. 13

Despite Dodge's pessimism and the president's apparent resignation to

an unbalanced budget for the present, pressures mounted during February

to strive for budgetary balance as early as FY 1955. 14 Dodge's 3 February

letter had been widely publicized as the opening gun in the administration's budget offensive. Media commentators and administration spokesmen were recalling the president's campaign promises to cut federal

spending, particularly the alleged commitment to Sen. Robert A; Taft at

the celebrated Morningside Heights meeting on 12 September 1952 to

reduce expenditures to $70 billion in 1954 and $60 billion in 1955.J5

Treasury Secretary Humphrey was the most vocal advocate of an immediate drive to balance the budget. "From now on out," he told the National

Security Council on 11 February, "this government must pay its own way."

He recommended that henceforth all major policy proposals should

be accompanied by cost estimates and their probable effects on other

programs-an idea that appealed to the president and was actually

formalized several weeks later. 16 Humphrey also fretted over the uncertainty surrounding future tax receipts and criticized the NSC's tendency

to approve policies piecemeal without consideration of total costS. 17 Given

predictable postwar congressional pressures for reinstatement programs

deferred during the emergency, and the increasing burden of debt service,

Dodge could not foresee more than about $1.5 billion of possible reductions in non-security programs. 18
Shrinking the Truman Budget 69

On 11 February, the new NSC began a detailed review of the adequacy

of national security programs, initiated months earlier but completed too

late to be dealt with by the outgoing administration. Naturally the cost

implications of NSC 141 had not been taken into account in the proposed

FY 1954 budget. 19 Not surprisingly, its reception was chilly, the president

regarding its tardy addition to the already staggering inherited burden of

spending as another example of Truman fiscal irresponsibility. NSC 141's

proposed remedies for the inadequacies of the civil defense and continental defense programs were variously estimated by Dodge's and Wilson's

staffs as likely to add $4 billion or $5 billion a year to defense costs

from 1955 through 1958; the Joint Chiefs doubted whether they could be

funded "under the limitations imposed by current fiscal directives" except

at the expense of other programs. NSC 141 was returned to the staff for

further study. The administration needed, said the president, to devise a

"reasonable and respectable" defense posture that would provide adequate

security "without bankrupting the nation."20

At the 18 February meeting Budget Director Dodge detailed the

implications of all the Truman programs: a grim procession of deficits

starting with $6 billion in the current year, rising to $15 billion in FY 1955,

and declining to $12 billion in FY 1956 and $6.5 billion in 1957, before

finally balancing out in FY 1958.21 Particularly discouraging about Dodge's

recital was that unlike his earlier estimated cumulative deficit of $56 billion

this one assumed certain reductions in the Truman programs. Foreign aid

appropriations (including military assistance) were left intact for FY 1954

but would decline thereafter. The approved force goals of the military

services were also accepted. But the projected defense budgets envisaged

a 30 percent slowdown in the modernization programs for Air Force and

Navy aviation, as well as curtailment of overseas base development and

industrial mobilization expansion. 22

Commenting on the anticipated cumulative deficit of almost $50

billion through FY 1957, Dodge pointed out that tax receipts were now

approaching the World War II peak as a percentage of national income.

Eisenhower reiterated his determination to put a "price tag" on every new

policy proposal. In apparent frustration, he wondered whether the nonsecurity parts of the budget could not take a larger share of the cuts. The

economy theme carried over into the ensuing discussion of basic national

security strategy, triggered by Secretary Dulles's query, "What ... should

we consider our first line of defense?" Making the hard decisions would

require a grand strategy. The president undertook to answer: The aim, he

said, somewhat elliptically, "was to build redoubts throughout the free

world," to be manned by indigenous forces, in order to get our own people

home. This would require infusing America's allies with the courage to
70 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

defend themselves, based on assurance that the United States would not

let them down. Europe stood in the front line as the most important

bastion. What, Dulles then inquired, did all this imply in terms of programs? Should we rely mainly on atomic weapons or conventional forces?

General Bradley interjected that both capabilities would be needed,

drawing sharp rejoinders from three of his hearers: Dulles and Humphrey

(where would the money come from?) and Wilson (we must take calculated

risks). "All seemed to agree," the official recorder reported, "that a review

of policy was needed."23

During the week that followed, Wilson apparently took a more careful look at the impact that a serious attempt to balance the budget would

have on his department. Government revenue, assuming the tax reductions

mandated by existing legislation and proposals already before Congress,

could be expected to decline from about $69 billion in 1954 to about

$63.5 billion in 1956; thereafter, with the normal growth in gross national

product, it would probably rise. Non-security programs were virtually certain to expand. If budget deficits continued, debt service costs would

also rise. Major national security programs other than Defense were likely

to decline and eventually level off under peacetime conditions. But the

big foreign aid program, comprising almost two-thirds of the total of these

non-DoD security programs, was slated to increase through 1954 and 1955

before dropping off rapidly in the later 1950s. Even if the Truman foreign

aid estimates could be slashed substantially in those two years, staff

calculations indicated that only about $45 billion would be left over in FY

1954 for Defense and military assistance. This amounted to $6 billion less

than the Truman budget estimates. In FY 1955, expenditures for these two

categories were projected to drop to $38 billion. Depending on how much

would go for military assistance, DoD's own expenditures in FY 1954

probably could not exceed $39 billion. 24

The implications were discouraging. With military pay and allowances

and maintenance and operations costs taking about $24 billion a year, less

than $15 billion annually would remain for the "hard goods" procurement

and construction programs of the military services. Even immediate action

to slow down current departmental expenditures, running at an annual

rate of about $46 billion, would have little appreciable effect before late

summer or fall. It would be necessary to reprogram outstanding contractual arrangements, to replan existing military commitments, and to place

in reserve a substantial part of the $15 billion not yet obligated for major

procurement and construction programs. Basic production schedules

would have to be lengthened and replanned, since unliquidated obligations

for aircraft, ships, tanks, guns, and other major materiel stood at $66

billion at the end of January. There would be, in fact, no need for new
Shrinking the Truman Budget 71

obligational authority during FY 1954 for major procurement; that component of the Truman budget would simply be wiped out. Force and

modernization goals approved early in the Korean War-a modernized

naval and Marine Corps air arm, a 143-wing Air Force, the Navy's shipbuilding and modernization program-would be unachievable within the

funds available for procurement. Military manpower, mainly Army, would go

down by only 50,000 to 60,000 in FY 1954. But in 1955, with the cessation

of hostilities in Korea and the curtailment of equipment and base programs, the three services would have to scale down their manning levels

an estimated 17 percent, from the existing 3.6 million to about 3 million.

Many bases and posts would have to be closed down, and research and

development funds cut by about $500 million per year. In short, rearmament would come to a halt and military strength would decline. 25

Opening Skirmishes in Congress

Wilson seemed in a somber mood when he appeared on 24 February

before the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee for a preliminary hearing on the proposed budget. It could hardly be

expected that the new secretary, after only four weeks on the job, would

say anything very specific or revealing about the budget, and the committee members, with one or two exceptions, did not press him. He did make

revealing comments about his management philosophy, mainly during

a long sparring match with the most inquiring of the three Democrats

present, George H. Mahon of Texas. Mahon's questioning reflected his

party's dilemma on defense spending in the new administration: trying

to be responsive to the public clamor for both economy and security while

reluctant to be unduly critical of the Truman budget proposals. It developed

that he was interested in savings that might be gained through increased

efficiency in procurement. Wilson responded that he did not consider

that to be "our primary job." Getting procurement costs down depended

ultimately on reducing production costs. He saw his most important

responsibility as running the huge defense establishment more efficiently

by improving its management and organization. 26

Wilson refused to be drawn into a discussion on managerial technique.

Good management came close to being an end in itself; he looked for no

dramatic short-run savings, and tangible rewards only in the long haul. "If

you did away with all of the people in the Pentagon, that would not help

you much on the budget; perhaps $150 milli.on if you just blew the whole

place up and then you would probably have to spend $2 billion out in

the field because you would not have any supervision at all."27
72 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

What little Wilson had to say about the new budget, particularly

against the background of current gossip about impending slashes in

defense spending, was startling enough. It embodied, he thought, "what

our military [the Joint Chiefs of Staff] think is necessary." It was not, he

declared, a politically motivated document. Wilson refused to pinpoint

major areas of potential savings, and he had no plans to change major

objectives, not even the Air Force's 143-wing program. His central problem

was to steer a course between the outflow of cash to meet current defense

needs and the needs of approved goals and commitments in future years.

Currently, the rate of expenditure exceeded the budget rate by at least $5

billion, the difference between the $41.2 billion of new obligational authority requested and the estimated $46 billion-plus (McNeil's office estimated

more nearly $48 billion) expenditure for FY 1954. This was a reversal of

the normal wartime experience in which appropriations ran far ahead of

expenditures. Now the pressure to reduce spending ran counter to the wargenerated momentum of still expanding programs and accelerating rates

of output. His remarks clearly indicated that, for the moment at least, he

was at a loss where to start to cut the Truman budget. 28

Wilson pointed out in his opening statement that the proposed budget "contemplated achieving certain standards of readiness in the Army,

Navy, and Air Force by certain dates." Significant reductions, apart from

savings through improved operational efficiency and better organization,

would have to come from "a reappraisal of the dates on which the necessary degrees of preparedness ... are to be brought about"29 -Le., a stretchout. The hint was not picked up, either in the hearings or in the press.

Newspaper stories and radio commentators told the country that the

administration saw no possibility at present of reducing the Truman budget without endangering national security, prompting Senator Taft and

other senators from both parties to publicly retort that if the administration could not cut the budget, Congress assuredly could. 30

That same day Wilson told the NSC that very little could be squeezed

out of the Truman budget unless the administration was prepared either

to re-examine approved national security objectives or to stretch out the

buildup. Thus challenged, Secretary Humphrey restated his view that to

balance the budget the Truman proposal would have to be reduced by $5

billion to $6 billion, and surgery on this scale could only be performed

on the Defense and mutual security programs. When the council met the

following day the president's special assistant, Robert Cutler, said that by

comparison with Defense, all the other government programs were mere

"chicken feed." The president agreed but made no decision, saying he

wanted further information. 31
Shrinking the Truman Budget 73

Initial Attacks on Spending

Baffled though he was by the difficulty of making deep cuts in planned

outlays for FY 1954 and beyond, Wilson lost no time in getting on with

the more urgent and essentially simpler task of slowing the rate of current

spending. Dodge's letter of 3 February had laid down firm guidelines for

reductions; Wilson immediately circulated the letter within DoD and followed up with a series of implementing directives. His first freeze order on

4 February directed an immediate halt to new construction contracts

pending a careful review. Service secretaries were required to certify the

essentiality and report action to OSD. Looking further ahead, he ordered

the military departments on 7 February to reassess for each program "the

urgency of proceeding at the planned rates" while expending available

funds "in such a manner as to reduce the need for additional appropriations in FY 1954."32 To bring the obligation of funds under OSD control

McNeil also directed the service secretaries to place in administrative

reserve all remaining unobligated FY 1953 funds "in order that these

funds will in fact be subject to administrative action at the time we discuss

the FY 1953 and FY 1954 budgets."33

Wilson also moved qUickly to freeze civilian employment at the

31 January level of 1,271,000 with specific injunctions against using military personnel to fill civilian vacancies. There followed a month later a

general DoD directive to reduce civilian employment worldwide by three

percent over the next three months. In mid-May Wilson reported that

total civilian employment had already fallen to 1,243,000, well below the

31 May target, and further reductions were in prospect. 34

The effect of these actions on current spending was not easy to determine. Civilian personnel cuts, while useful as ammunition in congressional hearings, could not affect Defense expenditures for weeks or months

because of the red tape involved. In any case, the numbers amounted to only

a tiny fraction of the almost five million people, military and civilian, who

worked for DoD. Undoubtedly, the flurry of economy directives sifting

down through the bureaucracy in February and March served to dispel

lingering assumptions that the attack on spending would not begin before

the morning of 1 July. A more immediate effect was a loss of momentum

in the pace of military construction. McNeil told the House Appropriations

Subcommittee late in February that the Navy construction program would

inevitably be delayed by several months. 35 The emphasis on construction

was important, since it accounted for a large and growing segment of the

Defense budget.

Wilson and McNeil anticipated that the most important effect of

the economy measures of February and March would be a "psychological
74 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

slowdown" in the defense business community that could make a

difference in expenditures of a billion dollars in a given year. On the

strength of this expectation, McNeil predicted that Defense expenditures

in FY 1954, even without any major cuts in the Truman programs, might

fall $1-to-2 billion short of the $48 billion he had estimated in December.

But psychological forces alone could hardly produce the much deeper

spending cuts being demanded. Something like $20 billion of DoD's annual

expenditures went for the existing size, composition, and major equipment of the armed forces, the consuming corpus of the establishment.

Economies in equipment operation could come only from such risky

expedients as reducing monthly flying hours or ship steaming time.

Big savings could come only in procurement of major equipment and

in construction. 36

By the beginning of March Defense spending was beginning to

slacken. 37 On 20 March Wilson stated publicly that as a result of his freeze

orders it had fallen to a monthly level of $3.6 billion, where he hoped to

hold it during FY 1954. That would mean total expenditures of $43.2

billion. To do so it might be necessary to resort to such expedients as

slowing troop training, lowering draft calls, or even reducing temporarily

the size of divisions in training, since so much of future expenditures

would go for major equipment already contracted for. 38

Dodge's Budget Exercise

Wilson's projected expenditure of $43.2 billion for FY 1954 was

well above the level that the budget balancers had in mind. In going

public with it at this time, he could face accusations of attempting to

foreclose decisions yet to be made at higher levels. In the NSC meetings of

24 and 25 February an impasse had been reached between Wilson's view

of how much could, and Humphrey's insistence on how much must, be

sheared from the Defense budget. On 4 March Dodge presented a new

proposal, presumably reflecting discussions during the preceding week

with the president and the treasury and defense secretaries. To explore the

security implications of actually achieving balance in FY 1955 Dodge

proposed a novel exercise. Each of the major national security· agencies

(Defense, Mutual Security, Atomic Energy, etc.) would be assigned an

arbitrary "illustrative" expenditure ceiling for each of the two fiscal years

and instructed, within this framework, to work out the best possible distribution of funds and organization of assets. In the short time before

presentation of the finally revised budget to Congress, it would not be

possible to consider alternative divisions of the deficiency, but the views
Shrinking the Truman Budget 75

of the major claimants could at least be weighed in the making of final

decisions. Dodge's proposal secured acceptance after a short discussion.

The ceilings were $6.8 billion below the totals currently projected for all

the national security programs in 1954 and $14 billion below those in

1955. The deepest percentage cut fell on the Mutual Security Administration, which would be reduced 26 percent below the Truman estimates

for 1954 and 50 percent below 1955 estimates, leaving DoD to absorb

a relatively light 10 percent cut in 1954 and a 21 percent cut in 1955.

Dodge eVidently intended to postpone the most painful surgery of budget balancing until the second year. By comparison, the "approach" in 1954

could appear almost cosmetic. 39

But only by comparison. To Defense budget staffs, still working within the framework and preconceptions of the Truman proposals, the 1954

expenditure ceiling of $41.2 billion seemed low indeed, certainly by

comparison with the $48 billion figure generally considered realistic

within OSD. It posed in stark terms the question whether the perceived

requirements of national security could be reconciled with the necessity

of living within the nation's means. 40

DoD had less than three weeks to inform the NSC of the program

revisions necessary to accommodate the expenditure ceiling and their

expected impact on approved national security policies. Wilson's office

provided for each military department suggested personnel strengths

and internal fund distributions that were labeled "illustrative only." In the

limited time allowed for the analysis, however, it seemed doubtful that

the departmental staffs could explore alternatives very deeply. The manpower ceilings actually contemplated lopping off almost a half-million

people by the end of FY 1955 from the proposed 30 June 1953 strengths

planned by the previous administration and 383,000 from the current

(30 March 1953) level. Each military department was directed to submit

to OSD by 16 March a detailed cost estimate of the forces that could be

maintained by the expenditures indicated, assuming continuation of

hostilities in Korea throughout the two-year period. The Joint Chiefs

would then have four days (until 20 March) to review these statements

and make their own recommendations. 41

Understandably the prospective victims reacted with cries of anguish

and predictions of doom. Denied sufficient time for bureaucratic maneuver and obviously fearing that the so-called budget "exercise" might be for

real, each military department chose its own tactics and responded in its

own way. Navy Secretary Anderson proposed no significant alterations in

the funds and personnel OSD had suggested, preferring to retain forces in

being and put the whole burden of fund cutbacks on maintenance,
76 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

expansion, modernization, and the mobilization base. His Army and Air

Force counterparts found the suggested ceilings altogether unworkable.

Secretary Stevens proposed reducing the Army establishment by the end

of FY 1955 to 1,175,000 men and 12 divisions and stipulated a different

fund structure within the overall ceiling. Secretary Talbott, accepting the

prescribed funding, abandoned the Air Force's 143-wing goal for either

of two leaner alternatives (93 wings and 79 wings), heavily weighted on

the side of strategic bombing and continental air defense. Each service

secretary detailed his own catalogue of anticipated dire consequences.42

The Joint Chiefs agreed. Asked to evaluate service responses, they

simply accepted as plausible the prophecies of catastrophe, adding their

own voices and prestige to the doomsday chorus. Any adjustments in

force structures, they said, must await a thorough re-examination and

redefinition of national objectives and development of implementing

military strategies. Similarly negative in their appraisal of the capability

of the reduced forces to carry out existing policies and commitments,

they predicted that any drastic cutback in U.S. rearmament would prompt

other free world nations to follow suit, leading to a general loss of momentum "if not actual reversal of the trend." They doubted whether the

reduced forces could sustain operations in Korea at the present level after

FY 1954, and foresaw a chain reaction among United Nations forces there

to the proposed withdrawal of Army divisions, which might encourage

the Communists "to seek a military decision through a major offensive."

The United States, they predicted, would be unable to fulfill its NATO commitments beginning in 1954 or to regain this capability in 1956, even if

hostilities ended in Korea; by 1955 the capability to stop the Communists

in any new local war would also evaporate. We might then find ourselves,

short of a general war, isolated and critically vulnerable. The bleak recital

ended with a blunt warning that the Dodge spending limitations would

"pose a grave threat to the survival of our allies and the security of

this nation.,,43

While the JCS were preparing their "evaluation" of the departmental

responses to the proposed expenditure ceilings, McNeil's staff was making mincemeat of most of their substantive findings. All three papers

were riddled with inconsistencies and errors. The Army, for example, had

radically changed its force proposal after dollar costs had been calculated

and had not estimated costs for the support of either the 20-division ROK

Army or the augmented Japanese National Security Force. All three papers

grossly overstated projected procurement expenditures, failing to allow

for production slippages of items such as aircraft and guided missiles. The

Air Force had continued to project construction of four or five major new
Shrinking the Truman Budget 77

installations each year without regard to the proposed cutback to a 79-

wing force. Much of this criticism was probably unfair, even though valid,

considering the limited time allowed the harried service staffs to prepare

their responses. The expectation that the staffs would explore various

alternative force structures, or even coordinate their responses to come

up with a balanced total force, seems in retrospect unreasonable. But some

of the critics challenged not merely the numbers and methodology but the

positions and arguments of the service responses. For example the Navy

proposed a high level of research funding and retention of existing forces

at the expense of modernization and mobilization reserves. The Air

Force's decision to take its stand on a 79-wing structure encountered the

sharpest criticism. "In arriving at this position," complained the OSD staff

analysis, "the Air Force did not ... price out any program except the 79-

wing program. The result ... is that we have nothing provided upon

which judgment can be made. To date, the Air Force has refused to face

up to the costs of a 143-wing program ...."44

Wilson and Kyes apparently had hoped for some exposition of the

internal divergences, both of attitudes and of interests, which they knew

existed in the vast Pentagon bureaucracy. The three new service secretaries might have been expected to be less parochial than the military

chiefs, inherited from the previous administration, even though they

necessarily depended on them for professional advice. The Joint Chiefs

theoretically should have been able to bring a measure of institutional

detachment to bear in their evaluation of the departmental responses,

and had been rather pointedly invited to do so. McNeil had no such expectation. A veteran of many years of Pentagon politics, he was not surprised

by the monolithic reaction of the military departments and the Joint

Chiefs. His attitude was reflected in a scrawled note to Kyes, shortly

before the budget exercise was initiated: Army Secretary Stevens, he wrote,

"will get the same run around all Secretaries have in the Army .... Sure

as h- they will overdo or underdo. They can't be trusted-Stevens, a

babe in the woods.,,45

McNeil rarely committed such sentiments to writing, and his distillation of the staff's analysis for Wilson was carefully understated. "In

general," he wrote, "the Department of Defense should be able to obtain

greater forces than those listed with the dollars stated as being available

in this study, or should spend less for the forces proposed." Even so,

despite all the emotionalism, exaggeration, and methodological shortcomings of the responses, McNeil considered their basic position was

sound. "It appears perfectly clear ... that with the expenditure limitations provided in this study, it would be impossible for the U.S. Military
78 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Forces to carry out present commitments in FY 1955, and it also appears

clear that within the currently forecast revenue it will not be possible to

balance the budget and achieve the present force goals in FY 1954, 1955,

or 1956."46

Wilson's report to the NSC on 24 March reflected these conclusions:

if required, the Defense Department "could find the means to maintain

somewhat larger forces than those indicated" and otherwise to "improve

on the situation." Nevertheless, the general comments of the Joint Chiefs

could be taken as a "rough approximation" of the consequences that

might be expected if the proposed expenditure limitations were imposed.

Wilson added a warning, almost certainly suggested by McNeil, that drastic

limitations on Defense spending at the existing stage of the rearmament

program would reduce the rate of procurement to a point where it

would not support a buildup. Moreover, there would occur sudden and

severe changes in plans, schedules, commitments, and capabilities that

would result in waste and dislocation. 47

Key Decisions

Thus, when the NSC met on 25 March for the budget showdown,

Wilson's conclusions were already on record, including his estimate,

released to the press, of $43.2 billion for expenditures during FY 1954. At

the NSC meeting the prospective victims of Dodge's proposed spending

cuts lined up in solid opposition: Wilson, flanked by Frank Nash of ISA,

the service secretaries, and the Joint Chiefs. Invited to make brief statements, one speaker after another made his case against the proposed cuts.

The president and Secretary Humphrey manifested growing frustration.

Following the DoD presentations Eisenhower remarked acidly that perhaps a further study was needed to indicate "whether national bankruptcy

or national destruction would get us first." He wondered whether the

effects of spending reductions would be less severe if more of the

burden were shifted from FY 1954 to FY 1955 and later years. 48 This

meeting reached no firm conclusions. It seemed clear, however, that the

prevailing sentiment opposed such deep expenditure cuts, and that the

warnings of the Joint Chiefs, voiced by General Bradley, had made

an impression. 49

A special day-long session of the council on the 31 st took the form

of a series of briefings by the NSC members for a group of seven special

consultants appointed by the president three weeks earlier. Later dubbed

the "Seven Wise Men," these prominent individuals, most of them industrialists, included such notables as lawyer Dillon Anderson, James B. Black,
Shrinking the Truman Budget 79

chairman of the board of Pacific Gas and Electric, and Eugene Holman,

president and chairman of the board of Standard Oil of New Jersey. The

president had stressed that the consultants should express their opinions

as individuals rather than as a committee and would be expected to assist

in the appraisal of all aspects of national security policies and programs;

he wanted a "fresh view," not a consensus. 50

Discussion of the 1954 budget took place in the context of a wideranging review of the national security scene, including Moscow's current

"peace offensive," the armistice stalemate in Korea and the feasibility of

breaking it by an all-out offensive (including use of atomic weapons), the

crisis in Iran, civil defense, and nuclear power issues. In a sober assessment, Secretary Dulles repeatedly warned against muscle-cutting economies, especially in foreign aid, that might endanger the nation's security.

Such cuts could risk the loss of vital outposts around the periphery of

the Soviet bloc, or the collapse and leftist takeover of shaky governments

in European countries. The greatest danger of a general war, Dulles feared,

could arise from a Soviet miscalculation of American intentions, resulting

from deep and sudden cuts in the Defense budget. He reminded his hearers

that Europeans had come to believe that the advent of a Republican

administration would mean a return to isolationism; and a sudden cut in

American defense spending might cause a panic abroad unless accompanied by dramatic compensating moves, such as tariff reductions and

similar confidence-building measures. Dulles felt it imperative, particularly

at this critical juncture, for the United States to maintain pressure on the

Soviets, "psychological and otherwise." The death of Stalin had, for the

first time in many years, created a real possibility of either bringing about

the collapse of the regime or transforming the Communist world from an

aggressive Moscow-dominated bloc into a purely defensive coalition. How

much the effort would cost in dollars he could not say, and it would undoubtedly fluctuate but it must not be abandoned. He thought $6 billion

a year for foreign aid was "probably reasonable."

Dulles's earnest plea for restraint in cutting national security spending constituted the centerpiece of the long NSC meeting and may well

have influenced its outcome. He was by no means preaching to the choir.

Humphrey stuck to his hard line, repeating his warning of a $3 billion

revenue deficit in June. The seven consultants also sounded the economy

theme. Dillon Anderson, their principal spokesman, criticized the "profligate" use of military manpower and the attempt to "purchase" loyalty and

friendship abroad through foreign aid, drawing a retort from the president

that without foreign aid many European countries would surely have gone

Communist, and it would be folly to abandon them now. Eisenhower also
80 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

reacted sharply to a suggestion that the five U.S. divisions in Europe provided a merely psychological rather than a physical deterrent to the

Soviets. The consultants supported "drastic" cuts in the mutual security

program as a whole, though they were willing to except portions of it

based on prior commitments or with clear defense implications.

Wilson steered the discussion toward the specifics of the Defense

budget. Despite progress in rearmament over the past three years, he said,

to achieve by 1956 the force and readiness goals set forth during the war

would require DoD expenditures of $45 billion annually over the next three

years, and $40 billion per year thereafter. He favored an alternate approach,

based on the assumption of a "floating D-day," without specific readiness

dates. Defense spending could then be reduced immediately to about $41

billion in the coming fiscal year, plus another $2 billion to finance the war

in Korea. With further reductions in subsequent years, expenditures could

be brought down to perhaps $33 billion by 1958. Even with such reductions, Wilson believed it possible to maintain present military strength

substantially intact over the next two years, a crucial consideration because of the effect on opinion abroad. From 1956 on, "we would be less

well off." As for appropriations in FY 1954, Wilson thought that to cut

more than about $5 billion from the Truman budget would invite the

charge that the United States "was abandoning a serious defense effort for

itself and its allies."

No one challenged either Wilson's figures or his reasoning. The

president said simply that he was "satisfied." Whether Wilson had succeeded in changing anyone's mind may, however, be doubted. The kind

of budget he proposed was perhaps marginally less objectionable to the

security-minded than to the budget balancers in his audience. Presidential

assistant Robert Cutler's attempted summation of the "consensus" at the

end of the meeting was a masterpiece of empty generalities: existing

national security policies (no mention of goals, strategies, or target dates)

were "appropriate and reasonable," the administration would "approach"

the balancing of the budget "as rapidly as possible," and in so doing would

adjust programs to policies rather than the reverse. Nevertheless, Wilson

was instructed to go back to the drawing board and recommend expenditure objectives for FY 1954 that would not endanger national securityY

The Interpretation ofNSC 149

So the debate went on, but clearly the end was in sight. The revised

budget should have been in the hands of the budget staffs earlier for the

final markup, and the services would still have mountains of work to do
Shrinking the Truman Budget 81

after they received the guidance OSD had not yet provided. The whole

revised budget needed to go to Congress at the beginning of May. The

president would have to decide-and soon.

The Defense bureaucracy had not been waiting idly for firm guidance.

Detailed work based on tentative assumptions had been under way ever

since Dodge's 3 February letter. On 26 and 27 March an OSD staff analysis

of the FY 1953 and FY 1954 budgets proposing new fund apportionments

for major programs was distributed to the military departments, precipitating a new round of interdepartmental negotiations that continued

past mid-April. Meanwhile, Wilson had made his proposals to the NSC on

31 March, and on 3 April the NSC staff produced a new projection (NSC

149) of total national security costs over the next three years. Expanded

and revised to provide definitive outlines of the FY 1954 military programs

as the basis for the budget to be submitted to Congress, the paper was

adopted by the council on 22 April and signed by the president on the

29th as NSC 149/2.52

The revised FY 1954 Defense budget that emerged at the end of April

adhered to the outline Wilson had sketched for the NSC a month earlier.

Through all of its versions, NSC 149/2 projected the cost estimates he

had proposed on 31 March. Expenditures would decline from $43.2 billion in FY 1954 to $40 billion in FY 1955, and to $35 billion in FY 1956.

Overall, the requested appropriations for FY 1954 were "up to $5 billion"

less than the $41.3 billion in the Truman budget. This included $2 billion

to continue Korean hostilities at the current level and build up the ROK

army to 20 divisions. But Wilson's blunt prediction that rearmament would

come to a halt had disappeared. The opening paragraphs, following a ritual

denunciation of deficit spending, flatly stated that the proposed expenditures for FY {954 and FY 1955, while moving only gradually toward

budgetary balance, would "provide greater force strength than we have

today-in the United States, in NATO, and in the Far East." The promised

military program, unfettered by any "specified" D-day readiness date,

would provide a "steady improvement in defense capabilities, with a

substantial base for full mobilization in the event of all-out war."

The reassuring tone of NSC 149/2 was no doubt responsive to the

pressures upon Wilson to promise more security at no increase in cost or

at lesser cost. Translating dollars into security was a great deal less than

an exact science; honest men could easily differ over how much security

a budget of a given size could deliver. On the other hand, the shift in the

official DoD position involved more than nuances. Wilson had told the

NSC on 31 March that spending at the levels he proposed would serve

only to maintain U.S. forces in being for two more years and thereafter
82 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

they would decline. Three days later NSC 149 asserted that the same

spending would support continued growth in military strength. Wilson's

31 March remarks had an impromptu quality and were couched mainly

in generalities; NSC 149 was a thoroughly staffed, carefully phrased document packed with specifics and nice distinctions. Its specifics, however,

seem more consistent with Wilson's 31 March generalities than with its

own. The most conspicuous provision, a military personnel reduction of

250,000 to start immediately and be completed by the end of 1954, was

100,000 more than the FY 1954 cut in Dodge's late unlamented "illustrative" budget. It was mitigated somewhat by deferral of 56,000 of the

total cut in Army and Marine Corps strength for the duration of Korean

hostilities and by the requirement that the entire cut be taken in noncombat units. Even so, overall military strength would decline immediately

rather than three years later.

Behind its generally soothing language, NSC 149/2 in fact signaled a

re-examination of all existing expansion programs. The force and readiness

goals laid down earlier in the war could not be achieved by FY 1956 or FY

1957 without undermining the nation's economic health. The entire military program would have to be stretched out. More fundamentally, the

military program would be reviewed and modified from time to time

as a result of "periodic recommendations from the Joint Chiefs of Staff

and in view of changing tactical, strategic, and economic considerations

throughout the world." It would be farfetched to detect in these diffuse

phrases a rumble of the impending restructuring of American strategy

and forces. In April 1953 the New Look had not yet taken form, even as

a concept, and NSC 149/2 contained no hint of its central themeincreased reliance on nuclear weapons. It did, however, foreshadow a

general leveling-off of American rearmament under the same economy

pressures that were eventually to shape the New Look. It was ironic that

the service that was to become the New Look's prime beneficiary, the

Air Force, was the one that reacted most sharply to the paper's implied

threat to the continued growth of airpower. 53

The Air Force Reacts

On 13 April Wilson directed the three military departments to

accomplish no later than 30 June 1954 the non-combat personnel reductions specified in NSC 149: 125,000 for the Army, 75,000 for Navy and

Marines, 50,000 for the Air Force. 54 This ostensibly routine action

precipitated a confrontation with the Air Force. Replying on the 17th to
Shrinking the Truman Budget 83

Wilson's directive, Air Force Under Secretary James H. Douglas outlined

how the Air Force intended to make the reductions. Two Air Force wartime

missions were vital to the nation's survival: the strategic air offensive to be

launched against the Soviet Union immediately at the beginning of hostilities, and the air defense of U.S. population and industrial centers. A third

major mission, tactical support of U.S. ground forces, had a lower priority.

Within the new level-off strength of 915,000 to be reached by the end of

FY 1954, the Air Force could not continue to expand toward its approved

goal of 143 wings. Of necessity, therefore, its force structure would have

to be modified in order to carry out its highest-priority missions. Within

the specified strength of 915,000, Douglas asserted, the "least undesirable"

force composition that the Air Force could attain and support was 106

wings, which would include the entire complement of strategic (57) and

air defense (29) wings planned for the 143-wing force. Because of the

reduced number of tactical wings remaining (20) and personnel requirements elsewhere, the Air Force would be able to provide only 10 of the 28

wings of its commitment to NATO forces over the coming three years. 55

The Air Force had employed the same tactic in its counterattack on

the proposed expenditure cuts in March, in effect threatening to radically

alter its planned force structure to preserve intact a capability to fulfill

favored missions at the expense of less favored but still vital ones. The

tactic could be highly effective, for it might force a difficult choice on

decisionmakers at higher levels: reassign the orphaned missions to another

service, with the unpleasant consequences ensuing from another public

"roles and missions" controversy, or provide the Air Force the wherewithal

to carry out all its original missions. The second alternative, although unpalatable since it involved capitulation and restoration of the status quo

ante, was clearly the more rational choice. The Air Force's leaders, less

convinced than Wilson and his superiors of the overriding need for

economy, must have gambled heavily that OSD would adopt it. 56

As in many institutional disputes, other options lay between the two

theoretical extremes. OSD recognized that in building toward its distant

but still officially approved goal of 143 wings the Air Force faced problems

in many respects more severe than those of the other services. For the

Air Force, the strength reductions mandated by NSC 149/2 would be

especially difficult because of the need for a large training pipeline during

a period of increasing wing strength. OSD Comptroller staff calculated

that the Air Force would have to reduce its total personnel from about

990,000 at the end of FY 1953 to 915,000 a year later.* The Air Force

• This was a reduction of 75,000 compared with the 50,000 reduction Wilson had

directed shortly before.
84 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

claimed that its allowed net intake of only 62,000 would not suffice to provide

a training pipeline for the much larger intake expected in the following

year. For this reason, the OSD staff felt that the target date for meeting

the 915,000 objective should be extended a year to the end of FY 1955.57

The Air Force had won its point. OSD's recommendation, based on the

analysis by McNeil's staff and duly incorporated in NSC 149/2, approved

on 29 April 1953, gave the Air Force an additional year to reach its

reduced strength of 915,000. This would provide an average strength of

970,000 during FY 1954, ensuring a capability to support at least the 106-

wing structure proposed. OSD took the position, however, that this force

should be regarded as an interim objective, and that the Air Force should

continue to work during FY 1954 toward the increase in the number of

combat wings that NSC 149/2 would stipulate.58

Like most compromises this one contained the seeds of future disagreement. The Air Force wanted to work toward its 143-wing goal and

to attain it as rapidly as possible, but it was reluctant to commit itself

to an interim objective for FY 1954 larger than 106 wings. OSD, reasonably confident that a force of 114 wings could be attained by the end of

FY 1954, wanted the Air Force to make the effort "both as an incentive to

get all we can out of the resources and with the knowledge that any

subsequent adjustment would not be of a magnitude as to be disruptive

in character."59 OSD analysts seriously doubted, however, that a 143-wing

force could be achieved by the end of FY 1956 within the expenditure

framework of NSC 149/2, and Air Force leaders were well aware that

repeatedly stretched-out programs seldom survived unscathed. If a

balanced force capable of performing all the Air Force's missions was a

receding possibility, the preferred fallback goal, given the predilections of

the Air Force leadership, was a force heavily unbalanced in favor of the

strategic and air defense missions. Proposed alternatives in late April

looking beyond the end of FY 1954 all involved increasing emphasis on

the strategic and air defense missions. 60

With the personnel ceilings authorized in April, the Air Force could

continue to expand, albeit at a moderate pace, toward the 143-wing force.

McNeil's staff warned in mid-April that the Air Force's heavy funding of

procurement of long lead-time items for that force had already built up a

large commitment which would be difficult and expensive, in terms of

contract cancellations, to reduce. But the more immediate Air Force concern, as reflected in the 106-wing proposal, was to build hedges against

future imposed cutbacks in the expansion of SAC and Air Defense Command by hastening the equipping of those wings, if necessary at the

expense of the expansion of the total force and particularly the tactical

component. NSC 149/2 left this broader issue unresolved. 61
Shrinking the Truman Budget 85

The Pressure of Unexpended Funds

NSC 149/2 contained a thoughtful reminder that "the FY 1954 budget

must be distinguished from cash expenditures in FY 1954." Like earlier

appropriations, not all of those for FY 1954 would actually be obligated,

much less spent, in the year they were voted. Expenditures during FY

1954 would come both from unexpended prior year appropriations and

from funds to be appropriated in FY 1954. 62 Expenditures during FY 1954

were not prescribed but estimated at approximately $43.2 billion and at

successively lower levels in subsequent years. The revised DoD budget,

when presented, would be accompanied by a letter from Dodge to the

secretary of defense stipulating that DoD expenditures during FY 1954

should "be held to a level of about $43.2 billion." The latter injunction

represented an internal administration requirement, not a commitment

to the Congress; changing Defense needs during the ensuing 12 months

conceivably could cause it to be revoked or relaxed. 63

Congress had, of course, the power to impose ceilings on expenditures,

and there was growing concern in OSD that with the declining intensity

of hostilities in Korea this power might be invoked. Expenditure ceilings

had the practical effect of holding actual spending well below the levels

projected. Imposition of a legislative ceiling, McNeil advised Wilson,

should be resisted if possible. 64

The OSD staffs had worked on estimating Defense expenditures for

FY 1954 throughout the winter and spring. The most solid basis available

for this crystal ball exercise, the weekly record of current cash outflow,

had dipped from a level of about $900 million in January to about $800

million by mid-March-primarily a reflection, McNeil accurately believed,

of the tendency for production and construction schedules to slip and

contract completions to be delayed as a consequence of a prevailing

expectation in the business community that the new administration

intended to reduce Defense spending. Wilson had already promised the

president on 31 March, and written into NSC 149, that he would save an

estimated $1 billion during the coming year by improved fiscal and

administrative management. He expected other savings from the manpower

reductions directed in March and April and from postponed procurement

of many items that now required less lead time than before since production capacity was established and output flowing. Against these

possibilities had to be reckoned the requirement to plan on a continuation

of Korean hostilities, albeit at a low level, through all of FY 1954. Finally,

the administration's business-oriented outlook counseled against any

deep or abrupt cutback in DoD expenditures that would involve wholesale

cancellation and renegotiation of contracts and disruptive changes in
86 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

production schedules. The budget exercise of March had been a sobering

experience, convincing most of those involved in it that a $41 billion expenditure limit would be dangerously low. The target of $43.2 billion finally

decided on, generally regarded as a rock-bottom figure and viable only

through careful management, was almost identical with actual spending

during FY 1953.

The misgivings in OSD stemmed largely from the looming pressure of

unexpended funds. The decision to reduce the FY 1954 Truman budget's

$41.3 billion appropriation request by no more than $5 billion, as explained by Wilson at the 31 March meeting of the NSC, apparently rested

on the "political" argument that any deeper cut would have disastrous

repercussions abroad. There is no available evidence that the figure was

based on a quantitative calculation of any kind. OSD staff calculations,

indeed, pointed to a much smaller appropriation request for 1954 than

Wilson's minimum $36 billion. 65

The process of dividing the projected $36 billion appropriation

among the services had been under way since late March. Since Wilson was

scheduled to make his final budget presentation to the NSC on 22 April,

OSD ended the debate on the 18th with McNeil's recommendations on

service responses to the personnel cut directed five days earlier. After the

stormy squabbles of March, this final phase was remarkably tranquil-a

lull before the pyrotechnics impending in Congress. The services' final

requests for new obligational authority, when added to $1 billion-odd for

OSD and interdepartmental activities, came to $37.8 billion, already $3.4

billion less than the original Truman request. The Air Force asked for a

mere $12 billion, $4.7 billion less than the amount it had fought for so

hard in the Truman budget. Its accompanying proposal for a 106-wing

force, noted above, was less a response to the prospect of reduced appropriations than to a perceived threat that under manpower and spending

restrictions expansion toward a 143-wing structure might be halted. The

Navy, asking for $1.3 billion less than in the Truman budget, repeated the

warnings of reduced staying power and calculated risks that it had made in

March. Only the Army's request was larger than in the Truman budgeta consequence of the inclusion of estimated Korean War costs through

FY 1954 (and six months beyond for ammunition and certain other items).

The FY 1954 Truman budget, like its three predecessors, had left war

financing to be covered in supplementary appropriations. From all these

requests, OSD squeezed out a further $1.7 billion, mainly at the expense of

the Army, for a reduced total of $36.1 billion-within a few million of the

revised total submitted to Congress on 7 May. 66
Shrinking the Truman Budget 87

The chief concern in OSD was the very real question whether the line

could be held on spending. Service estimates of expenditures in FY 1954

added up to some $47.7 billion. OSD estimates, though $2 billion to $2.5

billion less, still ran well above the $43.2 billion target. The reductions

made by McNeil's staff in the services' requested appropriations had been

carefully calculated to provide funds only for those programs that "would

have the least effect on expenditures in FY 1954 and [permit] reduced

expenditures in subsequent fiscal years." Staff analyses warned that to

stay under the FY 1954 spending target, immediate adjustments and

cancellations of contracts on a large scale would be necessary, particularly for the Air Force with its immense backlog of obligations falling due

in the coming year. Beyond these measures and the civilian personnel cuts

directed in March lay the potentially vast but practically elusive cost

reductions theoretically attainable through a concerted management

attack on encrusted inefficiencies and waste throughout the establishment, a theme that administration spokesmen had already raised to the

level of a crusade.67

End-April Outlook

"The results of the 1954 special budget review," wrote Dodge soon

after the revised budget had gone to the Congress, "fall substantially short

of the administration's budgetary objectives." They had, indeed, borne out

his pessimistic forecasts to the president-elect five months earlier. For a

variety of reasons-lack of time, inherited commitments, legislative impediments-"the reductions which it was possible to propose to Congress

represented only the first estimate of what can be accomplished and

cannot be accepted as satisfactory goals for actual results in the 1954

fiscal year.,,68 Dodge's unhappiness derived from the projections of total

national security costs as they appeared at the end of April. While the

Truman programs had been cut back substantially, the expenditure cuts

produced by the three-months budget review fell short by several billion

of those Dodge had proposed at the beginning of March. The total savings

against the Truman projections for the two years were much less than

the $6.8 billion and $14 billion Dodge had hoped for. As a consequence,

while his original predictions of budget deficits for FY 1954 and FY 1955

had shrunk measurably, the administration still faced deficits for those

two years of $5.5 billion and $7.9 billion, assuming expiration of wartime taxes as scheduled. Still ahead, it had to seethe FY 1954 budget

legislation through to passage by Congress.
CHAPTER V

Defense Goes to Capitol Hill:

The FY 1954 Budget

By the time the revised FY 1954 Defense budget went to Congress

on 7 May 1953 the public debate on the new administration's defense

spending program was in full cry. Except for a short press conference on

30 April, the president had refrained from advance public statements, but

his reticence evidently did not inhibit many of his subordinates, and a

briefing for congressional leaders on the 30th generated a fanfare of

publicity. As the congressional hearings rolled on during May and June,

many legislators carried the debate into the public arena, and the president himself made two more important contributions-a radio talk on

the costs of national security on 19 May and an address in Minneapolis

on 10 June.!

The Debate Begins: The Myth ofthe Five Billion Dollar Cut

At the congressional briefing on 30 April, conservative Republican

legislators led by Sen. Robert A. Taft reacted explosively to the news that

the federal budget would not be balanced in FY 1954 and probably not

in FY 1955. Taft accurately predicted that the party would lose heavily in

the elections of 1954 and berated the military for their profligate spending.

"I have no confidence whatsoever," he declared, "in their judgment or

their ability to break away from recommendations they have made in the

past. There should be a complete resurvey of all military demands and a

reduction all along the line." He bluntly reminded the president of his

now broken promise to hold FY 1954 spending below $70 billion and

88
The FY 1954 Budget 89

threatened to call for tax reductions in 1954, an issue on which he had

up to now supported the president. 2

The threat came at an awkward time, for Eisenhower was about to

ask Congress to extend a number of wartime taxes due for early reduction or demise with a view to paring about $1 billion from the impending FY 1954 deficit. The tax battle was joined on 20 May, with the formal

submission of this proposed legislation; it continued through May and

June while the Defense budget hearings were in progress. In his radio

address on 19 May the president dwelt bitterly on the legacy of unresolved

fiscal problems his predecessor had left behind: projected expenditures

of $78.6 billion, an underestimated deficit of $9.9 billion that it now

appeared would exceed $11 billion, a two-year expenditure curve peaking

precisely at the time when revenues were scheduled to drop, an extravagant $41.4 billion FY 1954 Defense budget which made no provision for

continuing the war in Korea or for building up the ROK army, and an

enormous "overhang" of $81 billion in C.O.D. obligations "for which cash

must be found in the tax revenues of the next several years." The request

for new appropriations had been reduced by $8.5 billion, and projected

spending in FY 1954 would be at least $4.5 billion less than previously

planned. Even so, he warned, American citizens would have to forgo

scheduled and proposed tax cuts. The following January, he would submit

to Congress a comprehensive tax reform program. 3

Most of the opposition to the revised Defense budget came, however,

from Democrats and liberal Republicans worried over its possible impact

on national security. The president aimed his 19 May radio address mainly

at these critics, stressing the now familiar themes: the "great equation" of

economic and military strength and the policy of the "long haul" in defense

without deadlines, D-days, or a year of maximum peril. A sudden, massive attack or an all-out war was not the most likely danger, said the

president, for the Communists knew that the United States could meet

and defeat any major military challenge. Soviet leaders hoped instead,

through the constant threat of military aggression,

to force upon America and the free world an unbearable security

burden leading to economic disaster. They have plainly said that

free people cannot preserve their way of life and at the same time

provide enormous military establishments ....

In our present world ... a crippled industry or a demoralized

working force could be the equivalent of a lost battle. Prolonged

inflation could be as destructive of a truly free economy as could

a chemical attack against an army in the field. If, in today's

continuing danger, we were to strain our capacity until rigid
90 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

governmental controls, indefinitely or permanently continued, became mandatory-where then would be the freedom

we defend?4

In the Defense budget hearings airpower quickly became the central

issue. Because almost all ($5.09 billion) of the $5.2 billion cut in the

Truman Defense budget seemed to be accounted for by reductions in Air

Force programs, the revised budget was trumpeted by the press and in

Congress as an attack on airpower in general. Although the administration

commanded a majority in the two appropriations committees, Wilson and

his team faced a serious problem in making both critics and supporters

aware of the true dimensions of the budget behind the misleading arithmetic. There was no disputing that the Air Force was the principal victim

of the budget cutters, since its original request had been slashed by

about 30 percent. But the Navy's original request had also been cut, a fact

obscured by the net increase in the Army's request resulting from the inclusion of Korean War costs and the buildup of the South Korean army.

Even with the reduced request the Air Force emerged as the only service

whose force structure was slated to expand in FY 1954.

In an important sense, however, the $5 billion cut in the Air Force

budget was a myth. Congress could hardly be blamed for perceiving it as

central, since the revised budget invited-indeed demanded-comparison with the Truman original. Administration spokesmen abetted this

view by citing the cut with pride as visible proof that campaign pledges

to reduce military spending were taken seriously. The fact remained,

however, that the Truman budget estimates of new money for the Air

Force in FY 1954 had become passe even before they reached Congress.

As early as January the Air Force itself was no longer defending them

because lagging aircraft production was pushing some projected deliveries into FY 1954 and later years, thus reducing the need for piling new

appropriations in FY 1954 on the huge backlog of obligated but still

unspent funds from prior years. OSD and the Air Staff disagreed on the

amount of new money needed in FY 1954, and the OSD decision late in

March to decouple the FY 1954 budget from the 143-wing force goal introduced a major new issue on which the parties could agree to disagree as

far as the FY 1954 budget was concerned. The $11.7 billion request

submitted in the revised Air Force budget derived, in fact, more from

negotiation than OSD dictation. The more rabid congressional partisans of

the Air Force would discover, to their chagrin, that, with the sole exception of General Vandenberg himself, the Air Force high command not only

endorsed it but had helped to formulate it.
The FY 1954 Budget 91

In short, by May the $5 billion cut in the Air Force budget was more

apparent than real. This circumstance lent an unreal quality to much of

the congressional inquiry. Understanding came hard to legislators primed

to attack or defend the revised budget in terms of the dollar gaps between

it and the Truman budget, and not at all to those who evidently did not

want to understand. In the hearing rooms, hour after hour and day after

day, respectful OSD and Air Force spokesmen recited the basic facts,

from their respective points of view, to interrogating senators and representatives, some of whom may have been mainly interested in getting

their own tendentious questions into the record or provoking harried or

unwary officials into making exploitable statements. A conscientious few

did their homework and mastered the pertinent facts, and the practical

issue qUickly narrowed down to relatively modest additions to, or subtractions from, the revised budget. But a hard core of intractable airpower

enthusiasts continued to the end to intone the simplistic rhetoric of the

$5 billion cut and the 143-wing Air Force. Their voices, relayed and interpreted to the public in the press, seemed to dominate the debate. 5

The OSD Team Makes Its Case

Making his second appearance before the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Secretary Wilson was its first witness when the

hearings on the revised budget began on 11 May in a relaxed and friendly

atmosphere. The secretary briefly reviewed the salient features of the

revision, the manpower and other economy measures instituted during

the spring, and the abortive exploration of the feasibility of achieving a

balanced budget in 1954 and 1955, culminating in the April NSC decisions

on forces, manpower, and expenditures that pointed to acceptance of the

probability of unbalanced budgets until 1958. He alluded to the president's

30 April press conference, with its emphasis on economic strength, the

strategy of the long haul, and rejection of goal-determining critical dates. 6

Wilson spelled out recent decisions affecting the Air Force: gradual

reduction in aggregate strength to 915,000 by the end of FY 1955, continued modernization and increase in combat strength, despite declining

personnel strength, to 114 well-equipped wings by the end of FY 1954, and

accelerated equipping of reserve units with modern aircraft, all looking

toward an interim goal of 120 wings. The secretary assured his hearers

that the 143-wing goal had not been abandoned but would be re-examined

by the Joint Chiefs that summer as part of the development of the FY

1955 budget. Meanwhile, the aim was to push the growth of air combat
92 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

power, bringing the parallel processes of training, provision of modern

equipment, and base development into better balance.

Why had most of the total Defense cut come out of the Air Force budget?

Because, said Wilson, the Air Force had the most extended commitments.

With a $29 billion carryover, it would still have more than $40 billion theoretically available to spend in FY 1954-$10 billion more than the Army,

$14 billion more than the Navy, and far more than it could actually spend in

that single year. Wilson delivered a lecture on carried-over funds, explaining

that they were a necessary part of any modern military buildup program,

especially in the early stages, when production and procurement lagged far

behind appropriations. This was particularly true of aircraft procurement

because of the long lead times involved. As production difficulties were

overcome and design changes were reduced, as the whole program emphasis shifted from design of new types into engineering and finally into

production, the need for advance financing diminished-again, especially

in aircraft procurement. The Air Force was now reaching this stage; the

Army had reached it about a year earlier, when its requested appropriations had been similarly cut back. 7

With shorter lead times the obligation of new money for procurement

could safely be postponed until some of the backlog of obligated funds had

been liquidated by payments for deliveries under old contracts. Committee

members who had done their homework knew that this trend had been

in evidence for a year or more. During FY 1953 the Air Force had a total of

$25.7 billion in unexpended funds for aircraft and related procurement,

of which only $6 billion was actually spent. Truman's budgeteers, facing

the next fiscal year with $19.7 billion in unexpended money, including

$2 billion not yet obligated, had asked for only $6.6 billion in new obligational authority, $4.5 billion less than the year before. Their successors

reduced this request to $3.5 billion. Added to the $2 billion carryover, this

made a total of only $5.5 billion available for advance financing of new

contracts in the still massive total of $23.2 billion ($19.7 billion plus $3.5

billion) of unexpended funds. Since the Air Force expected, however, to

spend only about $6.3 billion of this sum during FY 1954, the prospect

was that $16.9 billion of unexpended funds would be carried over into

FY 1955-only $2.8 billion less than the previous year's carryover. 8

Wilson explained that extended advance financing tended to throw

procurement out of balance through the accumulation of inventories of

easy-to-produce items awaiting delivery of related long lead-time items.

Also, if advance financing failed to take into account the shrinkage of

lead times, it encouraged the services to foreclose options by committing

money unnecessarily far into the future to weaponry that might obsolesce
The FY 1954 Budget 93

or to quantities that might not be needed. "We do not have to order

another year of the B-52's now, because we have not produced any of

them yet except experimental models. The money is in therefor tooling

up the plant and the initial production. We could decide a year from

now how many more B-52's we wanted."

Wilson failed to include in his opening remarks one of the most

persuasive arguments at his disposal: the revised Air Force budget, despite

deep cuts in requested appropriations and spending, would have very little

impact on the output of new combat aircraft over the coming two and a half

years, which, in the main, were already funded by prior appropriations. But

it was hard to convince the uninitiated or forgetful, without hard numbers backed up by documents, that the same number of new aircraft could,

in the long run, be bought for less money. Air Force partisans suspected

some sort of cover-up, and Wilson proved to be a surprisingly inept witness,

coming to the hearings without the data that could prove his contention. 9

Democratic Representative Mahon, Wilson's adversary in the earlier

February hearings, charged that the 143-wing program was again being

stretched out just as under Truman. Whose idea was it to cut $5 billion

from the Air Force request? Wilson reminded him that the 143-wing program, since its extension by the previous administration, had not been

scheduled for completion in FY 1954 anyway. He asserted that the new

114-wing target (not goal) for that year, unlike previous ones, was realistic

and represented an important increase in strength, but he admitted that

"a few planes" had been rescheduled from late in FY 1954 to FY 1955 in

order "to level out production." The final figures were not arbitrary but

the end product of a detailed analysis of each service's programs. 10

Mahon remained unconvinced, but Wilson and Kyes stood their ground.

While conceding that reduced appropriations now would not affect the

production of aircraft in the coming year, Mahon contended that the $2.4

billion cut in spending together with the $5 billion appropriations cut

added up to a "$7 billion-plus reduction" in the Air Force program. Reduced

appropriations, he insisted, must mean fewer new aircraft eventually, a

slowing down of the buildup of airpower that Congress had ordained and

lavishly funded over the past two years. It was a question of maintaining

momentum. Not so, retorted Wilson: The $2.4 billion represented savings

that would be achieved through improved management, not by restricting

payments for new aircraft. It should be deducted from, not added to, the

$5 billion reduction in appropriations, making a net program cut of only

$2.6 billion. "That," said Wilson, "is a fairer statement than saying it is a $7

billion CUt."l1
94 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Mahon at least succeeded in pinning down the reluctant Wilson on

the question of projected aircraft production under the new budget. In

scaling down an original request of $6 billion-plus for aircraft procurement, Mahon demanded, "How many planes did you cut out?" Wilson

and Kyes resorted to evasive tactics. The dialogue quickly climaxed as

Mahon persisted; Kyes insisted that the bald comparison between total

numbers of planes originally planned and now planned would be only

part of the answer and really meaningless. The new budget projected a

few more new combat aircraft than the Truman budget through December

1955. On the other hand, about 1,200 support-type aircraft-trainers, transports, helicopters, and liaison aircraft-had been dropped from the

program, in many cases with the full agreement of the Air Force. 12

To the Republican members, it became evident that the major points

of Wilson's defense-economy, improved management, program balance,

continued but orderly growth of airpower-were more persuasive than

Mahon's repetitive but undocumented charges that the revised budget

concealed a slowdown in growth. Of the three Democrats, only Mahon

remained hostile. 13

After grilling Wilson and Kyes for the better part of two days, the subcommittee called on McNeil, as the recognized expert on the Defense

budget, to give supplementary testimony. He was a model witnessimperturbable, courteous, attentive, articulate, ready and accurate in his

responses, qualities which Wilson and Kyes did not display to the same

degree. Both, especially Wilson, commanded genuine respect owing to their

standing in the business world, and neither lacked self-assurance. But they

occasionally became irascible when irritated by what they deemed an

unreasonable question, and they experienced some difficulty in communicating with their interlocutors. McNeil, by contrast, was regarded with a

deference that reflected not merely recognition of his demonstrated

expertise, but, even more, confidence in his integrity, a remarkable achievement after five years as a key Defense official and innumerable appearances before congressional committees. Illustrative of his persuasiveness

in congressional hearings were his successive appearances in February,

when he was called on to expound the outgoing administration's DoD

budget (which he himself had helped to frame), and in the full hearings

of May, when he defended the revised budget. On the former occasion, circumstances required him to play the role of a neutral expert who had

followed guidelines laid down by his superiors, not easy before an audience

prone to assume that much sworn testimony was an attempt to conceal

the truth. In May he appeared as both expert and advocate, defending

while explaining. 14
The FY 1954 Budget 95

In his opening review McNeil sliced the budget horizontally, so to

speak, by principal categories (military personnel, maintenance and

operations, etc.), thereby complementing the vertical breakdown by service given earlier. This perspective was hardly reassuring to airpower

enthusiasts: The revised budget for aircraft procurement represented a

68-percent drop within a single budget year-a dramatic indication of

how steeply the trend of such procurement was plunging downward.

More broadly speaking, the reductions from the Truman budget fell largely

in the major procurement and production account (27 percent as compared with the reduction of only 13 percent in the overall budget), and,

within this category, ships and harbor craft (mainly a Navy account) had

also been cut back steeply, by almost 25 percent. The shape of the whole

budget had thus been altered: military personnel, despite manpower reductions, was now the largest single account, rising from 28 to 31 percent

of the whole; major procurement and production, formerly the largest

account, had dropped to second place (from 35 to 29 percent), with aircraft procurement absorbing less than half of that. 15

Both the Truman budget and the expected new FY 1954 program,

said McNeil, used as a base former Secretary Marshall's "high plateau"

concept of limited mobilization. As Marshall had described it, "This is not

full mobilization. This is a raising up of the whole establishment to gain

momentum from which we can open the throttle and go very quickly in

any required direction." The pace of mobilization could be accelerated or

slowed down to deal with the threat as it developed, but once the plateau

had been reached, the partially mobilized establishment "would be one

that might be maintained indefinitely, if necessary, without becoming a

damaging economic burden."16

More elusive, for committee members, were the meaning and practical

effect of administration rhetoric on rejection of the so-called "critical year"

factor in force and mobilization planning and its replacement by steady

continuous improvement over a period of years. McNeil tried to clarify the

difference. Under an assumed specific D-day, he explained, procurement

managers tended to push the building of mobilization reserves rapidly

toward full prescribed levels without regard for balance, with the result that

readily available items were procured early and in large quantities, while

stocks of hard-to-get items grew more slowly or not at all. In effect, normal priorities were reversed. Production scheduling also tended to be less

efficient than it would have been if projected over a longer period; the

effort to meet planning goals by specific dates caused peaks and valleys

of production. With specific planning dates eliminated, a reasonable rate of

production could be maintained for a longer time and reserve stocks
96 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

accumulated over a period of three or four years; thus less money would

be needed now than would be if the aim were to compress most of the

buying in the next two years. Near-term mobilization reserve targets also

had the disadvantage of premature closing down of production lines with

consequent erosion of production potential. 17

D-day readiness dates, tied to an assumed critical year of "maximum

peril," were successively moved back-from mid-1952 to mid-1953 to

mid-1954-either as the threat failed to materialize or as it became

apparent that readiness schedules would not be met. Production programs were stretched out correspondingly, but since each extension was

relatively short, the psychology of rapid and unbalanced buildup persisted. Perceptions, McNeil noted, differed significantly at upper and

lower levels of the hierarchy. General Omar Bradley, for example, regarded

the new planning dates merely as targets likely to be changed again and

not requiring new computations and schedules, while officers further

down the line had to take them literally and act accordingly. 18

During his testimony on 14 May McNeil communicated a sense of budgeting as a continuous process; successive budgets, however conspicuous

on the political landscape, were something less than the fiscal monuments

that legislators and most administration spokesmen pictured them. The

Truman FY 1954 budget, for example, developed over the spring and

summer of 1952, was based on data out of date by fall, making the final

estimates excessive when submitted to BoB in November. The FY 1953

budget had gone through a similar evolution, with the result that Congress

cut it by $4.5 billion and later mandated the absorption of an additional

outlay of $1.2 billion for a military pay increase, without, as far as could

be determined, causing undue strain. When Rep. Errett P. Scrivner drew

the obvious conclusion, "we could have cut $6 billion more and not hurt

it," McNeil agreed and conceded that in six months, if all went well, some

reductions might become possible. For now, further cuts would be risky;

as it stood, the budget had "room to turn around."19

The two afternoons of hearings (19-20 May) that opened the Senate

Defense Appropriations Subcommittee's consideration of the revised DoD

budget, with Secretary Wilson as the principal witness, contributed little of

substance to the congressional debate. Only 4 of the 15 members attended

both days, and the level of the discussion (senators appeared to be addressing not each other or the witnesses but their elsewhere constituents and

the record) was so low as to preclude any serious exploration of the

issues. 2o The committee may have preferred to husband its time and energy

for the impending sessions with the service secretaries and especially

the star witness, Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt S. Vandenberg.
The FY 1954 Budget 97

Wilson's ablest adversary in this forum was the senior senator from

Maine, Margaret Chase Smith, a dedicated champion of airpower. On this

occasion, however, she engaged in demagoguery, attacking the revised budget with a barrage of 32 blatantly loaded questions-e.g., "Do you plan to

cut out the Strategic Air Command buildup so that the Soviets will be

encouraged in their acts of aggression without fear of retaliation?" -directed

to Wilson for response and simultaneously released to the media. This

scatter-gun format partially masked a purposeful focus on the same

two charges that Mahon had aired so persistently during the House subcommittee hearings-that American airpower was being reduced, through

funding cuts and program stretchouts at a time when the enemy threat

was increasing, and that "someone" in the Defense Department, placing

economy above security and overriding the protests of the military, had

arbitrarily decided that the Air Force budget should be cut by $5 billion. 21

Wilson and Kyes stonewalled, reciting with occasional flashes of

irritation the now familiar litany: the Soviet threat was continuous and

growing, no one underrated it. The Air Force already had more money than

it could possibly spend in the next two years. The 120-wing force was an

interim not a final goal; the new Joint Chiefs would review basic strategy

and force goals in the summer, and their views would be reflected in the

FY 1955 budget; there had been no prior decision to cut the Air Force

budget by a given amount, and Wilson and Kyes had both been "surprised"

by the "statistical result" of the staff analysis assigning most of the cuts to

Air Force programs. The Joint Chiefs had been fully consulted but had not

approved the final verdict since budget approval was not a JCS responsibility. Wilson urged the committee to solicit JCS views directly.22

The Air Force Takes Center Stage

The Senate Subcommittee on Appropriations began hearing testimony

from the service secretaries and military chiefs on Monday, 1 June. Two

days of discussion sufficed for the Army and Navy, but Wednesday the 3d,

when Air Force officials were scheduled to appear, was expected to be a

"fireworks" session. Air Force Secretary Harold Talbott had been quoted

as saying he was "disappointed" with the budget cuts, and retiring Chief

of Staff General Vandenberg, returning from a two-week trip to South

America, not only professed ignorance of the details of the revised budget

but asserted that two weeks earlier he had not known that virtually the

entire cut had been taken from his budget. Sen. Homer Ferguson, chairman of the subcommittee, immediately scheduled a return visit by Wilson

and Kyes to reply to the expected Air Force counterattack. 23
98 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Talbott led off as the first Air Force witness on the morning of 3 June.

A veteran aviation industry executive with experience reaching back to

World War I, Talbott had grown up with American aviation and worked

with the Wright brothers in their famous bicycle shop. A staunch

Republican and bridge-playing friend of the president from pre-nomination

days, when offered a place in the· new administration he had specified the

Air Force post as the only one that interested him. It was clear from his

first few minutes in the witness chair that he had considered his position

carefully, made up his mind, and done his homework. 24

Talbott was an effective witness, his replies cool, correct, and straight

to the mark. But his testimony, ably supplemented by aides, failed to

produce the expected fireworks. In a brief opening statement, he carefully

defined his position. The proposed Air Force budget had his unequivocal

support, generally because, as the president had asserted, it embodied an

optimum balance between the needs of military security and economic

health for the nation, more specifically because he was confident it in no

way jeopardized the timely achievement of the 143-wing force, which he

regarded as still the ultimate goal of Air Force expansion. The scheduled

re-examination of strategy and force requirements later in the year was a

matter of the greatest urgency in view of the revolutionary changes, especially in the development of atomic weapons, that had occurred since the

last formulation in 1951. Whether the 143-wing goal was reaffirmed or not

would be known in less than six months, so that the orderly buildup of

airpower could continue with a minimum of delay or loss of momentum.

The revised budget, Talbott emphasized, thus represented an interim

program calculated to provide a solid base from which the Air Force could

continue to grow. By the end of FY 1954 the Air Force could promise 110

wings, fully equipped and manned; it would also try hard to produce by

then the 4 additional wings that OSD believed to be attainable. Beyond 1954

the outlook was less clear, but for the present the Air Force had undertaken to program toward an interim goal of 120 wings by December 1955,

but with a capability to build rapidly to a still higher level. 25

Not money or materiel, but personnel posed the primary limitation

on the Air Force's planned growth during FY 1954. While building and

equipping new wings, it would be shrinking in personnel. Precisely how

many combat wings could be adequately manned in the total reduced

force was noisily disputed in the Air Force, with echoes occasionally

heard in congressional hearing rooms. The official Air Force view,

stubbornly intoned despite OSD pressure, held that no more than 110

could be guaranteed, although 114 would be attempted. Looking beyond,

120 well-equipped wings might be attained by mid- or end-FY 1956, but

not in a numerically dwindling total force. For the present the issue was
The FY 1954 Budget 99

academic; it would be settled, or overtaken, later in the year in the context

of the big decisions on national strategy and force goals. 26

Senators seemed to find all this extraordinarily hard to understand. 27

They seemed more comfortable with the arithmetic of dollars than of

people and things. Questioning in both Senate and House subcommittees

enabled the Air Force witnesses to give their side of the picture of

"enormous" unspent funds carried over from prior-year appropriations.

Only $3.3 billion of these funds, they pointed out, was still unobligated,

and almost all of this, along with the $11.7 billion of new money requested, was already earmarked and would be committed during the

coming fiscal year. 28

In the Senate subcommittee the ritual question was posed: "Were

the present Joint Chiefs of Staff consulted about this budget?," leading to

the inevitable charade of "amazed" senators, headed by the formidable

Margaret Chase Smith, refusing to believe that the Joint Chiefs, by law,

gave only advice not decisions on the budget. This kind of posturing

was notably absent in the House subcommittee's exploration of the

same question. 29

More revealing, in the House hearing, was the testimony of the

principal witnesses, Talbott, Under Secretary James H. Douglas, and Vice

Chief of Staff General Twining, on the Air Staff's role in the $5 billion

cut. Their portrayal was quite different from the one in the media that

highlighted an autocratic OSD imposing arbitrary budget cuts on a protesting but helpless Air Force. The January budget, according to Douglas,

had been prepared under heavy pressure to build a fully modern 143-

wing force by the end of FY 1955, but by early March the atmosphere had

changed. In the Air Force as well as in OSD, the aim now was to "get the

essential defense with the fewest possible dollars," even to the point of

postponing the 143-wing program. The first big slice had been taken

out by the Air Staff itself well before the OSD decisions of mid-April. An

Air Force proposal of $15.2 billion gave way after more negotiation to the

final OSD proposal on 18 April of an $11.7 billion appropriation request. 30

The reduction of the Air Force budget, Douglas explained, was a

product of interstaff negotiation rather than OSD fiat. But, Mahon

challenged him, was not this willingness of the Air Staff to perform selfsurgery a result of "pressure from ... [OSDj to cut the military budget?"

Disarmingly, Douglas agreed. It was "the only way I personally would expect that such reviews and reconsiderations could, as a practical matter,

be accomplished." Clearly, by March the climate of opinion in the Air Force

was generally receptive to "intelligent" budgetary savings and the original

submissions were no longer considered defensible. The whole budgetary
100 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

process was far too complicated and involved far too many individuals

and organizations to be explained by a simple response to the question

"who decided?"31

The Air Force officials did not, however, merely parrot the official

OSD line, and to some degree they even undermined it. Their repeated

characterizations of the 120-wing program as only "interim," a way station

on the high road to the 143-wing force, seemed to imply that it lacked

merits of its own. "I would be very unhappy about that," said Douglas, "... if

it were not for our confidence that there will be a proper redetermination

with an opportunity to go ahead if the go ahead is indicated." What most

worried Talbot and Douglas was the likelihood, as they saw it, that the

new program might irretrievably retard the Air Force buildup before the

Joint Chiefs could review strategy and propose new objectives and the

administration and the Congress act upon them. 32

Talbott's misgivings derived from the more immediate and concrete

problems that could be foreseen in carrying out the new program.

Deliveries of combat aircraft would presumably continue under the old

schedules, unaffected by reduced appropriations; theoretically, if reorders

were executed by July 1954 and new funding provided in FY 1955, this

part of the 143-wing program could ultimately be completed. But more

than 2,000 trainer and other non-combat aircraft would have to be

eliminated, pilot and other technical training cut back, and base construction postponed. All this meant loss of time and momentum, which

would be difficult to regain if it were decided later to expand beyond the

120-wing force. "We are moving backward," Mahon exclaimed impatiently.

"Every time you reprogram and reschedule, ... you have wasted time, lost

motion, and a delay in the buildup." Talbott blew both hot and cold, but

on the whole took a gloomy view. "There is no use fooling ourselves. This

reduction holds us back to a certain degree. We take a certain calculated

risk while we take a new look."33

By mid-afternoon of 3 June, it became clear from the testimony given

to the two congressional subcommittees by Talbott and his principal aides

(General Vandenberg had not yet testified) that despite some reservations

(and an understandable willingness to accept more funds if offered), the

Air Force officially stood solidly behind the revised budget. The chagrin

of the hard-line critics was evident. In the Senate subcommittee the orthodoxy of Talbott's position was so evident to Senator Smith that she asked

him whether "there is any truth to the reports that retaliatory action is

going to be ordered" against Air Force officers who opposed the budget.

Talbott replied, "I say with a smile I almost resent that question."34
The FY 1954 Budget 101

General Vandenberg's Day in Court

The Senate subcommittee accordingly awaited the testimony of

General Vandenberg, the last scheduled Air Force witness, with high

expectations. For the general public, which had learned little about the

testimony thus far given, the retiring chief of staff was the Air Force

spokesman, the prototype of the war aviator hero. In the days to come,

his utterances were to dominate press reports and analyses of the budget

debate. Most senators and congressmen knew better, but even in that select

forum the carefully phrased and tempered views of the Air Force's civilian

leaders would be generally overlooked or forgotten in the uproar over

Vandenberg's all-out attack on the revised budget.

A man of strong convictions but no maverick, Vandenberg had commanded the Ninth Air Force with distinction in the war in Europe. Since

General Spaatz's retirement at the end of April 1948, he had presided as

chief of staff over the growth of the Air Force and had become the leading

professional advocate of strategic airpower as the nation's primary weapon

against the threat of Communist expansion. The 143-wing program was

largely his creation. A cool and articulate spokesman, still boyishly handsome despite his 54 years, he was an attractive and commanding figure. 35

Vandenberg began by inserting into the record an unclassified version

of the presentation he had made in executive session on 6 March to the

House subcommittee introducing the Truman Air Force budget. It was a

shrewd maneuver. The statement had not heretofore been made public,

and the press promptly picked it up. Its central theme was that rapid

completion of the 143-wing force remained the minimum requirement of

national security-minimum because its adoption by the Joint Chiefs in

1951 reflected an extremely conservative estimate of the strength needed,

following careful consideration of the Air Force's own recommendation

of a 155-wing force. Since its original formulation, Vandenberg stressed, the

requirement had become even more urgent because successive stretchouts during the Truman administration had extended its earliest possible

completion date well beyond the mid-1954 peril point originally projected,

and the growth of Soviet power meanwhile had proceeded even more

rapidly than expected. On 19 March, he reminded the senators, the Joint

Chiefs had warned that any reduction in the 143-wing goal would increase

the threat to the security of the United States "beyond the dictates of

national prudence," and they had repeated the warning on 8 May at the

time the revised budget was submitted. 36

This uncompromising insistence on nothing less than the 143-wing

force was the basic difference between Vandenberg's position and that of

the civilian Air Force leaders who, without renouncing that goal, were
102 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

willing to work toward the interim 120-wing force while awaiting the

new Joint Chiefs' redetermination of national strategy and force goals. To

Vandenberg, the revised budget merely substituted a 120-wing goal for

the approved 143-wing goal without advancing the target date. To label

the new goal as "interim" was, he implied, an attempt to conceal what

amounted to another stretchout. Unlike the other two services, which

had substantially achieved their long-range expansion goals, the Air Force,

largely because of the long lead time required for developing and producing modern aircraft, had progressed only about two-thirds of the way

toward its goals. Now, with most of the problems of research, development, and "debugging" behind it and the end of the road finally in view,

new obstacles-administrative, fiscal, and political-were being imposed.

"No sound military reason has been offered to explain why the Air

Force buildup to the agreed force level is again to be delayed .... We face

an enemy who has more modern jet fighters than we have and enough

long-range bombers to attack this country in a sudden all-out atomic effort.

Rather than reduce our efforts to attain air superiority over the Communists, we should now increase those efforts."37

It was an effective opening statement, full of quotable passages for

the press and cast in a question-answer format that stood up well

under the battering of senatorial interruptions. Vandenberg added little

of substance, indeed, to what the civilian officials had already said,

although he patiently replowed the same ground during almost two and

a half days of grilling by the subcommittee. The senators did not really

want more information, having already listened to far more than they

could digest. Their prime purpose, on both sides of the argument, was

to draw or provoke the general into statements that would fuel the

already inflamed public debate.

One significant addition to the Air Force case did emerge from

Vandenberg's testimony: a coherent argument to the effect that, apart

from the $5 billion budget cut, various "restrictions" imposed on the Air

Force over the past several months had already set back the possible fulfillment of the 143-wing program by at least six months. The restrictions

referred to had, it turned out, all been mentioned in earlier testimonydeferment of contracts and freeZing of advertising for bids resulting in

slippage of the base construction program, civilian and military personnel cuts, the de facto ceiling on expenditures, substitution of lesser

forces than 143 wings as the effective program objective. Since Talbott

and Douglas had already confessed to fears that the program might have

been set back, Vandenberg's calm but unequivocal assertion that this

had happened carried a certain force. The argument focused attention
The FY 1954 Budget 103

on the practical consequences of reprogramming for a 120-wing force.

If and when the 143-wing program was reinstated, however, the delay in

base construction, for example, might indeed put back its achievement.

Similarly, because of the lead times required for training, "if it should be

decided next year that the Air Force will, after all, have 143 wings, it will

then be impossible to recruit and train the personnel for such a force

earlier than 1957." Such piecemeal economies, Vandenberg argued, ignored

the organic character of a modern air force. He emphasized that a shortage

of anyone of the three principal elements of an air force-people, planes,

and bases-would render the force ineffective. To reach established goals

on a schedule required a consistent and orderly program. 38

The decision to continue procuring combat aircraft for a 143-wing

force, while reprogramming everything else for a l20-wing force, had

been widely touted as a saving that would not impair the growth of

real airpower. Actually, Vandenberg charged, it would disrupt and set back

the whole program. Even though some of the new aircraft would go to

modernize units of the Air National Guard and Air Reserve, the reductions

in personnel and in base construction would leave "most of these airplanes without units, people, or bases, and the only alternative is to store

them" until new wings were activated, manned, and prepared to receive

them. Modernizing the Guard and Reserve, although a worthy enough aim,

would not add an iota to the Air Force's ready D-day strength, on which

the nation's survival depended. In a "one-shot Air Force," Vandenberg

reminded his hearers, a reservist pilot winding up his business affairs

in an office 100 miles from the base was of little use to the bomber crew

preparing to take off within 15 minutes. 39

The airpower hard-liners on the Senate subcommittee had high hopes

of making a case from Vandenberg's testimony that the Joint Chiefs'

collective views, and his in particular, had been ignored, and their advice

had not been sought. One of the general's opening remarks seemed to

provide a springboard: "The Air Force did not, and I did not" approve the

reduction from 143 wings to 120 wings as the goal ofAir Force expansionnor, of course, did the JCS. During the ensuing two and a half days a

group of determined senators (Knowland, McClellan, Hill, and Smith) spent

many hours trying to ascertain what lay behind these assertions.

Vandenberg reviewed the history of his unavailing resistance to the

Truman stretchouts and delays in the Air Force buildup, including the

cuts made in the original FY 1954 budget before its submission in

January, and of the rejection by all the services and the Joint Chiefs of

the proposed expenditure limits in the Dodge budget exercise in March.

He explained again his passive stance at the 28 April NSC meeting, when
104 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the total Defense budget had been discussed: "There was no information

[on the Air Force budget] available to me or the Chiefs to comment on,

and therefore there was nothing for me to say"; silence meant neither

acquiescence nor dissent. After learning of the final OSD budget decisions

on 6 May, Vandenberg registered his protest with Secretary Talbott on the

following day. But why, Senator Knowland wanted to know, did he not

appeal (through channels) to the president, as he was entitled to do?

Because, Vandenberg replied, "As Chief of Staff of the Air Force, I do not

feel that my protest is going to be nearly as strong as a protest from

the Joint Chiefs of Staff"; he cited the JCS warnings of 19 March and

8 May, in which he had participated, against any reduction in the 143-

wing program. 40

As the questioning proceeded, the precise nature and timing of

Vandenberg's asserted protest on 7 May became less and less clear.

However it might have been "registered," it soon became evident that the

protest had not been made in writing; "there was no need ... ," Douglas

argued, "[since] General Vandenberg has never varied from his conviction

that 143 wings is required for the defense of the United States." Pressed

for details as to how Air Force officials had reacted to the 6 May OSD

budget allocations, both Vandenberg and Douglas were increasingly vague

on dates and events and no clear answer emerged. 41

So much for the "protest" allegedly "registered" with Secretary Talbott

on 7 May. The battle within the Defense Department for the 143-wing

Air Force had been lost when OSD shunted aside the Air Force's 7 April

budget proposals; indeed, the president's approval of NSC 149/2 on

29 April had doomed it. Accepting that provisional decision (subject to

later modification by the new Joint Chiefs), the Air Force's civilian leaders

sought to negotiate the best terms they could with OSD. The issue of force

goals narrowed down to a difference between 110 and 114 wings as the

objective for FY 1954. On these terms, Secretary Talbott and his civilian

associates went into the congressional hearings committed to support the

revised budget and the interim 120-wing force, knowing that the airpower faction in Congress would take up the larger cause of the 143-wing

force and conceivably might even win, preempting the later decisions of

the new Joint Chiefs. In the Air Force high command, Vandenberg was

thus left in lonely isolation, however large and dedicated his following

among the rank and file. For him on the eve of retirement, the fading

outlook for the 143-wing force, the lodestar of his whole recent career,

must have been a devastating personal trauma, particularly since he was

terminally ill and would die within a year.
The FY 1954 Budget 105

Still, to the airpower hard-liners Vandenberg's testimony had wrapped

up their case that (a) the Joint Chiefs, the nation's constituted experts

on military strategy, firmly on record as irrevocably opposed to any delay

in the 143-wing program, had not been "consulted" in the revision of the

Defense budget; (b) the Defense budget total approved by the NSC on

28 April offered Vandenberg no basis for protest on behalf of the Air

Force since on that day he had no way of determining how much of it

would be allocated to his service; and (c) the president's approval of that

figure on 29 April and OSD's notification of its final budget allocations

to the services on 6 May effectively denied the Air Force chief of staff an

opportunity to protest or propose alternatives. Buried in this stream of

argument, but also fully supported by the general's testimony, were the

facts that the decisions of 29 April and 6 May were made by officials legally

empowered to make them, that the Joint Chiefs had no budgetary

responsibilities, and that the final decisions on the Defense budget, including the allocations to the services, had been preceded by prolonged

and detailed "consultation" (i.e., negotiations) among the staffs concerned.

The congressional critics did not, of course, challenge civilian control

in principle, but they argued that in this instance the military should have

been more intimately involved in decisionmaking. They. charged that

economy-minded civilian officials had overridden or ignored expert

military judgment concerning a clearly visible threat to national security.

Senator Knowland even demanded whether, when top Air Force officials

learned of their new budget allocation, it was "kept a top secret from the

military end of the Air Force?" He seemed unconvinced by Douglas's

reply that "it could not be, Senator.,,42

At the end of his testimony Vandenberg received a gracious expression of thanks from Chairman Homer Ferguson, who had been his most

relentless inquisitor. For the general, however, the high point of the Senate

subcommittee hearings must have been reached much earlier when

Senator McClellan told him: "I am convinced about the 143 wings. 1 do

not need any further argument about that, when you say everyone agrees

that is the minimum that is essential." Repeating an earlier request to

Secretary Talbott, McClellan asked Vandenberg to provide an estimate of

how much more money, over and above the $11.7 billion in the revised

budget, could be expended "judiciously" to this end. 43

The following Monday, 8 June, Wilson made a return visit to the

Senate to rebut Vandenberg's attack and plunged directly into the issues.

The Joint Chiefs had not been asked to approve the revised budget, he

said, because their function was purely adVisory. Their successors would

review all the military programs and make their recommendations in time
106 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

for the preparation of the FY 1955 budget. It was time for a new look, since

all the current chiefs except Admiral Fechteler had now served in that

capacity through four years and as many defense budgets. Wilson assured

the senators that the United States was not going to have a "second best

Air Force." As the air battles over North Korea had shown, "We have the

best airmen and fighter aircraft in the world." Moreover, American longrange bombers were far in advance of Soviet bombers, and improved

models were coming into production.

Wilson referred scornfully to the "narrow, restricted vision" of the

critics who championed the 143-wing program. The administration was

not, at this point, advocating this or any other particular goal, but the Air

Force would, in fact, have approximately 143 combat wings by June 1955,

if Air National Guard and Reserve wings were included. Moreover, there

were nearly 10,000 modern aircraft in the naval and Marine air armsbranches in which the Soviets had no comparable strength. Through

American aid, allied nations would contribute effectively to the strength

of the free world; within the next few years "there will be substantial production of modern aircraft in Britain and Canada along with coordinated

production and assembly of modern combat aircraft in France, Italy, and

other European countries. This, too, must be added to the air equation.,,44

As the hard-liners continued to press Vandenberg's charge, Wilson

insisted that the 143-wing goal for the regular Air Force had been neither reaffirmed nor abandoned. That goal could be achieved-but not

by June 1955, as the Air Force claimed. That possibility had already been

eliminated by lagging aircraft production before the new administration

came to power. Meanwhile, a realistic interim goal of 120 wings by

December 1955, fully manned and modern, had been established. "We are

going to come closer on making good on Vandenberg's dream than

anybody, including his own organization, ever did.,,45

Again Wilson stressed the Air Force's record of spectacularly inaccurate

forecasting of requirements and performance. Since the war began, production had never matched schedules. The schedule now in effect,

approved only the preceding October, had already slipped an average of

12 percent for all types of aircraft, and 22 percent for combat aircraft,

and was now in process of being superseded. "This certainly shows very

poor estimating, a disastrous slippage in the program, or poor coordination and management," and, whatever the cause, it could not be blamed

on the new administration. The new Defense team, Wilson told the

senators, would make a determined effort, by concentrating on engineering and production difficulties, to "actually make this new production

schedule." A conclave of aircraft manufacturers meeting in Washington
The FY 1954 Budget 107

the preceding week had been told "this schedule must be met and we

expected them to do it." If they did, it would be "the first time that a

monthly aircraft schedule in total has been made since the outbreak of

the Korean War.,,46

Wilson commented at some length from the OSD perspective on

the personnel limitations placed on the Air Force. The original cut of

50,000 below the 1 March strength had been postponed a year to June

1955 in recognition of the Air Force's problem of expiring enlistments

in FY 1955 necessitating a large number of replacements for training

in 1954. During FY 1954 the Air Force was to be allowed an average of

970,000 man-years in reaching an end-strength of 960,000. The Air Force

now proposed to take this cut mostly in its elite young pilots in training, reducing the annual average from 12,000 to about 7,200. "An old

military trick," Wilson acidly remarked, "when the civilians push them a

little to try to make them save some money to take something out that

they know the civilians can't stand with." There were other types of personnel that could be reduced with less harm. And, Wilson added, "a little

less passive resistance would be a good help." He cited Assistant Secretary John Hannah's assurance that, "with reasonable effort and desire,"

even the 143-wing force, if decided upon, with all needed backup support

and training, could be achieved within planned manpower ceilings. 47

To Vandenberg's charges of a six-month delay caused by OSD

"restrictions" on base construction projects, Wilson also had tart answers.

McNeil had admitted that this did cause some delay. Wilson promptly

interposed, "You do not get a 6 months delay in 4 months by taking a little

time to do the thing right.... The boys will not have everything they

would like to have, but they never will." He could not resist taking a dig

at General Curtis E. LeMay, whose planned new administration building

at SAC headquarters in Omaha was one of the projects deferred: "I have

had some offices in the past that were not nearly as good as he has now

to work out of."48

If given more money, could the Air Force accelerate its program?

Of course it could, said Wilson. MobiliZing the aircraft industry to higher

levels of output was always a theoretical option. But was the need

urgent enough to warrant the economic disruption and huge additional

costs that would be entailed? At the current level of effort, more money

would not produce more aircraft of the types needed. "You can always

make a list of things that you want to buy," added McNeil, referring to

the "wish list" Senator McClellan had invited Vandenberg to submit, but it

would not mean much "until you go back and look at what you can do

with what you already have.,,49
108 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

At several points, indeed, Wilson seemed to be inviting the senators

to cut even more from the budget. He blandly admitted that there was

"probably a billion or a billion-and-a-half dollars more in our budget

now than we really need" that had been left in the budget "for a little

extra turn-around time or some unforeseen thing." McNeil similarly confessed that a more thorough review of the Truman budget would probably

have resulted in further reductions, and that many of the appropriation

requests would probably turn out to have been in excess of need. The

revised budget, Wilson asserted on another occasion, was "a good, straight,

honest estimate" which he hoped would not be cut further. But then he

wondered aloud whether he should not, like some of his predecessors,

have left in "a little something" for Congress to take out. Chairman

Ferguson's reaction to Wilson's rather coy hints that some fatty deposits

might still remain was one of benevolent indifference, and no one on the

subcommittee seemed inclined to pursue the matter. 50

For the hard-liners, expecting a "wish list" of $3-to-4 billion from

Vandenberg, the very notion of further cuts was of course anathema.

Vandenberg sent his list to Senator Ferguson on 15 June. Wilson's rebuttal

followed four days later. The additional appropriations requested by the

Air Force added up to $1.435 billion, a figure dramatically less than the

$3-to-4 billion bandied about in the hearings; it would leave the revised

budget, thus augmented, still more than $2 billion short of the Air Force's

last 143-wing proposal of 7 April. The additional funds, Vandenberg

warned, would not make good the six months already lost through the

recent "restrictions," but would enable the Air Force to begin moving

immediately "at an orderly rate" toward fulfillment of the 143-wing

program, thus correcting the anomalies caused by reprogramming for a

120-wing force. Assuming that the recently imposed strength ceilings

would be lifted and adequate funding provided after FY 1954, a force of

120 wings and a total strength of 1,035,000 could be attained by the end

of that year, and the full 143-wing force with 1,155,000 personnel in

FY 1958. 51 In his written reply, Wilson bluntly characterized Vandenberg's proposal as "simply a request for more money," representing only

the general's personal opinion and "not substantiated by supporting information or a showing as to the utilization of funds otherwise available."

The usual devastating and detailed analysis by McNeil's staff supported

Wilson's dismissal of the proposal. Clearly there existed no need for the

added financing. But Wilson went further. "The real question, therefore," he

wrote, referring to aircraft procurement, "is whether further reductions

in new authorization for fiscal 1954 should not be made to reduce to a

reasonable basis the 2 1/2 years of financed lead-time which will be
The FY 1954 Budget 109

carried into fiscal 1955." A more straightforward invitation for further cuts

in the already shrunken Truman budget could hardly be imagined.52

Was Wilson's invitation genuine? Of the two appropriations subcommittees, the Senate group, with its hard core of airpower zealots, was

more likely to support the general's proposals, even though the chances

of changing minds might well appear to be slim. Vandenberg's letter to

the subcommittee chairman offered a target of opportunity, which Wilson

could be expected to shoot at, and the proposed budget increases proved

easy to knock down. Their modest size, which surprised the senators,

evidently reflected an appraisal that the Air Force case would not be

advanced by asking for more. In retrospect, this appraisal seems to have

been iII-advised. In the simplistic rhetoric of the budget debate, the opposition's chief target from the beginning had been the $5 biIIion cut in the

Air Force's January budget request, despite undisputed testimony that the

Air Force itself had long since retreated from that figure. For its principal

spokesman now to admit that the administration's revised budget was

less than $1.5 billion under the amount that would suffice to put the

143-wing program back on track, inevitably made many critics wonder

what all the shouting was about. Vandenberg's testimony in the hearings

had received a generally good press, with almost universal praise for

the procedural correctness of his public and official objections to the

reduced Air Force budget, and he made the most of his opportunities to

air those objections publicly in numerous speeches during the remaining

weeks before his retirement. But the substance of his "wish list," when

made public, was usually reported along with Wilson's rebuttal, and,

more often than not, critically.

On 12 June, in his last congressional appearance, Vandenberg endured

a rough going-over by Representatives Scrivner and Hruska of the House

Air Force subcommittee. Although the Air Staff was stiII working on his

budget request, he was able by this time to indicate its approximate

amount. The revelation drew caustic comments, Scrivner confessing

skepticism that so small a sum, added to the $90 billion or so poured

into building up airpower since the Korean invasion, could mean "the

difference between success and disaster."53 Mahon contented himself

with some remarks about the general's distinguished career and a few

perfunctory questions. For the most part Vandenberg endured the ordeal

stoically, betraying his feelings in only one cri de coeur, when Scrivner

pressed him on the time required to build a combat-ready air wing: "I

maintain that no one other than an airman ... really has even the faintest

conception of what is involved in air power or the problems incident to it

.... It is a new arm, with a new concept, that changes almost daily ....
110 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

And what worries me is that we have spent ... $90 billion of the taxpayers'

money to build up this Air Force, and yet for the lack of $2 or $3 billion

more we are going to have the second best air force."54 The general seemed

to realize that he had had his day in court and had lost.

Congress Splits the Difference

When the Defense budget emerged from the House Appropriations

Committee at the end of June, it was clear that General Vandenberg had,

in fact, lost his last fight. Indeed, the committee had treated the Air Force

more kindly than the other services, cutting its budget only $240 million

compared to $689 million taken from the Army and $398 million from

the Navy. Wilson's open invitation to trim the lavish advance financing

of aircraft procurement had been rejected in order to avoid the costs

of contract cancellation. But it explicitly denied the general's plea for an

immediate revival of the 143-wing program. The committee's report

asserted that the interim 120-wing program together with modernization

of the Air National Guard and Reserve would produce an equivalent

result. It showed comparative estimates indicating that a 143-wing force,

once achieved, would cost $2.2 billion a year more to maintain than the

smaller force. 55

More than 60 percent of the cut ($150 million) came in maintenance

and operations, largely from curtailment of planned proficiency flying.

The Military Air Transport Service (MATS) also incurred a substantial

cut. The committee took a dim view of the emphasis by MATS on flight

crew training, recommending that MATS be reorganized as an air transport service and the operation be put on an industrial fund basis like

the Military Sea Transportation Service, with users paying for the cost of

services. It also severely criticized the Air Force for having procured

almost $11.5 billion of spare parts since the beginning of the war, with

an additional $1.2 billion requested for FY 1954, even though consumption had run so low that an unused balance of over $11 billion in stock

or on order was anticipated at the end of FY 1954. It trimmed the military personnel account another $30 million as a reminder to the Air Force

"that a check on little items is frequently a fruitful field for economies."

The committee urged a number of manpower-saving measures

that would permit improvement in the so-called fighting edge, including

reductions in military personnel assigned to hospitals, in numbers of

military bands, clerks, chauffeurs, orderlies, and aides, and in training

support personnel, to levels nearer to Army and Navy standards. It also
The FY 1954 Budget 111

recommended more extensive employment of indigenous personnel

overseas rather than of U.S. nationals, whose pay averaged three times as

much. Air Force research and development was reduced $35 million, "a

little tightening of the purse strings" aimed at inducing more self-discipline

in the initiation of new projects and curbing the steady accumulation of

unexpended R&D funds that had occurred over the past several years,

but without reducing the present level of effort. 56

The Appropriations Committee bill reached the House floor on

30 June. 57 Thwarted in the committee sessions, the pro-Air Force opposition mounted a last-ditch effort, led by Mahon, to push through General

Vandenberg's "substitute budget," as the proposed additions were now

called. 58 Mahon himself led the floor fight with impressive vigor and skill.

But the attack on the administration budget by now had the air of a lost

cause. Mahon reported a rumored threat by Secretary Wilson to flout the

will of Congress by impounding any extra monies that might be voted

for the Air Force, and taunted fellow legislators who supported the

budget for being docile servants of the administration. The additional

funds requested were, he argued, minuscule by comparison with the

enhanced security they would buy; moreover they would leave the Defense

budget, from which the Appropriations Committee had already carved

$1. 3 billion, still comfortably below the total submitted to Congress. 59

Mahon failed in his attempt to portray the president as a harassed

executive who had not studied the budget and had rubber-stamped its

major components, particularly the infamous $5 billion cut. Waiting for

this maneuver, Representative Scrivner, floor manager for the committee

bill, introduced a letter from the president unequivocally affirming "that

this budget represents my own views and bears my personal endorsement in all major particulars"-as he had already made clear on radio

and television and in the press. The letter reviewed his involvement in

various stages of the budget's evolution. Concluding, the president

reiterated his full accord with the budget, adding that he would, of

course, not object if the Congress should discover possible further

reductions that would not endanger national security. 60

The president's letter left Mahon out on a limb. He could only argue,

rather weakly, that according to the testimony the president had not originated the idea of victimizing the Air Force, even though he had approved

it. That decision had been taken in the Pentagon after "the word was

passed down" to cut the Defense budget by $5 billion. But Eisenhower's

familiarity with its contents could not now be challenged. When Mahon's

amendment came to a vote on 2 July, it was defeated, 230 to 161 on a

primarily party-line division, only 5 Republican dissidents and 156
112 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Democrats voting for it. The House then passed the committee-sponsored

bill by a 386-0 vote. 61

The floor debate in the Senate consumed only two days (22-23 July)

and, as in the House, it focused almost exclusively on the Air Force budget.

Like its House counterpart, the Senate Appropriations Committee had

been more generous with the Air Force than with the other services,

restoring almost $200 million of the House cuts as compared to $31

million and $96 million, respectively, in the Army and Navy budgets. On

the other hand, the Senate committee, pointing to an unobligated balance

of $600 million, cut in half the requested $500 million appropriation

for reserve tools and facilities (an OSD account), which had emerged

unscathed from both the House committee and floor debate. Truman's

former secretary of the Air Force, Stuart Symington, now Democratic senator from Missouri, who as a member of the Armed Services Committee

had not participated in the budget hearings, led the floor fight against

the revised budget. The floor manager for the bill was Senator Ferguson,

the committee chairman.62

Symington was a more impassioned, articulate, and even better

informed advocate for airpower than Mahon, and his numerous interventions dominated the two-day debate. As in the House, however, despite

an almost even split between the two parties, the administration commanded a secure, mostly silent majority for the revised budget (which the

committee's amended bill more closely resembled than did the House

bill) while a few opposition speakers held the floor most of the time.

As the result showed, it was a futile effort. There were complaints of

administration pressure to hold waverers in line and intimidate adversaries. With relish Symington quoted McNeil as having threatened on

the telephone that "we are going to get plenty dirty with you" if he

(Symington) took a hard line against the budget. The budget controversy

had, in fact, already cost McNeil some of the low visibility he enjoyed

during most of the winter and spring, and he was increasingly portrayed

by hostile commentators as the evil genius behind Wilson's attack on the

Air Force. 63

Two amendments were offered: a $400 million addition to the Air

Force appropriations request to procure 200 more B-47s (the latest-model

medium bomber) and a modest funding increase to expand annual pilot

training from 7,200 to 12,000. The remainder of General Vandenberg's

"wish list" was swept under the rug. Senator Ferguson effectively demolished the former amendment with a reminder that the Air Force had not

asked for the additional B-47s and could not produce them in FY 1954

anyway, since existing production capacity was saturated. Even so, 37
The FY 1954 Budget 113

Democrats and Senator Wayne Morse, the lone Independent, voted for the

amendment, against the 46 Republicans and 9 Democrats who defeated it.

On the question of pilot training, Senator Ferguson· again was ready: the

Air Force had not yet been able to train even as many as 7,200 pilots a year;

its FY 1953 output was about 6,000, and it expected, with the scheduled

funds, to reach a level of 8,300 in FY 1954. The proposed amendment

fared somewhat better than its predecessor but went down nevertheless, 48 to 41, in a similarly partisan division. Shortly thereafter the Senate

passed the bill by a voice vote.

TABLE 1

Congress and the FY 1954 Defense Budget

($ billion)

OSD

Army

Navy

Air Force

Total

Truman Revised

FY54 Estims. FY54 Estims. House Senate Conference

1.031 1.030 1.020 .770 .770

12.110 13.671 12.982 13.013 12.995

11.500 9.783 9.384 9.480 9.438

16.078 11.288 11.048 11.248 11.168 ---

40.719 35.772 34.434 34.511 34.371

Sources: Cong Ree, House, 83 Cong, 1 sess, 29 Jul 53, pt 7:10341; OSD(C) table,

Congressional Action on Basic FY 1954 Budget Request, 1 May 56, ATSD and

DepSecDef files, OSD Rist.

Since each chamber supported its own committee bill, the two

versions went to conference for resolution. The final compromise,

approved by Congress on 29 July, reflected the spent passions of the

debate in a remarkably even splitting of differences. The Air Force budget

was cut by $120 million instead of the $240 million proposed by the

House (or, with base construction included, $279 million instead of $640

million). The Army lost $676 million, and the Navy budget was reduced

by $344 million. For the Defense Department as a whole, the final budget

totaled $34.4 billion, about $1.4 billion less than the figure submitted to

Congress on 7 May and more than $6 billion less than the Truman

budget. In effect, Congress had taken back from the revised budget the

$1.5 billion "turnaround" allowance that Wilson and McNeil had written

into it. 64 On 1 August President Eisenhower signed the budget bill

into law. 65
CHAPTER VI

Debating Defense of the

Continental Vitals

Defense of the North American continent against air attack, a pillar of

the New Look, bulked large in the FY 1955 Defense budget, but because

many continental defense programs served other missions as well no one

knew exactly how large. Beyond dispute was that the continent's defenses

were perilously weak. Top officials of the outgoing Truman administration, while at least partly responsible for the situation, had made no

bones of the fact. "Our present capability to defend the continental United

States from atomic attack," warned NSC 141 in mid-January 1953 over the

signatures of Truman's secretaries of state and defense and director for

mutual security, "is considered to be extremely limited.... Defensive measures in current programs will not provide an effective defense against

mass atomic attack. The U.S.S.R. will possess, in the period 1954-1955,

the capability to make an air attack upon the United States which would

represent a blow of critical proportions." A month later the Joint Chiefs

confirmed this judgment, adding that defenses against a low-level attack

were "almost non-existent."!

The Legacy

At the end of 1952 continental U.S. air defenses were a legacy of a

piecemeal and uncoordinated evolution reflecting the national preoccupation with the war in Korea, doctrinaire commitment to offense-overdefense strategy, and lingering perceptions of Soviet backwardness in

offensive airpower and aviation technology. Under a 1951 plan the Air Force

had primary responsibility for air defense, but there existed no joint

114
Continental Vitals 115

command or integrated plan. Coordination with Canadian agencies came

through the Permanent Joint Board on Defense established by the two

nations in 1940. The Air Force's Air Defense Command operated a chain

of radar stations and primitively equipped control centers giving an esti"

mated one hour's warning of attack-provided the attackers flew in

daylight and at altitudes of 5,000 to 45,000 feet. A volunteer ground

observer corps (about 70 percent short of its planned strength of 500,000

at this time) provided limited visual coverage at lower altitudes. Of 45

squadrons of interceptors, 39 of them based in the United States, only 20

had all-weather jet night fighters, the remainder jet or piston-engine day

fighters, all armed with World War II-vintage cannon or machine guns.

Current plans provided for expansion of the radar network by FY

1955 from the existing 100 stations to 216, mostly in the United States.

There were no plans to cover the wide approach route through north

central Canada. Planned seaward extensions of the warning system would

use modified radar-equipped Lockheed Constellations, beginning in

September 1954, as "airborne-early-warning" (AEW) aircraft with a 250-mHe

offshore radius, and converted destroyer escorts as radar picket ships

(DERs). By FY 1955 control centers were to be doubled in number and

modernized, and interceptor squadrons increased from 45 to 69, all

equipped with all-weather jets, most of them armed with air-to-air rockets.

At the end of 1952, the Army had 57 battalions of antiaircraft artillery

deployed around the country and 5 more in Alaska; it planned a total of 68

by the end of FY 1954. The Navy counted heavily on the recently developed

LOFAR (low-frequency acquisition and ranging) sound wave system to

detect submarines several hundred miles offshore; the first five of a chain

of nine LOFAR stations along the Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia southward were to begin operating in FY 1955. 2

An Air Defense Command (ADC) study completed in February 1953

explored the probable performance of this expanded and improved

defense system against hypothetical attacks. The study concluded that had

a force of 256 Soviet Tu-4 medium bombers (copied from the American

B-29) attacked 42 assorted Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases, Atomic

Energy Commission (AEC) installations, and large cities in mid-1952, only

15 percent of the attackers would have been shot down before reaching

their targets in a high-altitude daylight attack, and almost none in a lowlevel night attack. Most or all of the targets would have been wiped out.

In a hypothetical mid-1955 attack by a force more than twice as large,

improved radar cover and more interceptors might raise the kill count to

37 percent in a high-altitude daylight attack and to 23 percent in a lowlevel night attack; this scenario involved 114 targets including, besides

the 1952 list, important military installations and industrial facilities.
116 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The study considered urgent a quickening of existing development

programs during the next two years, a period during which Soviet

offensive capabilities were expected to grow more rapidly than American

defenses. Without going into specifics, the study listed the principal areas

needing immediate attention (virtually cataloging the whole system in

the process). It also advocated examining the feasibility of accelerating

development of two distant early warning lines in Canada employing

advanced radar technology. The ominous final recommendation called for

increased vigilance against possible technological surprise from the Soviet

guided missile effort, "which may exceed present expectations."3

Previously, in August 1952, the Summer Study Group, drawn mainly

from the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

had recommended to DoD officials as a top priority construction of a

distant early warning (DEW) line from Greenland to northwestern

Canada. This would give from two to six hours warning of hostile aircraft,

and would have to be supplemented by a second line for tracking and

interception farther south, at about the 54th parallel. The scientists

believed that advanced technology available and in prospect would make

it possible to raise the disastrously low kill rates in current scenarios to

60 or 70 percent, enough to make air defense a practical option and not

merely a forlorn hope. They also recommended development of an

integrated, fully automatic air defense communication and control system

and improved armament and avionics for interceptor aircraft. The Summer Study Group's recommended projects added up to an estimated

several billion dollars, but the group believed that the two DEW lines

could be built for $370 million. 4

By the very weight of its authority, the Summer Study Group had the

effect of coalescing the resistance from the many individuals and groups

within the Air Force and in the national security bureaucracy at large

who feared the impact of the proposed rapid innovations on other

programs. To get the report before theNSC its supporters had to bypass

the Air Force high command and route it through the National Security

Resources Board, whose chairman presented it to the council late in

September 1952, urging immediate construction of the proposed DEW

system. The proposal won President Truman's support and eventually

emerged as NSC 139, approved on 31 December. In this paper the president declared that, because of increasing Soviet nuclear capabilities, "we

should plan to have an effective system of air, sea, and land defenses

ready no later than December 31, 1955" along with well organized civil

defense, industrial security, and post-attack rehabilitation programs. DoD,

he said, should develop by that date a radar screen providing from three

to six hours warning. In November Secretary Lovett directed the Air
Continental Vitals 117

Force to contract with Western Electric to construct the warning line,

and in January 1953 he issued implementing directives to the JCS. Lovett

also appointed in December an ad hoc study group of scientists and

engineers, headed by Mervin J. Kelly, president of Bell Telephone Laboratories, to re-study the whole problem of continental defense, including

improvements in the warning system. 5 In a last-minute action, Truman on

19 January set up a Special Evaluation Subcommittee of the NSC, chaired

by Air University Commander Lt. Gen. Idwal H. Edwards, to study (and

report to the NSC by 15 May) the USSR's "net capability to inflict direct

injury on the United States.,,6

Meanwhile, U.S. strategic planners had been studying how continental

defense might be affected when both superpowers possessed atomic and

thermonuclear weapons. In August 1952 this broader context received

lengthy analysis in NSC 135/1, one of the Truman administration's major

strategic studies. Currently, the paper stated, the United States appeared to

enjoy a comfortable lead in its atomic weapon stockpile, production of

fissionable materials, and the prospective imminent development of a

thermonuclear weapon. The controlling factor appeared to be "the relationship of one stockpile, plus its deliverability, to the number of key

enemy targets, including retaliatory facilities, which must be destroyed

in order to warrant an attack .... It follows that the Soviets may achieve

what is, in their judgment, a level of atomic strength sufficient to warrant

the risk of an all-out surprise attack, even though this level may be

inferior-in absolute terms-to the then-existing atomic strength of the

United States."7

In January 1953 a follow-on review of all national security programs

(NSC 141), as noted earlier, roundly condemned the whole continental

defense program as inadequate and urged the expenditure of very substantial increased resources over the next few years to improve it. The

director of State's Policy Planning Staff, Paul H. Nitze, drew even more

alarming conclusions from the reciprocal dynamics of U.S. vs. Soviet

power. The combination of increasing Soviet offensive and defensive capabilities, he argued, was approaching a point where it was likely, in a confrontation, despite continuing but diminishing U.S. offensive superiority,

to paralyze the will of the U.S. government "to threaten or initiate the use

of atomic weapons." More specifically, "I do not think there is, even

now, a general understanding ... that vulnerability to Soviet attack

may prevent SAC from ever leaving the ground; nor that our ability to

penetrate Soviet defenses is not increasing any faster, if as fast, as Soviet

defensive capabilities."8
118 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The new administration thus encountered on its arrival a chorus of

warnings pointing to continental defense as "the Achilles heel of our

national security." The Joint Chiefs, to be sure, sounded a strong dissenting note. In September 1952 they had estimated the cost of

improvements to existing continental defenses at $10 billion, on top of

an estimated $7 billion already invested, and recommended against

undertaking them without further study of their impact on the competing requirements of offensive forces. In December they opposed Truman's

decision to proceed with the Summer Study Group's recommendation to

begin immediately the construction of a distant early warning line. In the

years to come, the chiefs would consistently uphold the asserted requirements of offensive superiority against the competing needs of defense.

But in January 1953 the tide of alarmed comment seemed to converge on

continental defense as the sector most vulnerable to early surprise attack. 9

The Spring Study Groups

Given the new administration's commitment to sharply reduced

defense spending, its reaction to any continental defense buildup was

predictable. Eisenhower, reportedly annoyed that the various continental

defense projects left on his doorstep "had not been screened or coordinated, let alone carefully priced," at an NSC meeting on 11 February curtly

shut off discussion of NSC 141 with a remark that it was valuable mainly

as a "legacy" of three prominent members of the former administration

who had no personal interest in the adoption of its proposals. The

following day Secretary Wilson received a report from Air Force Secretary

Harold Talbott sharply criticizing NSC 141 for undue preoccupation with

the vulnerability of the United States to attack and failure to recognize the

value of American offensive atomic superiority as an offset thereto.

Talbott conceded, however, the need for the country to improve its continental defenses lest fear of Soviet retaliation paralyze the will of the

government to unleash atomic weapons. NSC 141, with its. call for vast

"additional" funding of continental defense, was quietly shelved, but

the administration authorized research to continue on the DEW line

project, and at the end of February negotiated an agreement with Canada

for construction of test stations in northwestern Canada and Canadian

participation in the further development of the system. 10

During its first few months in office the administration marked time

on continental defense, no doubt owing to preoccupation with the new

DoD budget. There persisted also widespread doubts as to the feasibility
Continental Vitals 119

of effective defense against air attack and fear that an early commitment

of major resources to an accCIerated effort might be overtaken by

advancing technology. Another concern was the longstanding feud

between the Air Force and some of the Lincoln scientists; "big bomber"

generals reportedly perceived a "Maginot Line" obsession in the Lincoln

early warning studies. Underlying everything abided the resistance to the

threat of a new contender for funds in a time of shrinking budgets, which

(on this issue at least) linked in an improbable coalition the military and

civilian bureaucracies supporting the big established programs, and

administration budget cutters supported by business-oriented advisory

groups. Indicative of the tendency to postpone decision on the issue,

NSC 149/2, the basic paper on reformulation and costing of security

programs issued at the end of April, relegated continental defense to a

perfunctory three-line mention in a list of objectives due to receive increased emphasis. l1

The findings of the two study groups did little to alter the prevailing mood. Kelly's ad hoc study group in its report to Secretary Wilson on

11 May declared that perfect security against attack was unattainable:

"There can be no safety in the atomic age short of the elimination of

war." The committee deplored the notion of an air defense system that

could approach 100 percent in effectiveness, considering it inconceivable.

Pointing out the deterrent as well as the war-fighting value of forces, the

committee noted with satisfaction the "impressive strides ... since World

War II in improving U.S. atomic weapons, together with the means for

their delivery." Also needed, it hastened to add, was an air defense

system "much better" than the one now in place and assured by existing

programs. How much better? An unanswerable question, said the committee regretfully, after giving it earnest attention. 12

The Kelly group proposed, among other things, centralization of

responsibility in a single agency, development of a comprehensive continental air defense plan, immediate measures to close gaps in the existing

control and warning system and to extend it seaward, improvement of

equipment and procedures for interception, and establishment of a stable

and sustained research and development program. It recommended further

research on a fully automatic control system and establishment of a vigorous civil defense program. The report endorsed the construction of an

early warning line far enough north of the Canadian border to afford

about two hours warning, and cooperation with Canada in developing

its 54th parallel line then under consideration. Eventually it should be

extended seaward at both ends and tied into the Navy's LOFAR network.

A second line much farther north would also be required and should
120 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

be started as soon as the results of the Arctic test program assured

its feasibility. 13

For all its generally calm and measured reporting, and the opening

warning against exaggerated hopes for improvements, the report's

description of the existing system seemed likely to give many readers

sleepless nights. It noted the conclusion of a Stanford Research Institute

study that 75 to 80 "perfectly placed" atomic bombs "might kill 13,000,000

people or destroy approximately one-third of the U.S. war industry, or a

combination of the two." The Kelly group's response to this disturbing

picture was a rational but not very comforting warning: "All the effort

the country is willing (or in fact able) to put into its defenses will not in

the long term buy the degree of protection that is desirable, perhaps even

essential. The full requirement, then, is really for a new national way of

life, not so comfortable as before, but one the country can abide, still

remaining free."14

Within this less than reassuring compass, the Kelly report sought to

forestall panicky official or public responses to a threat that all experts

agreed must be taken seriously. In substance, the report stressed the

primary importance of effective deterrence over defense, which at best

could only blunt a large-scale Soviet attack. Of particular concern to the

committee was the pressure for a crash program like the World War II

Manhattan Project to create overnight an impenetrable defense system; it

advocated an orderly top-level DoD information program to improve

public understanding of the problem. The pressure had intensified that

spring with a spate of scare publicity resulting from the revelation by

the journalist brothers Joseph and Stewart Alsop in March of the findings

of the 1952 Summer Study Group. 15 The Kelly report was also leaked to the

Alsops, who published most of it, praised it, and challenged Secretary

Wilson to make it public and act on it. Five days later Wilson released a

sanitized version of the report for publication. 16

On 4 June the NSC considered the report of the Edwards study group

(Special Evaluation Subcommittee of the NSC) on Soviet net capabilities

to damage the United States. The report was at least as nightmarish as

the earlier ADC scenario and even more so than the Kelly Report. Most

serious would be the psychological impact of an atomic attack: "morale

and political problems of a magnitude which it is impossible to estimate,

or even comprehend." The president refused to take alarm. He "had

perhaps some little doubt," he confessed, "as to whether [the committee]

had given sufficient weight, in downgrading Soviet capabilities, to their

obvious inferiority and even incompetence in the navigation of planes

at long ranges," as, he added, anyone who had ever ridden with a Soviet
Continental Vitals 121

pilot could testify. The report's bottom line, moreover, was that the

Soviets, over the two-year period examined (1953-55), would fail to develop

a really significant capability to attack the continental United States.

General Edwards offered his personal conclusion that "any attack on the

United States by the Soviets during this period would be an act of desperation and not an exercise of military judgment."17

The president had already decided on further study by appointees of

his own administration, perhaps with the hope that yet another study

group might complete the process of "studying the problem to death."

Before the end of May the NSC Planning Board established a Continental

Defense Committee, headed by Lt. Gen. Harold R. Bull, USA (Ret.), an old

friend of the president from World War II days and CIA representative on

the Edwards Committee. The new committee was directed to make a

comprehensive study of continental defense by 15 July. Later, while the

Bull group was still at work, the president appointed his own panel of

outside consultants to review its findings. 18

The Bull Report: Mounting Costs

The Continental Defense Committee's (Bull) report, circulated to the

council members (as NSC 159) on 22 July, contrasted sharply with the

Kelly and Edwards reports in its uncompromising sense of urgency. The

existing defense programs, it asserted, "are not now adequate either to

prevent, neutralize or seriously deter the military or covert attacks which

the USSR is capable of launching, nor are they adequate to ensure the

continuity of government, the continuity of production or the protection

of the industrial mobilization base and millions of citizens in our great

and exposed metropolitan centers." This situation posed "an unacceptable risk" to national survival; "the nation must act now with speed and

energy... to meet the potential threat."19 What had aroused this sense of

urgency is not readily apparent, but it may be significant that the Bull

committee, unlike the others, included representatives of the Office of

Defense Mobilization (ODM) and the Federal Civil Defense Administration

(FCDA), the agencies that had urged aggressive action to implement the

findings of the Lincoln study. 20

One of the committee's major tasks had been to evaluate the continental defense plans on which the services had been working for the past

several months as a prelude to the development of the integrated plan

called for in NSC 139. 21 Since the Air Force claimed responsibility for

the entire system, its plan was, in a sense, already integrated. It provided
122 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

for immediate construction of the southern Canada (54th parallel) radar

warning chain, running from Labrador to British Columbia and linking

with the Alaskan warning system, with seaward extensions to Hawaii and

from Newfoundland to the Azores. The proposed DEW line from northern

Alaska to southern Baffin Island was also to be built if proved feasible, and

later connected with the Atlantic Ocean system via Greenland. Seaward

extensions of the existing "contiguous" (i.e., coastal) control and warning system also appeared in the Air Force plan, using five shoal-water

radar stations called "Texas Towers" to supplement AEW aircraft and radar

picket ships.

Besides claiming operational control of the entire defense system, at

sea as well as on land, the Air Force wanted to provide all the aircraft. The

principal increase in force requirements involved 18 squadrons of interceptor aircraft, bringing to 75 the total for continental defense. The Air

Force also proposed to supplement the Army's antiaircraft forces by 20

fixed defense units armed with a Navy-developed surface-to-air missile

(Talos). Naturally this plan clashed at numerous points with those of the

other two services, its most fundamental jurisdictional differences with

the Navy, which insisted on operational control of the oceanic sector; the

Navy envisaged multiple offshore barriers combining the functions of

detecting and tracking enemy aircraft and submarines, and wanted to

provide the aircraft as well as the ships and radar equipment used at sea.

The Army, for its part, was programming 150 antiaircraft battalions, as

against the 110 in the Air Force plan. By the end of July some of these

differences had been resolved: The Air Force yielded on the issue of

operational control at sea, and the Navy accepted the scheme of seaward

extensions of the southern Canada warning line so long as they provided

for submarine detection. The remaining major dispute, over aircraft, was

referred on 29 July to Secretary Wilson, who postponed decision pending

further exploration of less costly alternatives. A few days later the outgoing Joint Chiefs left for their successors a comprehensive draft plan

prepared by their continental defense planning group.

The Bull committee, regarding these differences as within the province

of the JCS to resolve, concerned itself primarily with setting priorities

among programs. Its chief recommendations assigned top priority, for

immediate implementation, to: (1) construction of the southern Canada

warning system, including its seaward extensions; (2) extension seaward of

the existing contiguous radar control and warning system; and (3) preparation of emergency "continuity of government" plans. Second priority went

to a larger bundle of undertakings covering most of the other elements

of a complex defense system. The committee also urged a stronger effort to
Continental Vitals 123

improve public understanding of the threat of air attack. It set a readiness

goal of December 1955 for most programs.

Bull's terse briefing to the NSC on 6 August, appropriately following

an updating of recent intelligence on the new Soviet turboprop heavy

bomber by Allen Dulles, upset the president, conjuring up the old specter

of endlessly rising costs leading ultimately to a garrison state. The report

was sobering not only because it placed a new seal of respectability on

the anxieties aroused by the earlier study findings, but also because it

presented more comprehensive and persuasive cost estimates than any

yet produced. 22

The costing of continental defense programs under the existing

accounting system was little better than an exercise in the soothsayer's

art. Neither the DoD budget nor the individual service budgets recognized

a continental defense "program." Various programs and sub-programs

could, of course, be identified as primarily serving the function of continental defense-e.g., procurement of certain types of radars or submarine

detection equipment-but this was only the beginning of the problem.

The trail of contributing and supporting costs behind a given function

such as defense of the continental United States invariably disintegrated

in the maze of multiple purposes served by indiViduals, units, organizations, installations, and items of equipment and supply-almost everything to which a valid price tag could be attached. Three of the largest air

defense bases, pointed out the earlier ADC study, expended money and

operated facilities in support of units "whose operations are alien to the

air defense mission," while, conversely, some ADC squadrons, stationed

at non-ADC bases, used non-ADC funds and facilities. The ambiguity of

function occurred in extreme form in the Navy, which, with such exceptions as the LOFAR detection system and nets and booms for harbor

defense, did not normally program forces for specific defense purposes of

any kind. 23

The military service accounting structures, wrote McNeil's deputy,

Lyle Garlock, in a March 1953 reply to a request from the Kelly study group

for cost data, were not designed to provide "even reasonably good approximations" of the kind of information wanted; "while certain chunks of these

costs would seem to be fairly apparent, ... a greater proportion would

not be, particularly in the case of the Army and Navy." Apart from the problem of functional ambiguity, the difficulty lay also in the lack of an

accepted definition or even concept of continental defense around which

a program and cost accounting system could be built. He advised against

"any arbitrary allocation of costs" for continental defense activities. 24

The same line of thinking, of course, prompted both the outgoing and

the new Joint Chiefs to see in the surge of public and official concern over
124 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the vulnerability of continental u.S. air defenses a competitive threat to

the strategic offensive and deterrent forces. A disturbing feature of the

Bull committee's proposals was that they stretched the concept of continental defense to embrace areas of vulnerability not ordinarily considered

in this context-civil and industrial (Le., passive) defense, internal

security, control of subversives, continuity of government under attack,

and clandestine introduction and detonation of atomic weapons.

The committee's study of costs made it clear that much more had

already been spent and was being spent for continental defense, broadly

construed, than had been generally reckoned. Internal security and other

non-military programs such as those just noted had absorbed perhaps

$450 million per year in 1952 and 1953, and numerous buried but nonetheless real costs in the military programs had also escaped notice. The

whole bill, the committee estimated, had come to $1.7 billion in 1952

and $2.8 billion in 1953. The FY 1954 DoD budget was now in concrete,

but the continental defense costs already built into it added up, by the

committee's reckoning, to an appalling $4.3 billion. This had ominous

implications in the context of the committee's proposals for the future.

These aimed at a rapid buildup in order to attain a high level of readiness

by the end of FY 1956, with expenditures projected at $5.2 billion in FY

1955 and $6.8 billion in FY 1956-making a three-year total larger than

the cumulative spending, past and projected, under existing programs

through FY 1957. After FY 1956, in the Bull committee's projection, continental defense spending would drop sharply to an annual maintenance

level of about $3.8 billion. 25

The first official reaction to the Bull committee's report came from

the outgoing chiefs, presented to the NSC along with Bull's briefing on

6 August. Their only specific recommendations proposed that measures

to improve identification capabilities should receive top priority along

with construction of the early warning system, and that protective measures for certain critical targets against the clandestine introduction and

detonation of atomic weapons should also receive special attention. They

had more concern that the focus on the defensive capabilities per se might

lead to diversion of resources from offensive retaliatory forces, and they

hinted that the use of ad hoc study groups and outside consultants, bypassing the regular machinery, was getting out of hand. Defensive systems

should not be examined in isolation from the total military program, and

they reminded Wilson that the current integrated military programs had

taken into account both the threat of enemy attack and the counterthreat

to u.S. and allied offensive forces. 26

The NSC decided to ask the new Joint Chiefs to submit their

thoughts by 1 September, on both the Continental Defense Committee's
Continental Vitals 125

report and the outgoing chiefs' comments on it. On the basis of this

input, together with that of the president's civilian consultants appointed

in July, the Planning Board would prepare a revised version of the report

for the council's consideration not later than 17 September. 27

The Soviets Go Thermonuclear

At this juncture, on 12 August, the Soviets detonated their first thermonuclear device. The event, heralded by Soviet Premier Georgi Malenkov's

announcement a few days earlier that the American "monopoly of the

hydrogen bomb was broken," followed by less than two weeks an intelligence assessment that the Soviets were unlikely to achieve a nuclear

fusion explosion for at least another year. 28 The basic facts soon became

public. Government analysts, Joseph Alsop reported on 24 August, were

"tentatively convinced" that what the Soviets had exploded was an "interim

weapon similar to the American bomb tested at Eniwetok in 1951," a

preliminary test of the hydrogen fusion reaction and the large fission

explosion needed to trigger it. 29

Caught off guard, American officials reacted publicly with varying

degrees of dismay, embarrassment, and reassurance. The Joint Atomic

Energy Committee, after a CIA briefing, announced that the United States

remained well ahead in both A-bomb and H-bomb development "and

will continue to be." On the other hand, AEC Chairman Lewis L. Strauss

warned that the American atomic stockpile was no longer "a complete

deterrent to aggressive action," and Civil Defense Administrator Val

Peterson declared that a "better and bigger" civil defense was now needed.

Admiral Radford made no public comment until 26 August, when he stated

in reply to a reporter's question that the Soviet achievement had been

foreseen and would not change "over-all strategic plans," although "certain

programs" would be reviewed. The president waited much longer for the

dust to settle before giving a soothing but uninformative response to a

question at his 30 September news conference. 3o

Actually, there was nothing casual about Eisenhower's private reaction

to the Soviet achievement. It touched him in one of his most sensitive

nerves-the virtually insoluble problem of maintaining a strong, expensive

defense posture without moving inexorably down the path toward

a regimented society. Early in September he expressed to Dulles the

thought that the Soviet threat might grow so menacing that it would

become necessary "to consider whether or not our duty to future generations did not require us to initiate war at the most propitious moment

that we could designate."31
126 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

At a meeting of the NSC on 24 September, with continental defense

the major agenda item, Allen Dulles reviewed the recent Soviet thermonuclear tests against the background of atomic weapons development

since 1949, pointing out that the Soviets were believed to have a capability now to deliver thermonuclear bombs by air. This assessment

elicited from Eisenhower a discourse on the problem of decision now

facing NSC and the nation. Suppose the Soviets rejected accommodation

and continued on their present course? People talked of the moral guilt

incurred by using atomic weapons first, but what about the moral guilt

of failing to do now what was required to free future generations from

this terrible threat? The question might soon have to be faced whether

"to throw everything at once against the enemy"; "merely shuddering" at

the threat would not sufficeY

The Debate Over NSC 159

The Soviet achievement put the opponents of an all-out program to

strengthen continental defenses temporarily on the defensive. ODM

promptly called for a crash continental defense program "at wartime

tempo" and supplemental appropriations to support it. 33 Wilson steadily

resisted this pressure, while allowing the newly installed Joint Chiefs to

take the lead in developing the case against it. This they did, at length, in

their formal comments late in August on the Bull committee's recommendations as requested by the NSC.

The JCS echoed the warning of their predecessors against overreactions that might strengthen continental defenses only at the expense

of offensive capabilities. "An aggressor nation," they asserted, "will be far

more deterred by evidence that we have the offensive potential and the

mobility capable of dealing it decisive blows than by the excellence of

our defenses." Conceding that substantial improvements in continental

air defenses could be made "at modest additional cost," they warned

that efforts in this direction tended to produce diminishing returns at

increasing cost. More fundamentally, defense of the continental United

States against air attack constituted only one aspect of the whole military

establishment which, if not quite a seamless web, was composed of tightly

interrelated, mutually supporting parts, many of them contributing directly

to the defenses of the continent. These defenses should be built up, but

not at the expense of other essential elements. In a time of shrinking

budgets, the chiefs had a deep wariness of priorities, whether for continental

defense as a whole or for its separate parts. As for specific continental

defense programs, aircraft identification belonged in the top priority
Continental Vitals 127

group, while requirements for fighter-interceptor and antiaircraft forces,

accounting for the bulk of the estimated costs in NSC 159, were noted as

under consideration.

In the same vein, the chiefs struck down the other possibilities suggested in NSC 159. Improvements in continental defense, they insisted,

would not permit any offsetting reductions in other security programs,

since all were indispensable and underfunded. Allied forces, also meager

and stretched thin, would require massive American help if attacked; no

foreseeable increases in their strength could reduce U.S. commitments

sufficiently to free additional resources for continental defense. The Pacific

extension of the southern Canada warning line should be postponed

until forces were available. Finally, while agreeing that the public should

be "informed," the chiefs thought that a stepped-up program of public

education might generate a "fear complex," forcing the government to

concentrate on "solely defensive measures" to the detriment of other

missions. 34

The NSC Planning Board split deeply on the continental defense

issue. DoD representatives supported the JCS arguments for a "calm and

orderly" approach "within the total context of national security policy,"

while the ODM and FCDA members pushed for a rapid expansion and

strengthening of continental defenses, whether by diversion of funds from

"less essential" areas or by supplemental appropriations. Since the Soviet

thermonuclear explosion of 12 August the advocates of caution had been

put on the defensive by the general upsurge of public and official apprehension. According to the board's chairman, Robert Cutler, the president

now wanted an early resolution of the debate and at least some action by

the NSC in time for his address to the nation early in October as the opening gun in Operation "Candor," the long-simmering initiative for speaking frankly to the American people about the dangers of nuclear weapons. 35

On 16 September the Planning Board circulated its revised continental defense paper (NSC 159/3). EVidently the "pro" faction had prevailed.

The paper made few concessions to OSD-JCS misgivings and peppered

its proposals with urgent phrases-"as early as possible" and with "all

possible speed." It did accept the JCS principle that "defense of the vitals

of America" was an integral part of the whole offensive-defensive security

complex. But the board still insisted that continental defense had been

seriously neglected and must be built up, especially in light of the latest

Soviet achievement. Contrary to JCS views, the Planning Board still thought

that some U.S. commitments might be reduced in the light of what was

known about Soviet weaponry, and the savings diverted to a strengthened

continental defense. If not, the only alternative would be to increase the

budget. 36 The Joint Chiefs had time for a final brief reply before the
128 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Planning Board sent NSC 159/3 to the NSC. They reasserted their "seamless

web" theory of national security and the primacy of offensive capabilities

in that context. They urged, however, that the paper not be approved

until it could be re-examined in the light of the new overall strategic

concept on which they were then working. 37

The September Decisions

The revised continental defense proposal came before the NSC on

24 September, with the president in the chair and more than twice the

usual number of participants. Cutler gave a long briefing of NSC 159/3,

following which the president's consultants expressed their views. The

consultants came down hard for economy, endorsing the proposal but not

at the expense of budget reduction. Radford then explained the misgivings

he and his colleagues felt about a premature crash effort to build up continental defenses and bluntly characterized the original Bull committee

report as based on a worst-case estimate of Soviet capabilities. For the

coming year, Radford continued, the programs recommended by the JCS

would accomplish essentially what the Planning Board proposed. 38

The president reacted with irritation and gloom. The council, he

complained, was still trying to dodge the "essential dilemma" posed by

the Soviet threat. The measures required to meet the threat seemed to

involve "ever-greater controls on our economy and on the freedom of our

people." The need was not merely to save money to repel aggression;

"we were engaged in the defense of a way of life." Radford confessed that

he and his colleagues were dissatisfied with both the antiaircraft defense

and interceptor programs for the same reason that bothered the president-the dangers of becoming committed to obsolescing weaponry in

an era of revolutionary technological change. Eisenhower seemed to take

comfort in Radford's criticism that the Bull report exaggerated Soviet

offensive capabilities and minimized the enormous difficulties facing an

air attack on the North American continent. 39

Secretary Humphrey steered the discussion toward a decision. No

sound conclusion could be reached, he said, until the council viewed

national security in its entirety. This observation, which seemed to put the

treasury secretary in lockstep with the Joint Chiefs and Wilson on continental defense, illustrated how the issue had complicated established

alignments on defense spending. Although an admirer of the new Joint

Chiefs, particularly Admiral Radford, Humphrey seemed genuinely worried

over the state of continental defenses, and he was even willing to contemplate new taxes to finance their strengthening if enough money could not
Continental Vitals 129

be squeezed out of other security programs. But he was determined to

squeeze those programs because he was convinced they were bloated.40

Thus the council faced a curious dilemma. The president still wanted

immediate action of some kind to reassure an alarmed public, but he was

obviously less than enthusiastic about the Planning Board proposal and

seemed unwilling to pay its probable costs. Yet no one had a better

approach to offer. The JCS, even while admitting in an earlier paper

that current plans were barely adequate "to avoid initial disaster," wanted

to postpone action until a comprehensive national security strategy had

been developed and approved and its funding determined. Humphrey, a

powerful voice on the council, seemed to share this view.

Anticipating this indecision, Cutler had prepared and circulated in

advance a recommendation that NSC 159/3 be approved and implemented

"in a rapid and orderly fashion," but with two significant provisos:

(1) Before 15 November the Defense Department should come up with

a "more precise definition" and "phasing" of the controversial seaward

extension program of the early warning system and for the two most costly

force programs-fighter-interceptors and antiaircraft forces; (2) before

1 December, the council itself would determine how to finance continental

defense in FY 1954 and later. This was, of course, the nub of the matter,

giving Wilson and the JCS the postponement they wanted. During the

next 10 weeks, with reasonable luck, the chiefs could develop an affordable

strategy and force structure and get it approved, while interrelated highlevel decisions were reached on tax programs and federal budget estimates

as a whole for FY 1955 and FY 1956. Cutler's proposal was promptly

approved and the president signed the amended paper (NSC 159/4) the

following day.41

It was, of course, really a decision to postpone decision, reflecting

Eisenhower's own ambivalence. His approval was purely symbolic; no one

could foresee the shape or size of the continental defense commitment

until decisions were taken on DoD and federal budget ceilings. Probably

for that reason, the financial annex of NSC 159/3, containing the cost estimates, had been omitted from the revised paper. What had been approved

was thus little more than a statement of principle accompanied by a

"wish list" in descriptive rather than quantified terms.

This result came as a letdown for those who had hoped for a crash

effort. Spending might be increased a little during the coming year,

reported James Reston in the New York Times the day following the

meeting, but "all dramatic plans such as the multi-billion dollar Project

Lincoln will be postponed or rejected." The Alsops, who had gloomily

predicted early in September that the president would settle for halfmeasures, took no joy now in the confirmation of their fears. 42
130 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Stretching Continental Defense

Following the September decisions, continental defense retreated for

several weeks from center stage. It no longer inspired the same sense of

urgency that it had in the aftermath of the Soviet thermonuclear demonstration in August, except in a small segment of officialdom and the

public, especially the scientific community outside government, still acutely

mindful of its potential for disaster. In Congress the chairmen of the Joint

Committee on Atomic Energy and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee continued to beat the drums for more spending. In October the

Senate Armed Services Committee appointed as a consultant on continental defense Robert C. Sprague, head of an electronics firm in the home

state (Massachusetts) of the committee chairman, Leverett Saltonstall. ODM

and FCDA were still leading champions of continental defense expansion.

But the prevailing view in OSD and the JCS was that of an unnamed official

quoted by the Wall Street Journal late in November: "If we could buy an

airtight continental defense system for $20 billion, we might do it. But it

just isn't for sale at that or any other price.,,43

DoD resistance to a crash program became more pointed after midOctober when the NSC sent Wilson back to the drawing board to reduce

his FY 1955 budget estimates. Any increase in money for continental

defense would have to come from other programs, making the larger issue

of offense vs. defense in New Look strategy suddenly more immediate

and prominent than heretofore. In this context OSD responded to the

president's directive, in connection with the approval of NSC 159/4 on

25 September, to define more precisely the content and phasing of the

southern Canada early warning system and fighter-interceptor and antiaircraft forces, identifying in the process Defense's share of the effort

and costs. Estimated full costs of continental defense in the FY 1955

Defense budget would be shown in the formal presentation to the council on 15 December. The council's decisions at that time would settle

the manner of financing continental defense under the president's

25 September directive, a question already settled in principle. Continental defense military programs would be financed under the dollar

ceilings of the DoD budget. 44

The effort to contain continental defense costs faced formidable

obstacles in NSC 159/4 itself. The Soviet thermonuclear detonation of

12 August, NSC 159/4 explained, indicated that the Soviets might have

developed a method of substantially increasing the yield from their

available supplies of fissionable uranium. This would enable them to

increase the number of bombs of 30-100 KT yield in their stockpile, or

to make their weapons individually more destructive, or to create very
Continental Vitals 131

high-yield weapons (500-1,000 KT) by accepting a reduction in the total

number. Further, the demonstration suggested that the USSR might have

reached an advanced stage in the development of true thermonuclear

weapons yielding more than a million tons of TNT energy equivalent. In

addition to raising the high premium on deterrence of general war, the

event also raised the premium on improved intelligence, an effective early

warning system, maximum attrition of attacking forces before reaching

targets, readiness of offensive striking forces, and non-military defense

measures. 45

While faithfully reciting the Joint Chiefs' "seamless web" doctrine,

the paper also retained the "red alert" flavor of the original Bull report

(NSC 159). Existing continental defenses were "not now adequate either

to prevent, neutralize or seriously deter the military or covert attacks

which the USSR is capable of launching, nor are they adequate to ensure

the continuity of government, the continuity of production, or the protection of the industrial mobilization base and millions of citizens in our

great and exposed metropolitan centers." Nevertheless "a reasonably

effective defense system can and must be attained." It should concentrate

initially on short-term programs to deal with the kind of attacks foreseeable through about 1957. Even these measures would provide "no

acceptable degree of over-all defense readiness" until about 1956. Thereafter, until about 1960, if the recommended measures were vigorously

carried out, the Soviets would not be able to destroy the war-making capacity

of the United States. But sometime after that date, "due to the possible development of long range air-to-ground or ground-to-ground guided missiles,

there can be no assurance that the proposed programs will give the high

degree of protection required. Unless our defensive system is ... kept

thoroughly modern, including a defense against such possibilities as an

intercontinental ballistic missile, we face the pOSSibility of having our continental defense program largely nullified." All this, NSC 159/4 reminded

its readers, had been written before the Soviet thermonuclear test, which

had substantially enhanced the urgency of the measures already advocated for meeting the threat of a massive surprise attack. 46 In short, the

measures the Defense and JCS staffs were directed to implement did not

encourage risk-taking in the interests of economy. After the budget decisions of October a new approach was needed, since continental defense

was now in competition with other programs.

Characteristically, with two approaches possible, to squeeze or to

stretch, the decision was to do both. By November Wilson and Radford

were both saying publicly that continental defense expansion did not

lend itself to rapid acceleration in the first year or two. No more than $500
132 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

million over and above current funding, Wilson announced, could be

absorbed during FY 1955, and BoB staffers put the figure as low as $300

million. On the eve of a scheduled 23 November progress report to the

NSC, the estimated total program costs for FY 1956 were even more

dramatically reduced, largely by stretching out key programs three years

or more. All this restructuring, accompanied by a reduction in total costs,

added up cumulatively to more than $6 billion through 1958. These new

cost projections reflected the more precise definitions of the three major

programs called for at the end of September. The Air Force reduced the

program goal of its fighter-interceptor program from 75 to 69 squadrons

(23 wings) by the end of FY 1958; 19 wings were to be in place by the

end of FY 1955. The Navy proposed to spread the conversion of its radar

picket vessels for the early warning barriers over the next four years, but

at the same time raised its FY 1955 requirement for early warning and

antisubmarine aircraft from 27 to 35 and to 150 overall. The Army's antiaircraft goal of 150 battalions was extended through FY 1958, with up to

50 battalions to come from the National Guard; actually, substantial

readiness was expected by the end of FY 1956, with 100 battalions to be

available and others awaiting their full complement of Nike missiles. 47

In approving the redefined programs, the Joint Chiefs warned that

continental defense should not "take preclusive priority over essential

offensive programs." Radford repeated the warning when he reported to

the NSC on 23 November, adding the hope that the NSC would not

"impose an ironclad directive" to implement continental defense without

regard to its impact elsewhere. Cutler laid the basic issue on the table.

Radford's report, he said, seemed to indicate that continental defense was

no longer, as visualized in September, a "crash" effort aimed at full readiness by 1956, but, on the strength of recent intelligence estimates was to

be stretched out over a longer period. Was this what the council wanted?

Radford promptly denied any such intention. The seaward extensions

were going ahead as fast as the Navy could modify destroyer escorts, and

the pace of progress as a whole would be governed by technical feasibility and availability of funds. Deputy Secretary Kyes defended Radford's

optimistic appraisal of the Soviet threat; he charged the Air Force with

"sales promotion intelligence" to justify expansion. This drew a tart

reminder from Allen Dulles that no one service was responsible for final

intelligence estimates, and that the current ones were "not particularly

alarming" in assessing the likelihood of a Soviet sneak attack. 48

The president did not press the issue Cutler had raised but probed

for possible further savings. How useful were antiaircraft weapons against

modern high-flying bombers, and would they not probably soon be out
Continental Vitals 133

of date? Perhaps, Radford agreed, but as yet there was nothing else. And

what about the risks of shooting down bombers carrying nuclear bombs

over American cities, as in the case of German buzz-bombs over England?

The president seemed especially skeptical about the seaward extensions

of the warning systems, which struck him as providing little extra security at very high cost. Dissatisfied and fretful, he said at the end of the

meeting that he wanted the JCS to make a special study (for him alone,

not the council) on the best method of patrolling the seaward warning

barriers-a "reasonable" level of patrolling he stressed, "not an effort to fill

every little gap."49

The inconclusive 23 November meeting resolved none of the issues

and left all parties frustrated, not least the president, whose evident unwillingness to resolve the issues was, of course, the root of the difficulty. The

council noted the assignment to the JCS of a special study and rescheduled

for 15 December DoD's final report on the three principal continental

defense programs along with the FY 1955 DoD budget. Kyes and McNeil

seized the opportunity to hasten the transformation of continental defense

from the high-urgency effort launched in September to a no-specialpreference status in the family of New Look programs.50

As the president's man, Cutler had an overriding concern to protect

his boss's interests as he perceived them. Eisenhower was as eager as OSD

and the Joint Chiefs, if not more so, to contain the costs of continental

defense. He had always regarded NSC 159/4 as an unwelcome, if necessary,

concession to public anxiety over the threat of a Soviet sneak attack. But

the president had a higher burden of accountability than his advisers,

and, in Cutler's view, the urgent pronouncements of NSC 159/4, still

the basic and approved policy paper on continental defense, could

not lightly be ignored. The stretchout of the major continental defense

programs plainly evident in the services' recent redefinition of them was

certainly not what the president and the council had approved at the

end of September. The provisions of NSC 159/4 were explicit: one of

the three major programs, the seaward extensions of the southern Canada

warning system, along with the land-based portion of the system, the

warning barriers farther south, and several other smaller programs, were

to be completed "with all possible speed." The other two big elements,

fighter-interceptors and antiaircraft forces, were to be "developed to a

high state of readiness over the next two years." NSC 159/4 further stated

that even if FY 1955 budgetary constraints dictated a re-examination of

security programs, work on the seaward extension should not be held Up.51

Cutler made the further point that NSC 159/4 judged it unlikely that

the Kremlin would deliberately initiate general war before mid-1955,
134 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

although it might "result from miscalculations growing out of a series

of actions and counteractions." The JCS estimated more optimistically that

through 1957 the Soviet Union would merely use its increasing capabilities to exert pressure against the West. What apparently disturbed Cutler

was that the chiefs had prescribed this evaluation as "guidance for

planning" although NSC 159/4 had already been adopted "as a guide in

implementing ... programs."52

McNeil's staff dissected Cutler's exposition with customary thoroughness, and the OSD-JCS objections were thrashed out in a formal conference

with Cutler on 2 December. The DoD representatives made their chief

target the cost and requirements comparisons that Cutler had used to

support his contention that the revised programs violated the intent

of NSC 159/4. The cited cost data, McNeil objected, were not official, but

unilateral estimates by the military departments based on incomplete

information. Given the indefinability of the whole concept of continental

defense and the dynamism of the technology, McNeil considered it

unwise at the moment "to attempt to define these programs with any

greater precision."53

Cutler asked about the injunction in NSC 159/4 to complete the

seaward extensions "with all possible speed," which the redefined

programs clearly would not do. Kyes explained that the Defense agreement to this program was subject to the "overall caveat in NSC 159/4 to

the effect that the military programs therein must be considered in their

relationship to the total military programs." Kyes also went on to assure

Cutler that "this did not mean that the Department of Defense intended

in any way to delay the implementation of the programs ... but that such

programs should ... combine speed of completion with the achievement

of the most effective and economical results."54

At this point Cutler abruptly dropped the argument, admitting that

"there had been some misconception in his mind as to the Department

of Defense interpretation ... but he accepted it as reasonable." It is

difficult to believe that he accepted arguments that DoD's proposed

implementation of NSC 159/4 accorded with the tone and language of

that document. The only provision in the paper that in any way resembled

the "caveat" mentioned by Kyes appeared in an introductory paragraph

describing the "integrated complex of offensive and defensive elements"

constituting the total strength of the United States, with each element

"in proper balance with all the other elements."55 "Proper balance," always

in the eye of the beholder, was invoked by the proponents of all-out continental defense with passionate conviction equal to that of the Joint

Chiefs. Cutler probably perceived that nothing could be gained by further
Continental Vitals 135

argument. In the 2 December conference, as at the 23 November NSC

meeting, he recognized the evident determination by the DoD high

command to make haste slowly, developing the continental defense

program in a deliberate, "orderly" fashion, contrary to the explicit and

unqualified guidance in NSC 159/4 to make haste. Since the president

showed no inclination to intervene, Cutler accomplished nothing by

forcing the issue except to bring it out into the open-which may have

been his real aim.

Continental defense received scant mention when the NSC discussed

and approved the budget on 16 December. Officially, the council noted

that estimated expenditures for this purpose during FY 1955 would

come to approximately $500 million more than in FY 1954, thus fulfilling the intent of NSC 159/4 to increase emphasis on the program.

This figure merely reflected the still impressionistic cost projections at

the time, and was invalidated within a few weeks. 56 Ironically, by January

1954 the process of refining FY 1955 estimates downward had reached

a point where it created a question of credibility for the president in his

impending State of the Union message, in which he would have to tell

the American people that increasing efforts were being made to meet

the threat of Soviet surprise attack. His speechwriters met the challenge. In his address on 7 January 1954 he declared, "in the current fiscal

year we are allocating to these purposes [continental defense] an increasing portion of our effort, and in the next fiscal year we shall

spend nearly a billion dollars more for them than in 1953." The "nearly a

billion" was a rounding-off of some $800 million, the projected increase

over 1953 spending. 57

Continental Defense Joins the System

The FY 1955 Defense budget submitted to Congress in January

1954 contained $3.198 billion for continental defense proposed by the

JCS in November and approved by the NSC in mid-December. It included

increases as well as reductions, and estimates for certain items not even

included in the November proposals. It appeared, however, that the proposed budget had been reduced by about $362 million; but this really

reflected bookkeeping modifications and computational refinements.

Overall, the services' requests for aircraft, antiaircraft missiles, picket

ships, Texas Towers, radars, and identification and control systems were

largely met. 58

Of more moment to OSD and the Joint Chiefs, a new policy statement

(NSC 5408) would purge the "red alert" features perceived as a potential
136 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

threat to the offensive emphasis of the New Look. The top-priority

early warning system and the fighter-interceptor and antiaircraft forces

were to be completed "with all practicable speed" instead of "all possible

speed"; the next group of programs (northern Canada early warning line,

air control system, gap-filler radars, etc.) were, as before, to be developed

"to a high state of readiness" over the next two years. Throughout NSC

5408 the language of urgency in NSC 159/4 was replaced by more

reassuring phraseology. Describing the early warning system the paper

added this caveat: "Considering that it is not feasible to establish an absolute defense against air attack, development of the seaward extensions

should be weighed against the increasing Soviet capability so as to provide

a reasonable early warning of air attack through the most probable sea

approaches." NSC 5408 also added that any major change in total funding

for national security would necessitate a complete re-examination. 59 Thus

the Joint Chiefs gained the assurance they needed that continental

defense would be accorded no "preclusive priority" in any future competition for funds.

By February the stretched-out program began to develop reasonably

firm projections of procurement, construction, and organization costs,

with readiness goals ranging from 1956 to 1962 and beyond. In the main,

the duration (beyond FY 1955) of the buildup was that envisaged in

November: five years for the seaward extensions of the southern Canada

warning system, two years for the land portion of that system and the

contiguous radar barriers to the south, two years for the manned fighterinterceptor forces, seven years for their guided-missile augmentation, one

year for antiaircraft forces, seven years for the semiautomatic control

system, three years for the low-altitude gap-filler radars, one year for the

LOFAR submarine-detection system.60

Of the two basic functions of the system, warning and interception,

provision for the former was the less reassuring. Radar coverage, where it

existed, remained shallow, and at low altitudes still virtually non-existent.

There existed no early warning coverage of the most likely routes of

attack, the ocean flanks and the vast arctic and sub-arctic reaches of

Canada between Alaska and Greenland. Above the Pinetree radar fence

just north of the U.S.-Canadian border and still under construction, the

supplementary warning line across southern Canada was expected to

be partially completed in 1956 and in full operation a year later. Seaward,

there was no coverage at all, except by a half dozen radar picket ships on

the Atlantic side, first installment of an eventual 36 to be in place by

July 1958, to be augmented by 18 AEW aircraft by July 1955, with a total

complement of 108 aircraft on station a year later. 61
Continental Vitals 137

The two principal interception elements of the system, fighterinterceptor aircraft and antiaircraft weapons, approached greater readiness in January 1954 than did the warning system. At the beginning of

1954 the interceptor force comprised 18 wings (54 squadrons) not yet

fully equipped with all-weather aircraft-about 1,450 aircraft of all types.

The total of 23 wings (69 squadrons) was expected to be in place by the

end of FY 1957. 62 In addition, 19 Air National Guard squadrons and

various other Air Force and Navy units stood available for continental

defense if needed, some of them equipped for all-weather operations. At

full strength, from FY 1957 on, interceptor forces would level off at about

2,000 aircraft, relying for improved performance on continuous modernization. Farther down the road, the Boeing Bomarc ground-to-air guided

missile, ramjet powered, with a 250-mile range, would augment the interceptor squadrons. Planned antiaircraft units would expand from their

current 66 Army and 11 National Guard battalions to 100 and 50 battalions,

respectively, plus another 43 more Army separate battalions as backup, by

the end of FY 1956.63

Long-range projections provided a clue to the president's carping at

the cost-benefit shortcomings of the early warning system, for which

FY 1955 costs had been reduced to about 15 percent of continental

defense money. But in 1955 and 1956 they were slated to rise sharply,

and in the years beyond the projected level was only slightly less. The

biggest dollar consumer in the system was the air control and warning

system in the United States, particularly the projected conversion to semiautomatic computerized operations which, beginning in 1956, stretched on

far into the 1960s at an annual cost (grossly underestimated, as time would

show) of almost $300 million. For continental defense costs as a whole, however, the heaviest funding would go to the fighter-interceptor programnot in FY 1955 when antiaircraft forces were still the most pricey item,

but in the years beyond-from 39 percent in FY 1955 to 50 percent in

1956 and to 65 percent in the early 1960s. This reflected the combination

of high costs for continuing modernization and operation of tactical jet

aircraft and the introduction and prolonged buildup of the Bomarc guided

missile force, not expected to achieve readiness status until 1962.

In the aggregate, these long-range trends added up to a sharp rise in

costs in the years immediately ahead. DoD spokesmen remained reluctant

to give out cost estimates for this program; all forces, ran the official line,

contributed to the defense of the continental United States. Pressed by

the House Appropriations Subcommittee in February 1954, Wilson

grudgingly admitted that continental defense, narrowly defined, might

account for close to 10 percent of Defense spending in FY 1955.64 The
138 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

actual estimate was 8.7 percent, but future spending, if current projections had any validity, would dwarf that figure in a period of dwindling

DoD budgets. The trend was already visible: continental defense costs had

grown from 5.5 percent in FY 1953 to 7 percent in FY 1954. Moreover, the

projected upward curve reflected efforts to stretch out and reduce costs

on the basis of discounted risks.

The NSC put its seal of approval on the revised program in two final

meetings on 14 January and 17 February 1954. On both occasions the president, in a captious mood, grumbled about rising costs and reminded the

council grimly of the fate of the Maginot Line. He was especially worried

about the seaward extensions, which he feared the Soviets might render

worthless by end-running them before they were finished. He also predicted that the whole antiaircraft system would soon obsolesce and "go

out the window." The only bright spot he seemed to see was the interceptor

program, with its promise of accurately guided pilotless aircraft in the

near future. More than ever, a crash program remained anathema to him;

he warmly endorsed the replacement of the phrase "all possible speed"

by "as soon as practicable.,,65

In this atmosphere open dissent was not to be expected, but rumbles

of resistance could be detected. At the 17 February meeting Cutler introduced a letter from Lee A. DuBridge, chairman of the ODM Science

Advisory Committee, contending that current technology warranted proceeding with the southern Canada warning line and its seaward extensions

without fear of rapid obsolescence. Accordingly the Planning Board, said

Cutler, proposed to write into NSC 5408 a caveat that the programming

was "not intended to preclude a more rapid phasing or earlier completion

of the early warning and other programs." ODM Director Arthur Flemming

reinforced Cutler's comments, urging the council to take a fresh look at

the problem in June, "and not to regard the present dates for completion

of the early warning program as frozen." Kyes rejected the implication

of DoD foot-dragging and cited the necessity of keeping in phase with

the Canadians' progress in completing the land portion of their warning

system. Humphrey registered emphatic preference for the "go slow"

approach over a revived crash program. Momentarily, the president seemed

uncertain. Installation of the warning line, he conceded, should certainly

not be held up "if all we contemplated was a gradual and steady improvement in the effectiveness of the equipment installed." In the end, the

council noted DuBridge's letter, referred it to Defense for comment, and

approved the inserted phraseology proposed by the Planning Board. It

was a modest but probably satisfying victory for Cutler.66
Continental Vitals 139

During the unceasing quest of the president and his advisers to

achieve a large reduction in the gap between federal government income

and outgo, DoD programs were a special target and experienced frequent

changes and adjustments. The overriding determination to reduce

expenditures and appropriations had a strong and obvious effect on

all programs. As a major claimant of resources in the years ahead (some

projections amounted to more than $33 billion through FY 1962), continental defense would continue to figure prominently in the budget

deliberations within the administration and in Congress. Perhaps more

than most other Defense programs, it would have to cope with the greaterthan-usual uncertainties of the budget process.
CHAPTER VII

Economy and Strategy Decoupled:

The October 1953 Budget Crisis

Budget Director Joseph Dodge, already looking forward to the FY

1955 budget, had followed the congressional budget battle with mingled

distaste and impatience. He viewed revision of the inherited Truman FY

1954 budget as only a preliminary step toward putting the new administration on a sound fiscal basis, and that step had been too short. The

results of the intensive budget review, he wrote in May 1953, fell

"substantially short" of the administration's fiscal objectives; actual

expenditures during FY 1954 would have to be reduced well below the

levels contemplated even in the revised budget. He thus took a sour view

of the progress of the congressional battle; if administration forces were

holding firm against the big spenders, they were also fending off the

critics who demanded further cuts. Dodge knew as well as Wilson and

McNeil that the $1.5 billion finally taken out of the revised Defense

budget was only water and air. DoD spending in FY 1954 would remain

well above the spartan levels the NSC had refused to impose in March. 1

BoB Initiatives, July 1953

Even though the overweight Truman FY 1954 budget had now given

way to a leaner one, Dodge still felt oppressed by the fiscal burdens left

him by his predecessors. The powerful momentum of the Truman budget

would be very difficult to arrest or slow down. Some 18 percent, about

$14.4 billion, consisted of mandatory expenditures beyond the reach of

administrative action-interest on the public debt, pension and benefit

programs, grants to states for public assistance, and the like. On the other

140
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 141

hand, requests for new appropriations for national security, comprising

71 percent of the whole budget, could be curbed more or less arbitrarily

since most of the impact would not be felt until after the coming fiscal

year, but spending was more difficult to control or to predict. Some

expenditures could be reduced by cutting payrolls or consumption of

fuel or ammunition in training, but contracts let in prior years generally

needed to be paid when due. Procurement spending might be significantly affected by fluctuations in output in any major sector of defense

industry. Expenditure cuts of $3.5 billion below the levels projected in

the Truman budget had been decreed for the defense programs, and $4.5

billion for the whole budget, but whether they would actually come to

pass would depend on such contingencies as the continuation of hostilities in Korea, redeployment of forces, and industrial strikes. 2

The huge appropriations of the Korean War years, far in excess of

current revenues or even of the country's capacity to proVide immediately

sufficient goods and services to absorb them, had generated a rising

curve of mostly deferred spending that would peak in fiscal years 1954

and 1955. Those were the years, unfortunately, in which the wartime taxes

enacted by Congress were scheduled to expire, with an estimated reduction in revenue of about $2.1 billion in FY 1954 and $8 billion in FY

1955. The cumulative deficits for the four fiscal years 1952-55 might,

Dodge estimated, come to $40 billion, and the FY 1955 deficit alone to

$15-16 billion. 3

Dodge's harsh view of Truman policies lacked historical understanding. Many administrations, especially war administrations, had

bequeathed large deficits and other fiscal problems to their successors. In

previous wars, excessive appropriations had usually been the norm as

had deferred spending. The Korean War aftermath differed from World

War II in that there was not a great demobilization, and the country

maintained its military forces and spending at a much higher level than

after World War II.

From his critical analysis Dodge drew two main conclusions. The

administration "could not permit the tax reductions now in the law to

have their full effect" -fostering continuing large budget deficits, further

weakening the dollar, and renewing inflationary pressures. He endorsed

the president's tax proposals of May-extending the excess profits tax for

six months and continuing the corporate income tax and excise taxes at

current levels-to avert a forecast revenue loss of about a billion in FY

1954 and as much as $5 billion the year following. 4 Dodge's second conclusion, though less explicit, had more significant implications. He stressed

that in recent years the cost of national security programs had risen
142 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

much faster than that of the federal government as a whole (hardly an

astonishing observation for war years). His point was, of course, that

balancing the budget would necessarily be largely at the expense of

these programs, which, with the almost irreducible mandatory part of

the budget, accounted for $70 billion of the $78.6 billion expenditures

originally projected. 5

Since BoB estimates of net FY 1955 revenue ranged from $60 billion

to $66 billion, it was clear that total expenditures anywhere near the $74

billion level of the administration's revised FY 1954 budget would be

unthinkable. For appropriations, BoB calculated that from $40 billion to

$43 billion could be allocated in a balanced budget to the major national

security programs, with Mutual Security taking upwards of $6 billion,

Atomic Energy about $2.3 billion, and Defense about $33 billion. 6

Understandably, OSD took a somewhat different approach, suggesting that even with Defense expenditures of about $40 billion (the level

projected in NSC 14912), only a small deficit would result. To bring total

expenditures down to the $65.4 billion level of estimated receipts,

however, would require cutting DoD spending back to $37.8 billion, and

Mutual Security and Atomic Energy commensurately. In the absence of a

balanced budget policy directive and with a shooting war still going on

in Korea, OSD saw no compelling reason to adopt this as an assumption

for budget planning. In early July OSD planners were projecting Defense

expenditures for FY 1955 of approximately $41 billion, with active forces

reduced to 3.2 million by 30 June 1955. Even with an early truce in

Korea it was assumed no substantial redeployment of U.S. forces from

that theater would begin before December 1954 and that continued

building of ammunition reserves and the equipping and maintaining of

Korean forces would require major outlays. Delivery of modern jet aircraft would bring big increases in operating costs, more would have to

be spent on civilian components to offset the reductions in active forces,

and research and development programs, even though purged of marginalutility projects, would be actively pursued in order to maintain American

leadership in advanced weaponry.7

The threat of major expenditure reductions aroused in OSD the old

specter of immediate large-scale contract cancellations and suspension

of the commitment of FY 1954 money, cutbacks in current production

schedules, and reduction of force objectives-necessary measures to

slow down the rate of cash outflow. The president had already directed

the new Joint Chiefs of Staff (as yet not even on board) to re-examine the

nation's security goals and commitments. Their findings were to provide

a basis for the FY 1955 budget. Until the president had acted on their
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 143

recommendations, the proper basis for tentative budget planning remained the interim force and readiness objectives underlying the revised

FY 1954 budget now before Congress.s

On 10 July Dodge dropped the first shoe, a letter to department and

agency heads alerting them to a 15 September deadline for FY 1955 budget submissions. He stressed its importance as the first budget prepared

by the administration. Revision of the FY 1954 budget had been only a

first step. Further substantial reductions would be required, spending

and obligations must be held well below budget level, and agencies

would receive expenditure ceilings called targets representing maximum

amounts on which to base FY 1955 budgetary plans. 9 Almost buried was

the administration's underlying philosophy of government: "The 1955

budget will reflect the continued withdrawal of the Federal government

from activities that can be more appropriately carried on in some other

way."IO It was a tough directive, but there was one notable omissionnowhere in it appeared the phrase "balanced budget."

Pressuresfor a Balanced Budget

The National Security Council scheduled a special meeting for

14 July to hear a briefing on the FY 1955 budget by Dodge and Treasury

Secretary Humphrey. The preceding week McNeil gave Wilson a copy of

the 9 July staff analysis of the FY 1955 DoD budget and followed it up

with an urgent memo spelling out the implications of what he expected

Dodge and Humphrey to propose: a ceiling on expenditures "significantly

lower than $40 billion-say, $36 or $37 billion." He listed for Wilson the

difficult measures that would then have to be taken, including warning

NATO governments that the United States would be unable to fulfill all

its force commitments, particularly Air Force units, for December 1953 or

even December 1954. McNeil warned that even a tentative agreement to

suchan expenditure ceiling "would support the contention that major

national security decisions are being taken solely from a financial point

of view without regard to the military security of the nation."l1

The Dodge-Humphrey budget offensive in the NSC meeting on

14 July proved even more crushing than McNeil had expected. Dodge forecast a deficit of $8.7 billion on the basis of projected FY 1955 revenues

of only $60.4 billion, and he projected current expenditure estimates of

about $69 billion ($41 billion for DoD). This evidently made a deep

impression on the president, who remarked that "we were in a hell of a

fix" when Humphrey called forcefully for a cut in taxes and a balanced

budget. To redeem campaign promises, Humphrey stated, spending for
144 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

overall defense programs would have to be cut back "in the neighborhood of $12 billion" below the level estimated in the administration's

revised FY 1954 budgetY Since the president left the meeting at this

point, he did not hear the remainder of Humphrey's discourse, which

became a tirade as he warmed to his theme. Spending cuts of the magnitude needed, he declared, could only be achieved by a genuine root-andbranch reform of the military establishment. The military must "give the

proper emphasis to new weapons, and to the possibilities of nuclear

warfare." The country's new leaders seemed to be little more than

"niggardly Harrimans"; if this was the best they could do, they might as

well give up hope of remaining in office. 13

Wilson waited for two weeks before replying, defiantly, to Dodge's

10 July letter. He reminded Dodge that the president had directed the

incoming Joint Chiefs to review all aspects of defense as a basis for the

FY 1955 budget, that the interim force goals established by direction of

the NSC were subject to whatever change might be indicated by the

chiefs' findings, and that Congress had been so informed. At his direction, the review had already begun, but until the Joint Chiefs produced

their recommendations, DoD could not develop its submissions. As for

Dodge's admonitions to reduce spending, Wilson added that he could

give no assurance that DoD would "be able to achieve greater economies

than were taken into account in the expenditure estimates for FY 1954

submitted with the revised budget."14

The Eight Billion Dollar Gap

The next day, 24 July, Wilson took the opportunity presented by a

convocation of high DoD civilian and military officials at the Marine Corps

base at Quantico, Virginia, to give his "team" an unscheduled status report

on the FY 1954-55 budgets. McNeil's deputy, Lyle Garlock, reviewed in

formidable detail the record of DoD appropriations and expenditures

during the Korean War. 15 He exhibited a chart showing the current BoB

estimate of $60.4 billion FY 1955 net revenue, of which $40.3 billion would

be available for national security appropriations. Allowing $7.3 billion for

Mutual Security and Atomic Energy, this would leave only $33 billion

for DoD-$8 billion less than the current OSD estimate of Defense needs

based on programs in progress. 16

The president remained ambivalent. While unwilling as yet to whip

the federal bureaucracy into line on a policy of budget balancing in

FY 1955, he nevertheless supported Dodge in quashing Wilson's opposition to immediate expenditure cuts and reduced appropriation requests
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 145

for that year. "It is absolutely essential," he wrote Wilson peremptorily

on 6 August, "that you begin immediately to take every possible step

progressively to reduce the expenditures of your department during the

fiscal year 1954"; in addition, "you will be expected to make substantial

reductions in your requests for new appropriations and in the level of

your expenditures for the fiscal year 1955, beyond those already

indicated for the fiscal year 1954."17 But the president also damped

expectations that the Korean truce might produce early reductions in

spending. He told the NSC on 23 July that he wanted to use any savings

there for the immense task of postwar Korean economic rehabilitation. 18

Plainly worried about the brittle situation in Korea even though an

armistice impended, Eisenhower expressed surprise and alarm at a report

that the Chinese planned to launch a major offensive on 26 August. Against

the advice of the military chiefs, he wanted to rush reinforcements to

Korea and even asserted his intention of sending nuclear-capable air units

to Okinawa to be available should the impending armistice be violated.

On 27 July (Washington time), the day after the armistice was signed,

he asked Congress to expand Korean aid. 19

July thus closed with dim prospects for a balanced budget in FY

1955 and with pressures building for more rather than less spending

in FY 1954. Dodge nevertheless refused to back down. He called for a

"serious attempt to balance the budget in [FY] 1955," laid down DoD

expenditure "estimates" for FY 1954 and FY 1955 of $40-41 billion and

$33-35 billion, respectively, and demanded that current estimates of

Defense spending be reduced immediately. Invoking the president's

6 August letter to Wilson, Dodge announced his intention "to use the

apportionment process in cooperation with [DoD] to initiate this action."20

Dodge evidently distrusted the Defense bureaucracy's response to

economy pressures and feared that the administration appointees now

heading DoD and other federal agencies were becoming prisoners of

their own staffs. He was especially incensed by agency pressures on the

White House and BoB to mount "rescue operations" in the legislative

committees against threatened budget cutS. 21

After receiving the president's peremptory order of 6 August, Wilson

waited almost a week before sending copies to the service secretaries.

His covering memorandum, directing full compliance, added a pointed

reminder of his own: "No change is contemplated in the basic military

program pending receipt of recommendations from the new Joint Chiefs

of Staff and actions thereon by the National Security Council."22 By

12 August both Wilson and the president knew something not yet made

known to other high officials (including Dodge), namely that on 8 August
146 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the new Joint Chiefs-to-be had submitted their first report and recommendations, a preliminary glimpse of the emerging New Look.

The New Joint Chiefs

The nation's new military leaders had been designated some three

months earlier. General Nathan R Twining had preceded the others into

office, succeeding General Vandenberg as Air Force chief of staff on

30 June. In mid-August General Bradley would be formally succeeded as

chairman by Admiral Radford, General Collins as Army chief of staff by

General Matthew B. Ridgway, and Admiral Fechteler as chief of naval

operations by Admiral Robert B. Carney. The only holdover service chief

would be Marine Corps Commandant General Lemuel C. Shepherd. 23

When asked at a press conference on 14 May whether he expected the

new chiefs to change the national strategy, the president's reply was

disarmingly elliptical. "The great facts that affect a so-called strategic

situation and plan," he said, "do not change rapidly."24

In Congress, Senator Taft and other Republican leaders to whose

advice Eisenhower was mainly responsive in this matter considered

that the main purpose in bringing the new chiefs to Washington early

was to give them time for a contemplative review of the nation's strategic

posture, primarily as a basis for developing the FY 1955 budget. Taft and

his followers, disappointed by the size of the revised FY 1954 budget

and the slow progress of tax reform, considered FY 1955 more urgent.

Apparently more concerned with strategic policy, in late June Eisenhower

decided, and a week later directed Wilson, to make the incoming chiefs

available for the study for at least a month-beginning early in July and

before undertaking their new duties, giving to the examination full-time,

uninterrupted attention. 25 The four officers did not receive their orders

until mid-July, when the president in person gave the directive to Wilson.

Since Ridgway, Radford, and Carney had arrived in Washington only in

time for this meeting, the month or more originally planned for the study

had already dwindled to somewhere between two and four weeks. As it

turned out, precious days of their study time were taken up by impromptu

inspection trips and by the DoD conference at Quantico at the end of

July, all of which the president (his written instructions notwithstanding) ordered them to attend. Finally, in an effort to escape the ringing

telephones and other distractions of the Pentagon, the four officers

spent 6-7 August cruising the Chesapeake Bay on the Navy secretary's

yacht, Sequoia. 26
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 147

Regardless of time limitations, the kind of study the president had

asked the new chiefs to undertake could not be expected to have much

effect on the preparation of the FY 1955 budget. He desired only a summarized statement of views on five listed topics: (a) strategic concepts

and implementing plans, (b) service roles and missions, (c) composition

and readiness of existing forces, (d) development of new weapons and

resulting advances in tactics, and (e) military assistance.* In short, not only

was the scope of the study formidably broad, but by its nature it had to

be purely conceptual, and therefore of little help in formulating the FY

1955 budget. 27

On the other hand, the president left no room for doubt that he

wanted what amounted to a directed, or at least a tightly constrained,

verdict. The chiefs were to seek the views of the secretary of the treasury

and the budget director on NSC 153/1 in order to take account of economic and fiscal considerations. Theoretically, the chiefs were free to

recommend a strategy and military posture responsive to the enemy threat

as they perceived it. As a practical matter, however, they were confined

within a tight circle of generally consistent policy pronouncements

shaped above all by the conviction of the president and his chief economic advisers that prolonged heavy spending for defense would lead to

national bankruptcy and a regimented society. These constraints would

undoubtedly have been felt even without the president's strong reminder

that he expected the chiefs' recommendations to point toward a "really

austere basis in military preparation and operations." The extent of the

study's projection into the future was of crucial importance. Eisenhower

made it clear that he had in mind an interim guidance paper for the

NSC, neither a requirements blueprint for immediate application in the

FY 1955 budget nor a strategic guide for the distant future. The examination "should provide a fresh view as to the best balance and effective

use and deployment of our armed forces under existing circumstances."28

In his hope that the chiefs would provide a strategic rationale for

the FY 1955 budget, Wilson evidently had failed to read the president's

directive carefully. Had that been its purpose, the chiefs would have

had no alternative-given the guidance provided them-but to devise a

strategy that could be implemented in FY 1955 and by a $33 billion

defense budget-truly a directed verdict. Fortunately for Wilson, the

chiefs retained the option, even under this constrained directive, to

provide the NSC a conceptual launching pad for a long-haul national

* The British chiefs of staff went through the same exercise in 1952 at Churchill's behest.

Their recommendations were strikingly similar to those of the JCS, particularly with

reference to nuclear weapons. There is reason to believe that the U.s. chiefs and Eisenhower were aware of this and possibly influenced by it.
148 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

strategy supported by gradually, not steeply, declining budgets. This,

indeed, is what they did.

Solarium: Containment Reaffirmed

The real charter for the New Look, however, would come from the

long-range study by the NSC initiated at a meeting in the White House

on 8 May, when the president met with Under Secretary of State Walter

Bedell Smith, Special Assistant to the President Robert Cutler, CIA

Director Alan Dulles, and C.D. Jackson, chairman of the Psychological

Strategy Board. Operation "Solarium," as the undertaking came to be called,

represented a fundamental re-examination of the containment policy and

its alternatives. Inherited from the preceding administration, containment was relatively defensive, unaggressive, and geared to the long haul,

stressing collective defense of vital free world areas, deterrence of

general war, and sustained effort to help other free world nations resist

Communist pressures. A more aggressive alternative envisaged that the

United States would publicly draw a "thus-far-and-no-farther" line around

the Soviet bloc, extending lines drawn in Europe and the Far East, and

would warn the Soviets that any military crossing of the line might precipitate a general war. In dealing with local Communist takeovers, the

United States would reserve freedom of action. The most aggressive

option would be the "liberation" policy so confidently urged by some

Republicans in the election campaign but little heard of since. Under this

policy the United States would actively seek to exploit the internal vulnerabilities of the Soviet Union and its satellites through vigorous programs

of economic, political, and psychological warfare, including subversion,

sabotage, and support of unrest and rebellion. 29 All three policies assigned

first priority to protection of the continental United States and maintenance of the capacity to win a general war should deterrence fail.

The study in depth of each alternative was assigned early in June to

a task force of military and civilian experts headed by a distinguished

advocate of the policy in question. George F. Kennan was the obvious

choice to head the containment study (Task Force "A"); Maj. Gen. James

McCormack, Jr., USAF, and Vice Adm. Richard 1. Conolly, USN, drew the

"B" and "C" assignments, respectively.30 The task forces reported to the

NSC on 16 July, two days after the climactic budget presentation by

Dodge and Humphrey.

Kennan's optimistic presentation of the "A" study portrayed the

containment policy favorable to the United States, and he recommended

continuation of the policy with modest increases for continental defense
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 149

and deterrent capacity. General McCormack, speaking for Task Force "B,"

urged an abrupt shift to the hard-line policy examined by his group:

"The warning of general war as the primary sanction against further

Soviet Bloc aggression, under clearly defined circumstances," his report

declared, "is the best means available for insuring the security of the

United States," and the only way to avoid an endless succession of "costly

small wars, none of which seems to lead anywhere except to another

one." Admiral Conolly characterized the policy examined by Task Force

"c" as "a positive course of action designed to seize the strategic initiative

and deliberately undertake the task of eliminating the Communist threat

to the free world." The United States should complete its military buildup

without delay, develop the appropriate organization for aggressive covert,

economic, and diplomatic action, and then launch its short-of-war offensive to disrupt and eventually break up the Soviet bloc from within. 31

Only Task Force "c" attempted to estimate the cost of its preferred

strategy: $60 billion per year for 1954 and 1955, declining thereafter to

$45 billion in 1958-in the view of the task force, not prohibitive. Both

the other groups considered their strategies as readily affordable. General

McCormack seemed to imply that the essential simplicity of the "dtawthe-line" strategy, with its heavy reliance on (and clear intention to

employ) strategic airpower and nuclear weapons, should make it less

costly than the current containment strategyY Kennan's reinforced containment policy, which would require large, widely dispersed forces

overseas, an augmented base and alliance structure, and increased aid to

allies would certainly require more than current costs.

The president seemed depressed by the whole presentation: No matter

who won a global war, he believed, there would be no freedom for the

survivors, and even the necessary measures to protect the security of a

free people by deterring war seemed to lead them ineluctably down the

road toward a garrison state. In the end, the president asked for preparation of a summary of the three presentations and the council discussion

for review by task force representatives, whose comments would then

be incorporated and presented to the council on 23 July, looking toward

final discussion and recommendations on the 30th. 33

When the NSC returned to the problem on the 30th, it promptly rejected a recommendation from the JCS (through the secretary of defense)

that the Planning Board prepare a historical study of the reasoning behind

past rejections of the various proposals that had now cropped up again in

the reports of the three task forces. Instead, it directed the Planning

Board, with the help of task force representatives, to draft a single new

policy statement incorporating some features of all three reportsmaintenance of U.S. military strength, continued close relations with
150 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

allies, continued assistance to other free world nations. There should also

be a more precise specification of "off limits" areas where any Soviet

encroachment would call for a strong military response, but no resort

to the far-reaching offensive action proposed in the "liberation" policy.

That policy thus faded into history. The NSC decision amounted to a

reaffirmation of containment, with some redefinition, a task that would

keep the committee assigned to it busy for the next two months. 34 The

council took this standpat position despite a CIA analysis, presented

by Alan Dulles at the same meeting, of discouraging long-range trends in

the East-West conflict (highlighted by recent popular disturbances in

East Berlin and Czechoslovakia). The analysis concluded that, on the

whole, time seemed to be working against the West, as a consequence

of growing Soviet economic strength and the emergence of new

weapons that would eventually make the United States vulnerable to

direct nuclear attack. 35

The NSC's daring three-month excursion into the wilderness of

"liberation" and other tough responses to the Soviet threat thus ended

where it had begun-with the inherited six-year-old containment policy.

That policy had already been officially restated, at about the time the

Solarium task forces got to work, in NSC 153/1, which the president

approved on 10 June. Its provisions suggest why the president, despite his

perception of a steadily increasing Soviet threat, was unwilling to abandon

containment. While NSC 153/1 envisaged an indefinitely prolonged state

of East-West tension without major hostilities, it recognized the importance of maintaining a strong retaliatory capability sufficient "to inflict

massive damage on Soviet war-making capacity, at a level that the Soviets

must regard as...unacceptable," and of providing "the basis for winning a

general war if one should be forced on us." It also called for measures

to prevent the expansion and consolidation of Soviet bloc power without "unduly" risking a general war, but accepted the risk of giving the

Soviets pretexts for resorting to war. It even advocated unilateral action,

if necessary, against "local communist aggression in key areas."

Nevertheless NSC 153/1 was neither as provocative as a "liberation"

policy nor as inflexible as a "draw the line" policy would be. For response

to aggression the United States retained options other than general war.

Containment held out a reasonable possibility of a prolonged, comparatively stable standoff accompanied by a slow erosion of Communist rule

and cohesion. The sticking point, of course, was cost. NSC 153/1 warned

that the cost of sustaining a posture of readiness to counter Soviet

aggression could in time seriously weaken the U.S. economy. Sound

fiscal policy might therefore require acceptance of "increased risks" in

dealing with the threat of aggression. 36 Somehow, ways must be found
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 151

to contrive a strategy that would permit placing the military establishment, in the president's words, "on a really austere basis." To this end, the

new Joint Chiefs-designate had been asked to provide expert gUidanceY

The New Chiefs Weigh In

By the time the chiefs submitted their report on 8 August the

Korean watershed lay behind them, although troublesome rumors still

abounded. For a report so long and eagerly awaited, this one was remarkably brief, only five pages. It started with the assertion that war plans

and their implementation since June 1950 had served their purpose and

in general were "sound and adequate." But the responses to open aggression in Korea and to threats and pressures in Europe and elsewhere had

left the nation ill-prepared for future challenges. The armed forces had

little strategic reserve. Virtually the entire pool of trained manpower had

been drained off, particularly specialists. Even a limited emergency would

require time-consuming training of new personnel and any significant

augmentation of the armed forces could occur only after full-scale mobilization. Technology offered no prompt remedy for this overall decline in

military strength, except perhaps for atomic weapons.

Meanwhile, the enemy's military strength was growing. The chiefs

noted that the Soviets now had an increasing capability for atomic attack

against the continental United States, an especially alarming development

since continental defenses appeared to be critically weak and badly in

need of bolstering. Also vital was the capability for strategic retaliation,

both to deter and to fight and win wars. The chiefs summed up their

indictment: "Our current military capabilities are inadequate to provide

essential national security and at the same time to meet our global military

commitments. We are over-extended."

Mindful of the directed budgetary focus of their inquiry, the chiefs

said they had examined various courses of action that might reverse this

deterioration without undermining the nation's economic health. Only

one course seemed to offer reasonable promise of improving U.S. general

security while meeting the economic requirement-reverse current priorities by stressing continental air defense and strategic retaliatory

power at the expense of military commitments abroad. The word

"reduction" did not appear. If adopted, the plan would require at least

two years to accomplish, during which the need for deficit financing

would probably continue.

The report did not explore aspects of the upheaval that would be

involved in the nation's foreign policy and relations with allies and other
152 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

free world nations, but one of its recommendations hinted that as leader

of the free world the United States should be more discriminatory in

extending aid or protection, "and should require an appropriate contribution or concession in return." Adequate intelligence would be crucially

important, particularly with respect to early warning of attack, and as a

basis for correct appraisals of Soviet capabilities and intentions. The

chiefs also foresaw difficulties in selling the new dispensation to Congress

and the American people. 38

It remains to note one startling omission-whether the enormous

accretion of nuclear firepower, since it did not require commensurate

increases in manpower to bring it to bear against an enemy, might permit

substantial force reductions. An alluring idea to budget cutters, presumably it was what Humphrey had in mind at the 14 July NSC meeting in

calling for "proper emphasis" on new weapons and the "possibilities of

nuclear warfare."39 On 20 July General Twining had made the same point

to his three colleagues-to-be when he reminded them of the strong

economy focus of their directive. The president, he noted, wanted a force

structure that could be "maintained and operated for an indefinite period

without forcing such a financial burden on the country as to endanger

a strong, sound U.S. economy." A fresh look at the capabilities of atomic

weapons might offer a means of achieving this purpose. 40

The president had been far from reticent on the subject of nuclear

weapons, although in his public utterances he had thus far been squeamish about referring to them by name, preferring such euphemisms as

"new" or "modern" weapons. One of his favorite themes was that these

weapons were bringing about revolutionary changes in warfare and

military organization that military planners and national leaders must

take into account. "Today," he told a Minneapolis audience on 10 June,

"25 aircraft equipped with modern weapons can in a single attack visit

upon an enemy as much explosive violence as was hurled at Germany

by our entire air effort throughout four years of World War II." Behind

closed doors in the NSC, where the employment of atomic weapons often

came up for discussion during the winter and spring of 1953, usually in

the context of the Korean War, the president expressed himself with

sometimes startling candor. He favored but had not directed their introduction on a tactical scale against Communist forces in Korea, and

had agreed with the Joint Chiefs that atomic weapons would have to be

used strategically if it became necessary to broaden the war in order to

bring it to an early conclusion. On at least two occasions, both in the

Korean context, Eisenhower had preViously made the point expressed

by Twining later in his 20 July memo to the other chiefs. On 31 March

he agreed with Secretary Dulles that "somehow or other the taboo [among
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 153

America's allies] which surrounds the use of atomic weapons would have

to be destroyed." On 6 May he told the NSC, in a discussion of the feasibility of attacking Chinese airfields in North Korea, that he had become

convinced that "we have got to consider the atomic bomb as simply

another weapon in the arsenal.,,41

Twining could thus be reasonably confident that his proposal, if

formally put forward by the JCS, would have the president'S support, but

he did not explain how it would permit the force reductions needed to

effect major cuts in the defense budget. Proposals to use atomic weapons

against the Communists in Korea had, of course, an altogether different

aim-to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy under circumstances in

which he would be unable, at least immediately, to retaliate in kind or

impose other penalties. The long-haul policy that Twining proposed

implied that the United States would plan (perhaps publicly, for deterrent

effect) on using atomic weapons in many situations where otherwise

it would normally use conventional weapons, thus making possible reductions in conventionally armed forces. The near certainty that the

enemy would respond in kind posed a risk that must be accepted, a.s

Twining recognized.

Presumably the chiefs discussed Twining's proposal. Yet the only

indication in their 8 August report that they had done so was a noncommittal recommendation at the end of the paper for the formulation

and public announcement of a clear, positive policy on the use of atomic

weapons. 42 It seems reasonable to infer that they had been unable to

agree on such a policy and accordingly left the task, without recommendation, to the NSC. Their solution to prOViding adequate security

without undermining the economy thus amounted to a turn toward

Fortress America-a massive pullback from overseas commitments and

deployments and increased emphasis on defense of the homeland.

Scheduling Problems

Although under mounting pressure from Dodge, since early July

Wilson had been delaying the preparation of FY 1955 DoD budget

estimates. He finally served notice that the 15 September deadline could

not be met, contending that he could not proceed until the Joint Chiefs

provided, and the president approved, the revised strategy and force

requirements that the budget was supposed to reflect. Whether or not

Wilson believed this, the argument was at least an accepted expedient.

Behind it lay the hope that the revised strategy, when it materialized,

might provide a basis for resisting the demands of administration and
154 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

congressional budget balancers for crippling cuts. But the Joint Chiefs'

. strategic concept paper was far too general and pointed toward horizons

too distant to provide real guidance. When it was expounded to the NSC

on 27 August, Humphrey pronounced it "terrific" and "the most important thing to happen in the country since January 20." Radfprd warned

that for the near term the redeployments and readjustments involved in

the new strategy would cost more rather than less than the current military posture. 43

In the last week of August discussions between Kyes, McNeil, and

BoB representatives reached an impasse. OSD officials rejected a new

schedule proposed by BoB that would have required Wilson to set

interim force and readiness levels for FY 1955 without guidance from

the Joint Chiefs, other than the Sequoia report. After reworking by OSD

and BoB and review by NSC the Defense budget would be formally

submitted to BoB by 1 December and go to the president on the 15th.44

This required the immediate determination of force, strength, and

readiness goals, but they need only be interim-that is, not aimed beyond

FY 1955-and tentative; adjustments could be made later. 45

McNeil warned Wilson that to prepare a FY 1955 Defense budget on

the basis of arbitrarily fixed interim goals before the NSC had considered the Joint Chiefs' recommendations would be interpreted by the

press and Congress as a violation of public pledges by the president that

the chiefs would be given an "uninhibited" opportunity to recommend,

without specific fiscal limitations, the forces needed for the nation's

security. The gross figures derived from interim force goals would be

frozen into governmental thinking, influencing the shaping of tax policy

and decisions on total federal budget expenditures, and would thus

specify prematurely the total funds available for DoD. The Joint Chiefs

would have to adjust their recommendations to these totals. McNeil

wanted Wilson to propose an alternative schedule giving the Joint

Chiefs until 15 October to come up with FY 1955 force goals. The end

result would be the submission sometime in January of a detailed Defense

budget based on the revised military plan and reflecting Treasury-BoB

tax and expenditure recommendations. Congress would get the whole

package "prior to 15 February."46

But McNeil's plan was foredoomed. Dodge lost no time in submitting

his proposed schedule to the president, who promptly approved it,

primarily because it ensured that the budget would be submitted to

Congress, as the law required, in January. With Dodge warning against

further foot-dragging, Wilson directed the Joint Chiefs on 16 September

to submit promptly a short-term plan for force and readiness levels in FY

1955, as a basis for OSD's rough cost estimates for that year's budget.
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 155

A special meeting of the NSC was set for 13 October to review both.

This would enable the service staffs to begin work almost immediately

on detailed budget estimates, looking to submission of the completed

budget to OSD by 9 November, to BoB about a month later, and to the

president by 15 December.47

So Dodge won his main point, getting budget preparation on track

and moving. Interim force, readiness, and strength goals would be fixed

immediately and translated into dollars without waiting for the Joint

Chiefs to complete their strategy proposals. Ironically, the schedule now

directed by the White House was only about two weeks "faster" in its

early stages than the one in McNeil's abortive plan, but the debate and

decision he had hoped for would now be limited to the NSC meeting on

13 October. From then on, OSD and the services would have to work

within a rigid framework of approved ceilings with little room to negotiate adjustments with BoB before final submission of the DoD budget

on 7 December.

The Joint Chiefs Stand Pat

The hurriedly prepared military services' force-level recommendations reached the JCS during the last week of September. Evidently

there had been no JCS mandate to reduce manpower requirements, for

the aggregate strength proposed for the end of FY 1955-3,507,721-

was approximately 150,000 more than the existing goal for the end of

FY 1954 and only 47,000 under the actual strength of the armed forces

at the end of FY 1953. The Army wanted the largest increase, 87,000 over

the end-FY 1954 goal proposed in May 1953; the Air Force and the Navy

proposed increases of 42,000 and nearly 23,000, respectively.48

TABLE 2

Service Manpower Proposals for 1954-55

Army

Navy

Marine Corps

Air Force

Total

FY 1954 (May 53)

1,421,000

745,066

230,021

960,000

3,356,087

FY 1955 (Oct 53)

1,508,000

767,700

230,021

1,002,000

3,507,721
156 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

None of the services proposed major structural changes. The Army

intended to retain a constant 20-division force through 1955 and the

Marine Corps to keep its existing 3 divisions. The Air Force planned to

accelerate its expansion to 114 wings by the end of FY 1954 and 130

wings by the end of FY 1956, with an ultimate goal of 137 wings in

1957. The Navy would retain its current active force of more than 800

combat ships built around 14 heavy carriers. The JCS rubber-stamped

these proposals except for the Air Force's new 137-wing goal, which

would have to wait until the overall force review was completed. They

merely forwarded the services' personnel strength proposals. 49

In view of Radford's recent warning that the new JCS strategic

concept would cost more rather than less in its early stages, these force

estimates for FY 1955 perhaps should not have come as a surprise. But

they posed for Wilson an awkward dilemma. At the NSC meeting on

1 October, before the JCS paper was submitted, Humphrey had given a

foretaste of the storm clouds gathering over the FY 1955 Defense budget. He declared that "the whole world was going broke" in the arms race.

The H-bomb, he charged, was being used as "an excuse for raising taxes,"

but the American public, after 20 years of "scare stories," would not be

taken in by them any longer. The president mildly interjected that he too

had heard of the H-bomb and "it scared him." Wilson listened in silence,

for the most part, but he quietly warned that his department could not

reduce its expenditures during the coming fiscal year to the level required to balance the budget. Other agencies would have to make the

necessary cuts. 50

Wilson's staff was both baffled and annoyed by the JCS recommendations and the obviously uncoordinated service proposals that

accompanied them. The services offered no justification for the requested

personnel increases. The Army's proposal, a staff member noted, seemed

to be an earlier plan "dusted off and resubmitted," but the Air Force

proposal came from out of the blue and did not tally with figures obtained

from the Air Staff: "God knows where the numbers came from." The Air

Force still projected a pilot training program (9,000 per year) far in

excess of any level it had ever achieved. The Navy's requested increase

seemed "to represent an afterthought." Overmanning of the fleet, carried

over from wartime, still averaged about 30,000,51

Facing the 13 October deadline Wilson instructed McNeil to use the

only prepared data available, the unreviewed and uncoordinated service

proposals, labeling his recommendations as "preliminary." McNeil's money

figures could not have been too surprising, but they were shocking

enough-$43 billion in FY 1955 expenditures and $40.4 billion for FY
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 157

1956. The spending estimates were only slightly lower than the amounts

currently projected by BoB as likely to be available for all three major

security programs (Defense, Mutual Security, and Atomic Energy)-$43.3

billion in FY 1955 and $42.6 billion in FY 1956-even if Congress

partially extended existing excise and corporate income taxes scheduled

to lapse in FY 1954. In a balanced federal budget, this meant an expenditure ceiling for DoD in the neighborhood of $34 billion for each of the

two years. 52

Wilson thus faced a certain showdown in the NSC on 13 October.

The gap between his figures and the Dodge-Humphrey budgetary

objectives was too wide to be bridged by minor concessions on both

sides. The difference-one of principle-only the president could resolve.

Redeployment, Nuclear Weapons, and the Soviet Threat

Deep cuts in the DoD budget were implicit in the New Look

concept, although the Joint Chiefs had somewhat obscured the point in

their strategic paper by ruling out the possibility of immediate economies.

They had proposed, in essence, a radical reduction of the whole military

establishment by thinning out forces overseas, replacing them in large

part by indigenous allied manpower, concentrating U.S. forces nearer

home in a central strategic reserve, and placing greater reliance on airpower, especially strategic retaliatory airpower. The surprising omission

of an explicit affirmation of the role of atomic weapons was quickly corrected when Radford and his colleagues explained the paper to the NSC

on 27 August. By this time the Soviet thermonuclear test on the 12th had

created a new sense of urgency. Radford confirmed that the new concept

relied heavily on the deterrent effect of combining airpower and atomic

weapons (both strategic and tactical) and that this would affect reshaping

of the armed forces. None of the other chiefs demurred on this pointTwining presumably supported it unreservedly-and most of the discussion

centered on the proposed pullback from worldwide deployments and

commitments.

On this question the chiefs clearly differed, although all agreed

that American forces were dangerously overextended and that allied

countries must make larger manpower contributions. Dulles feared that

a too rapid pullback from overseas would be taken as a signal that American leaders considered the Soviet menace to be fading and would make

immeasurably more difficult the task of persuading allied governments to

build up their defenses. Any chance of inducing the Japanese to assume

responSibility for their own defense might disappear. Withdrawing U.S.
158 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

forces and reducing U.S. commitments might undermine the administration's major foreign policy goal of reinvigorating the NATO alliance. Dulles

restated his argument that no single nation, not even the United States,

could match in peacetime the power that the totalitarian Soviet government could squeeze from its people; the United States might "go bust"

if it tried to do so. Only by pooling its resources could the free world

muster sufficient strength to face the Soviet bloc. The "art of the thing," to

use Dulles's phrase, in any fundamental revision of policy and strategy

was to manage it in such a way as to maintain the cohesion of the free

world and permit a pooling of resources. There existed widespread fear

abroad that the United States might revert to the Fortress America posture.

Implementation of the new strategy would require delicate handling. 53

On this cautious note the 27 August meeting closed. The council in

general favored the JCS concept so far as it went, and the State Department was charged with developing a plan for implementing it. The NSC

discussion, when reported by Dulles to the president at his vacation retreat

in Denver, elicited a long, thoughtful, mostly gloomy response, generally

acquiescing in the new strategic concept but endorsing the council's goslow approach to redeployment and stressing the necessity for careful

education of public opinion both at home and abroad. "Any withdrawal

that seemed to imply a change in basic intent would cause real turmoil

abroad," the president emphasized. Equally clear, he expected it would be

a long time before the new strategy could pay dividends in budget cuts.

The role of nuclear weapons, which the recent Soviet thermonuclear

tests had thrust suddenly into the limelight, loomed paramount, deepening

Eisenhower's pessimism regarding the prospects of avoiding the trap of

increasing social and economic regimentation that he perceived as inherent in the high costs of maintaining for the indefinite future an

adequate defense posture. This led him also to speculate that "in such

circumstances we would be forced to conclude whether or not our duty

to future generations did not require us to initiate war at the most

propitious moment that we could designate."54

Debate continued during September and early October over redeployment and the role of nuclear weapons-the two potential manpowersaving (and therefore money-saving) features of the Joint Chiefs' new

strategic concept. The initial forum, the Solarium Special Committee

appointed by the NSC Planning Board on 30 July, submitted its first draft

statement on 17 September to the Planning Board, which sent it up to

the NSC as a split paper (NSC 162) on the 30th.55

On the issue of "special" (Le., nuclear) weapons there was apparently

no difference of opinion in the board; NSC 162 stated simply that they

should be used "whenever they are required by the national security"
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 159

and that the "understanding and approval" of this intent should be secured

from other governments as far as possible. The board also approved redeployment in principle, but members differed over the risks involved; the

more cautious wanted more study of the possible political consequences

before carrying out any significant withdrawals. Others wanted the

pullback to begin immediately, though on a modest scale, along with

diplomatic efforts to convince allied governments that it was in their longterm interests to undertake a larger share of the burdens of their own

defense. Similar differences appeared when the Joint Chiefs reviewed

NSC 162. All agreed that u.S. forces were overextended and to some degree

improperly positioned. Carney and Ridgway warned against any major

withdrawal from Europe or the Far East. Radford opposed any withdrawals from the Far East as long as the risk of a resumption of hostilities

remained high. In Europe, conceding the inconsistency of u.S. troop

withdrawals at a time when the United States sought to persuade allied

governments to increase their own troop commitments, the JCS chairman hoped nevertheless that the latter might acquiesce because of the

increased role played by growing U.S. nuclear capabilities. 56

The split on the redeployment issue in NSC 162 in fact sparked little

debate when the NSC discussed the papers on 7 October. Dulles, who had

stressed caution on 27 August, now accepted an early but selective initiation of the pullback provided it was done quietly and without alarming

our allies. The president seemed pleased, remarking that our allies

should be "brought to realize that such a redeployment was really good

military policy."57

The JCS strategic concept paper had not addressed the fundamental

question of the seriousness of the Soviet military and economic threats.

On the Planning Board, the Treasury and BoB representatives had pushed

hard for a strong statement that the prolonged drain of high military

expenditures would weaken the U.S. economy and therefore the country's military strength. The majority of the board considered the economy

strong enough to sustain a military posture adequate to deal with any

foreseeable threat; the nation should be prepared to pay whatever price its

security required. The Joint Chiefs emphatically endorsed this position,

but in their report to Wilson on 6 October declined for the present to

endorse NSC 162 as a whole pending further study.58

Budgetary implications related mainly to the long haul, but it could

not be doubted that they would influence the approach to the FY 1955

budget. At the 7 October NSC meeting, C. D. Jackson, the president's

psychological warfare adviser, supported the JCS view that the needs of

national security should always take priority over the demands of the
160 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

economy. Squeezed uncomfortably between the two hard lines, Wilson

agreed with Humphrey and Dodge that current tax rates were oppressive

for business and, in general, that heavy defense spending in the long run

would weaken the nation's defense posture. But it would be a "terrible

day," he thought, if the administration ever put "a balanced budget ahead

of national defense." He was put off by apocalyptic views of unbalanced

budgets as a threat to the American way of life; he favored a "reasonable"

defense posture for the long haul.

The preSident, clearly sympathetic to the budget-driven TreasuryBoB assessment and repelled by the argument that long-term military

needs must be met regardless of cost, declared that "in the long run this

country must have a sound dollar." He agreed with Humphrey that the

American people would not indefinitely tolerate high levels of defense

spending, but he avoided committing himself on the budget-balancing

issue, remarking that he had to take a "daily beating" from the balancedbudget zealots. NSC 162 went back to the Planning Board for resolution

of differences. 59

When Wilson totted up his assets and liabilities on the eve of the

13 October NSC meeting, he must have found the results depressing.

The ]CS had recommended "no change" in force levels, while passing on,

with no recommendation at all, the accompanying bundle of uncoordinated service proposals for major personnel increases, implying that these

were his problem, not theirs. All this added up, by McNeil's reckoning, to

$43 billion in expenditures for FY 1955. Wilson could accept or reject it,

but he had no better alternative to offer and no time to develop one. Substantial savings could probably be squeezed from the support forces, and

the service secretaries had been directed to attend to this. But until they

provided their findings this was only a hope and a talking point.

The New Look strategy, still evolving, held out tantalizing promise of

eventual major economies but at the moment prOVided no basis for concrete budget reductions. An immediate phased pullback of forces from

Europe and/or the Far East would have given Wilson an ideal opening

for major budget cuts based on an approved strategy and redeployment

plan, with hard numbers. But on 13 October an approved strategy and

program was still no more than a hypothetical prospect. There remained

the new nuclear weapons policy likely to be approved in the final version

of NSC 162. In theory this also held promise of major manpower reductions, but even if approved, how was the translation into men and dollars

to be made? At an NSC meeting on 1 October Wilson had ruminated wistfully about pulling out all the U.S. divisions from Europe, leaving only

token and base defense forces costing much less, while Radford contrasted
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 161

the burgeoning cost of modern nuclear weapons with the much lower

expenditures for munitions in Europe during World War II: "At present we

are trying to keep abreast of both atomic and conventional armaments.

We must make every effort to change over to a greater emphasis on the

new weapons system since the cost of trying to maintain both systems is

plainly too high.,,60

Wilson did not have a strong bargaining strategy for the 13 October

NSC meeting since it rested on the assumption that force levels and

budget estimates were negotiable. Ever since the Soviet thermonuclear

tests in August the president had been in a somber mood, oppressed by

the prospect of high defense spending without end and the tightening

economic controls and rising taxes he was sure this would entail. In this

frame of mind the president could even speculate about so radical a solution as preemptive war, but it must have seemed far more likely to Wilson

that, if forced to get on with the FY 1955 budget, Eisenhower would

reject the extreme budget-balancing cuts that Humphrey, Dodge, and the

Republican Old Guard were demanding.

Showdown

At the 13 October NSC meeting Dodge's detailed presentation culminated in an estimated deficit of $8.7 billion that he characterized as

optimistic in the light of anticipated revenues. Wilson reviewed the

immediate background of the DoD budget estimates, climaxing in the ]CS

2 October recommendation to approve again combat force levels already

planned for FY 1955, with the addition of recently proposed augmentations for continental defense and the Air Force's proposed acceleration

to 120 wings. He recited the chiefs' reasons: There had been no change in

basic policy or strategy, in assessments of the Soviet threat, or in policy

for use of nuclear weapons. McNeil then reviewed the budget estimates,

aggregating $43 billion. He stressed that his figures were only a "rough

order of magnitude.,,6i

The reaction was immediate and sharp. Dodge protested the failure to

show savings from termination of hostilities in Korea and Humphrey complained that Defense "offered no cut at all." Wilson retorted firmly that

the uncertain situation created by the Korean truce had not permitted the

hoped-for reduction in spending. Changes in the DoD budget required that

decisions be made on use of nuclear weapons and deployment of forces

overseas. Wilson had asked the Joint Chiefs to make a new long-range

military posture projection which would be affordable without raising
162 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

fears among the allies that the United States was either about to withdraw

its protection or unleash global war. 62

The president turned to Radford and delivered a little lecture. There

was no such thing as a perfect defense, he said. The best that could be

hoped for was, "in Washington's words, a respectable posture of defense."

He wanted the chiefs to look again, and hard, at their combat force requirements. Could they not stretch out some of them over a longer period of

time? Also, he was going to insist that the chiefs not confine their recommendations to major combat forces only; he wanted austerity across the

board. Radford pointed out that what had been presented was only an

interim budget that would be refined later; the still unreviewed estimates

of support dements could be substantially reduced. The president said

that he found most disturbing the proposed increase in the total force

level to 3.5 million. "We ought rather to be trying to reduce present levels

to 3 million," without cutting combat units, but reducing "everywhere else."

Dulles brought the discussion back to the subject of nuclear weapons,

which dominated the remainder of the meeting. The connection between

these weapons and force levels, at least in the short term, began to appear

more theoretical than real. The idea that treating nuclear weapons as

nearly akin to conventional ones would serve as a powerful lever to bring

overextended American forces back home rested at bottom on the

assumption that small forces with immense nuclear firepower could be

substituted for much larger ones conventionally armed. The policy under

consideration in NSC 162, however, had a proviso that nuclear weapons

could not be used from bases in allied territory without the advance consent

of the host government. Negotiations over this issue could be expected to

take a long time. Dulles proposed to raise the question with Foreign

Secretary Anthony Eden in London during the following week. 63

The principal obstacle to an early pullback of American forces recommended by the Joint Chiefs persisted-the extreme sensitivity of the issue

abroad, especially in Europe, where it continued hostage to the fears of

the French, overextended in Indochina, that Britain and the United States

would abandon them to a resurgent Germany. In the Far East the threat

of renewed hostilities, whether by the Chinese or by disgruntled Korean

President Rhee, made early withdrawal of U.S. forces from there unlikely.

Accordingly, although both the president and Dulles recognized that the

vast U.S. overseas establishment would have to be greatly reduced in the

long run, they saw no immediate prospect of significant withdrawals and

were even reluctant to admit publicly that major redeployments were a

long-term goal. On 7 October, for the revised version of NSC 162, they had

virtually dictated, over the opposition of the Joint Chiefs, a statement of
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 163

redeployment policy so cautious and devious that only a careful reader

could discern that such an undertaking was contemplated.64

Radford, defending his contention that the proposed revised policy on

nuclear weapons offered no basis for large force reductions in FY 1955,

boldly asked the president whether the Joint Chiefs could count on using

these weapons in Korea in the event of renewed hostilities. The case was

shrewdly chosen: a theater from which large U.S. forces might be withdrawn, where nuclear weapons could be used without involving bases

on allied soil, and where early eruption of fighting was a real possibility.

Perhaps taken aback, Eisenhower hesitated, while Dulles made the point

that inasmuch as "we are the UN command," the United States had the

authority to use the weapons if militarily justified, but the allies ought to

be informed. The president said he too believed in using nuclear weapons

if hostilities were resumed in Korea but noted that previous agreements

with allies might affect the decision. The answer to Radford's questions

seemed to be that nuclear weapons could and should be used, but the

allies should be consulted. Radford had made Korea a test case for the application of nuclear policy because a policy of only partial normalization of

use of nuclear weapons was not enough to warrant large force reductions

that could come only from large-scale redeployment. 65 In the 7 October

NSC meeting the president had stated that the JCS could count on using

nuclear weapons in a general war but not in little ones. 66 Now the most

likely middle-size war, in Korea, seemed also to have been ruled out.

Unless the Joint Chiefs could count on using nuclear weapons "in a

blanket way," as Radford put it, they could not proceed with the radical reconstitution of the armed forces contemplated in their long-haul

strategy. Wilson told the council that it must decide how far it was prepared to go in changing the basic policy of deploying large forces around

the world and in shifting emphasis from conventional to nuclear weapons.

To bring the armed forces down from 3.5 million to 3 million, as the president demanded, and still maintain reasonable security, would be very

difficult. The president thought otherwise. In his view, the assurance that

an attack on the United States would surely provoke a nuclear response

represented a significant breakthrough for force planning. "The only war

that the United States was really scared of was a war initiated by the

enemy against us. In this contingency we could always use atomic

weapons from our own bases." As for redeployment, he did not seem unduly disturbed by the prospect of a long delay. We could "think and plan

for such a redeployment, and meanwhile calculate everything else on

the most austere basis possible." The bottom line was not redeployment,

not normalization of nuclear weapons, but austerity. For those attuned to

listen, the message came through clearly.
164 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Humphrey continued to urge a less restrictive policy on use of nuclear

weapons as a means of justifying further budget cuts. Dodge chimed in

to point out that the $43 billion spending estimate for Defense amounted

to a reduction of only $2.5 billion from President Truman's original forecast. This was too much for Wilson, who reminded Dodge of the new

requirements for continental defense and the new threat of the Soviet

H-bomb, not to mention inflation. Dulles supported Wilson, declaring

"with great emphasis" that to balance the budget in FY 1955 would

require cuts in foreign aid-"the worst kind of false economy."

The president intervened, as usual taking a middle position. If he

could be convinced that Defense really needed all the money it was asking for, he would fight for it, but he did not want to "scare the people to

death." Redeployment on the scale the military seemed to project could

not possibly be carried out in a single year, but the process of cutting

down the inflated strength of the armed services could begin at once.

When Humphrey, a few moments later, tried to raise the issue again, it

was his turn to receive a presidential lecture. According to the record, "the

President turned on Secretary Humphrey and said, 'Let me ask you a

question. Just how many troops do you think it possible for us to get out

of Europe in 1955? The presence of our troops there is the greatest single

morale factor in Europe. You cannot therefore make a radical change so

quickly. Besides, the physical cost of bringing back these troops will be so

high as to effect very little savings in the course of next year, even if considerable numbers were to be redeployed.''' The balanced-budget issue

was thus laid to rest for FY 1955. The president directed the Joint Chiefs

to recompute their force levels "on a genuine austerity basis," but without cutting combat forces, and he told Wilson to submit new, presumably

lower, FY 1955 expenditure estimates in line with the council discussion. 67

The 21 October Decisions

The showdown in the NSC on 13 October did little to solve Wilson's

immediate problems. Sent back to the drawing board with orders to reduce

his budget estimates, he had no specific guidance and no approved

strategy. Forced to move ahead on the budget without delay, Wilson

directed the services on the 16th to submit detailed estimates by

5 December. 68

After the 13th, Wilson's most urgent tasks were to prepare the DoD

budget and to get on with the strength reductions the president had directed. The personnel-cutting task remained primarily a planning problem,

since both the size and the method of the cuts remained undefined. Under
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 165

the tight deadlines now imposed, the budget task could not wait. To get

on with it, the staffs needed, right away, a basis for calculating costs, and

the only one available was the force and strength goal recommended by

the JCS on 2 October. Cost estimates derived from them would far exceed

the dollar limits Humphrey and Dodge talked about. Almost surely they

would prove unacceptable to the president. But they could be diminished

by simple mathematical procedures when the new, reduced strength and

force goals had been determined. Budget preparation and personnel

planning would therefore go on concurrently.

In issuing his 16 October directive, Wilson intended that the military

services also review their combat and service supporting units. This

seems to have been in response to the president's remark to Radford on

13 October that the Joint Chiefs should broaden their recommendations

to cover supporting elements as well as "above the line" combat units.

After discussing his schedule difficulties further with Dodge and the

president, Wilson obtained a decision to concentrate on overall force

requirements and programs. This would free the Joint Chiefs, at least in

their corporate capacity, to pursue their primary task of developing the

long-term military strategy and force posture Wilson had directed on

16 October. It also served to free Wilson of the burden of preparing an

interim report for the NSC on 29 October; the meeting on that date would

now be devoted wholly to NSC 162. Wilson could thus concentrate on his

two principal tasks of budget preparation and strength reduction, aiming

at "submission of overall [budget] estimates for first consideration by the

council on 15 December or·shortly thereafter." The schedule was still very

tight and would "not permit as thorough an analysis of the submissions of

the military departments [by OSD] as would be desired." Swept under the

rug in the accelerated process was the systematic review of "below the

line" supporting elements. Under Wilson's 16 October directive, these

would now be screened for budgetary savings only to the extent that the

staffs might incidentally unearth possible areas of reduction. 69

The JCS had a third task-the formulation of the long-haul strategy

and posture of the New Look. In the ordered cosmos of military thought

they visualized this as a logical outgrowth or appendage of NSC 162, a

military strategy implementing the national strategy set forth in that

basic charter. They had developed the conceptual framework for the New

Look military strategy in their concept paper. Now, with NSC 162 nearing

formal approval, they were ready to take this task seriously in hand. 70 In

the immediate aftermath of 13 October, the chiefs appear to have felt

that the FY 1955 DoD budget would probably emerge as an interim

budget little if any smaller than its predecessor. Radford himself had left
166 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the meeting on the 13th clearly still convinced, despite the president's

lecture on economy, that large budgetary cuts could not be made until

emphasis shifted markedly to nuclear weapons and major force withdrawals from overseas.

As for DoD's prospective FY 1955 spending total, Wilson almost

certainly shared Radford's view of the probable outcome of the budget

battle. Indeed, his judgment may well have shaped Radford's on this point.

Even in November Wilson would be talking openly of a $40 billion Defense

budget, at a time when the size of the manpower cuts the president would

impose was much more predictable than it was in late October. But the

president had set no dollar ceilings (or even "targets" or "goals"), and his

one mention of a three-million-man target for strength reduction evidently

had been made so offhandedly that neither Wilson nor anyone else seems

to have taken it literally. It seemed reasonable to infer that the precise

limits of the budget remained negotiable.

However, Wilson seems to have parted company with Radford on the

third task-mapping the long-haul New Look strategy. He was as eager as

Radford for the chiefs to get on with the task, but he was unwilling to

allow them the six months or more Radford seemed to have in mind.

He hoped that the New Look strategy would provide some basis and

justification for manpower and dollar ceilings that otherwise, for lack of

presidential guidance, might be dictated by fiscal fanatics. Wilson believed,

moreover, that the president, who had often expressed impatience with

doctrinaire budget balancers, might welcome an attempt to relate the FY

1955 budget to an updated strategy. What he had seemed to be asking in

the 13 October meeting was how much was it reasonably safe to reduce

defense spending in the coming fiscal year, recognizing that a perfect

defense was unattainable and that a sound defense depended ultimately

on a sound dollar. It was primarily a military question and only the nation's

top military experts could answer it-not in dollar terms, but in the specifics of forces and programs. The FY 1955 budget had to be placed in

the context of security, military and economic, for the long haul.

Wilson asked the chiefs to develop, by 15 December, an outline

military strategy to implement the national strategy set forth in NSC

162, along with their recommendations for the size and composition of

the armed forces in fiscal years 1955, 1956, and 1957, leveling off at an

active-duty strength between 2.5 million and 3 million. Wilson intended

that in arriving at a new end-strength figure for FY 1955 the ]CS would

have to re-examine their 2 October proposals "as they might be modified

by NSC 162 and related documents." Some of the salient points of NSC

162 were repeated in Wilson's directive, including the importance of
The October 1953 Budget Crisis 167

adequate continental air defense and, most notably, the "military advantage" to be gained from the new policy governing use of nuclear weapons.

Wilson hoped that the chiefs' recommendations would make possible

modification in the FY 1955 DoD budget. 71

On 20 October the president approved Wilson's effort and told him

to go ahead meanwhile with the detailed budget estimates for FY 1955,

"placing personnel, both civilian and military, on an austerity basis." Clearly

Eisenhower did not expect the recasting of strategy to have much effect

on the FY 1955 budget. 72

Thus ended Wilson's dogged effort to marry the FY 1955 Defense

budget to the emerging New Look strategy. It had been an uphill battle,

probably foredoomed to defeat by the relentless urgency of a budget

process that could not accommodate the slower tempo of long-range

strategic planning. One might, however, have expected more cooperation

from the Joint Chiefs and more sympathy from the president; they were

more likely champions than the ex-president of General Motors of the

doctrine that strategy should shape budgets. The decisions of 21 October

did leave the door slightly ajar to a realization of that doctrine, but the

president, at least, evidently did not take the possibility too seriously.

Meanwhile, the JCS would continue to develop the shape of the new

military structure. As a result of the 13 and 21 October decisions, the

processes of budget preparation and strategy-and-force planning would

move on parallel tracks, with virtually no interaction, for almost eight

more weeks. In final form, the FY 1955 Defense manpower ceilings would

be dictated wholly by economic considerations.

•
CHAPTER VIII

Cutting Manpower

The high cost of military manpower inevitably brought it to the fore

in considerations of New Look policy. Perhaps more than any other

element it became the object of acute controversy, evoking deeply-felt

reaction especially from the Army. The president's budget instructions

to Wilson on 21 October 1953 enjoined him to place both military and

civilian manpower "on an austerity basis." Eisenhower's intention to cut

manpower strength had been clearly manifested long before this.

Wilson's response to the president's military manpower strength

instructions of 21 October was prompt but curiously tentative. On the

23d Assistant Secretary Hannah issued personnel guidelines to the

services suggesting new strength ceilings to be reached by the end of

FY 1955:

Army

Navy

Marine Corps

Air Force

Total

1,281,000

670,000

207,000

970,000

3,128,000

It was a sharp retort to the services' late September "wish list" lately

rebuffed by the NSC: The suggested ceilings were 11 percent lower in

the aggregate. Overall, they envisaged a continuous decline in the strength

of the armed forces (except the Air Force) over the next 20 months, in

contrast to the "bottoming out" and subsequent upward curve that had

characterized the service proposals. The new guidelines confirmed currently approved strength objectives of the Army and Marine Corps for

FY 1954, retaining the Korea pipeline allowances (56,000) as a partial

alleviation of those services' biennial personnel turnover problem.!

168
Cutting Manpower 169

Preliminary Skirmishing

Predictably, the Army and Navy immediately registered objections. On

27 October Army Secretary Stevens defiantly informed Wilson that he

was going ahead with his already proposed FY 1955 budget estimates of

an end-strength of 1,508,000, preceded by an increase during FY 1954 to

a peak level of 1,540,000. The increase in FY 1954, he assured Wilson,

would involve no increase in currently planned expenditures, but reduction of the Army's strength to 1,370,000 by the end of FY 1954 would

require withdrawal of four divisions from the Far East by the end of FY

1955 and elimination of two division forces. The planned eight-division

general reserve in the United States would have only one division, one

regimental task force, and some antiaircraft units manned and ready for

combat. Stevens concluded: "The Army cannot, under present or proposed

strength limitations, maintain and support its current overseas strengths

and deployments, and at the same time maintain and support in the U.S.

those units required to meet our NATO commitments .... Strength reductions of the magnitude under consideration by your office cannot

be made without relieving the Army of some of its basic missions and

commitments."2

To these protests, as well as similar ones from the Navy, Wilson

responded briefly and mildly on the 29th. He reminded the two secretaries

of his earlier directive to review and reduce their supporting establishments and pointed out that Assistant Secretary Hannah's guidelines, while

ruling out reductions in the number of combat units, "did not eliminate the

pOSSibility of changing the effective strength or state of readiness of some

of the units." He urged the two secretaries to "make a real effort" to bring

their personnel strengths down to the levels suggested for the end of FY

1955. 3 He apparently reasoned that since the president had not stipulated

specific manpower numbers nothing would be gained by fixing rigid manpower ceilings.

The new personnel guidelines preceded by a week the approval of

NSC 162/2, the basic policy framework of the New Look, on 30 October,

following a final full-dress debate by the NSC the previous day. Even

though NSC 162/2 ended the policy debate over the central interconnected

issues of use of nuclear weapons and the great pullback of forces from

overseas, it did not provide guidance that would permit the new policies

to be translated into significant manpower and dollar savings. The revised

version stated simply that nuclear weapons, in the event of hostilities,

would be considered "as available for use as other munitions." Apparently

Admiral Radford thought this went about as far as a unilateral statement

of U.S. policy could go-and the president, when it was discussed in the
170 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

council on the 29th, seemed to think it would enable the Joint Chiefs to

plan on radically reduced requirements for conventional forces. But the

chiefs did not agree. In the final version, NSC 162/2, the revised statement

on nuclear weapons was allowed to stand, with a proviso that the

advance consent of U.S. allies should be sought for U.S. use of these

weapons from their territory. NSC 162/2 also held out little prospect for

early redeployments. 4

Dodge Applies Pressure

Budget Director Dodge launched the final phase of budget preparation

on 4 November, presenting the president with his budget recommendations for the principal federal agencies. He reiterated that both spending

and appropriations in 1955 must be reduced substantially below FY 1954

levels, and stressed one significant feature, until now not conspicuous in

budget policy guidance: "It will be necessary to anticipate results from

improved management in the agencies by making reasonable reductions

for improved efficiency in operations." What was probably the real

purpose of the memo appeared in its final paragraph: "This approach

leads inevitably to differences concerning the amounts between the

Bureau of the Budget and the agency. Unless all concerned clearly

understand that it has the full support of the President, agencies can

be expected to appeal to the President directly and in many cases on

what will appear as relatively unimportant decisions. Therefore I should

like to have your approval or modification of the approach outlined so

that I may be guided accordingly in subsequent recommendations."5

Eisenhower responded with his usual celerity, approving on

5 November the idea of taking budgetary credit for anticipated operational

savings and endorsing the criterion of "necessity rather than desirability"

for budget estimates across the board. In the DoD budget, he indicated

his desire for "some little increase" in appropriations for the Air Force

and continental defense, "even though we may make considerable overall savings in that Department." On the other hand, he neither approved

nor disapproved Dodge's specific recommendations on budget ceilings,

and his conditional "may" in the matter of DoD savings presumably did

not pass unnoticed. That Dodge had his full confidence, however, was

unmistakably clear. He invited Dodge to talk to him periodically about

the budget, noting "we can always squeeze in an opportunity.,,6

A week later the president moved to galvanize his reluctant defense

secretary into action. He summoned Dulles, Humphrey, and Wilson to the

White House on 11 November to confer on "how to provide necessary
Cutting Manpower 171

security and still reduce the Defense budget for '55." Dulles opened the

meeting with the startling proposal to begin withdrawing ground forces

from Korea. The recommendation had come from the theater commander

himself, General John E. Hull, a week or so earlier, and Dulles agreed with

him.* His reasoning flew directly in the face of the carefully phrased arguments against such action only recently spelled out in NSC 162/2: To

withdraw ground forces would, Dulles said, "show confidence in our air

and naval strength" while implementing the basic policy of avoiding

ground force deployments in mainland Asia. Moreover, it would permit

early substantial Army troop cuts. 7

These views drew no objections. It was agreed that withdrawals from

Korea could reduce, "very soon," the number of divisions there and that significant numbers of personnel from service and support elements could

be pulled out of Europe, but withdrawal of full divisions would have to be

approached more cautiously. As for general manpower reduction in the

United States and overseas the president and his three advisers agreed

that reliance on nuclear weapons "would justify completely some reduction in conventional forces" -mainly Army ground troops and also

"certain parts of the Navy." They imposed no ceiling on total strength

but decided that, "in the absence of some marked change in the international situation," a 1.5 million-man Army was an unaffordable luxury. 8

The 11 November decisions, while dramatic, did not require Wilson

to take immediate action, but he could not count much longer on the

president's forbearance. Dodge's tolerance of delay, which would in turn

affect the president's, was already wearing thin. The curve of Defense

spending, far from declining as the president had directed, was again on the

rise, with aircraft deliveries, ammunition production, and the accumulation

of war reserves accounting for most of the increase. The $43.2 billion of

DoD expenditures projected in the FY 1954 budget remained the official

DoD estimate; BoB's predictions were lower but rising, from $41.7 billion

late in October to $42.3 billion in mid-November. Most disturbing about

all this was that spending momentum from one year carried over into the

next; similarly, programs projected at a high level for one year tended to

require an acceleration during the preceding year. 9

* Hull's cable recommended the action as part of a general political settlement involving

withdrawal of all, or most, of non-Korean forces on both sides. He thought that retention of

U.S. forces in Korea might actually tend to encourage President Rhee to take the unilateral

action against the North he was currently threatening, by implying assurance of U.S. support

in such an eventuality. Hull also favored early withdrawal in order to avoid reinvolvement

in a protracted ground war in mainland Asia. He recommended initiation of withdrawal

immediately following decisions of a political conference with the Communists, the move·

ment to extend over 11 months. FRUS 1952-54, Xv, pt 2: 1588-89.
172 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

According to BoB observers, unilateral service plans for FY 1955

spending (not yet reviewed by OSD) had, in the aggregate, not fallen

appreciably below the estimates of late July. The staff priced the current

force projections-the 20-division, 1.5 million-man Army, the 843 combatship Navy with 16 air groups, 3 Marine divisions and 3 Marine air wings,

and the interim 120-wing Air Force-at about $40.5 billion. With military

assistance included, the total could come to $48.5 billion. By BoB's estimates, a variety of measures might reduce the total DoD bill to $37 billion.

But even these austerity measures would still fall short of reducing DoD

expenditures to the level required to meet the administration's FY 1955

goal of $36.2 billion. A cut of this magnitude, the staff calculated, would

further require shrinking the Army down to a little over 1 million men,

the Navy to 650,000, and the Marine Corps to 175,000. 10

The intelligence Dodge was getting also raised serious doubts

whether DoD would meet its budget deadlines. It was doubtful whether

OSD could, or would, make the drastic cuts indicated, and the Joint Chiefs

were reported to be far behind schedule in revising strategy and programs because of wrangling among the service representatives. The NSC

might be faced on 16 December, as it had been on 13 October, with a

Defense budget that it could not accept. Concerned about the service

budgets, in a letter to Deputy Secretary Kyes on 27 November Dodge asked

if it was clearly understood that the revised JCS programs were to be

"definitive for application to the FY 1955 Budget by December 15?" It

was imperative, he warned, "to avoid the need for major last-minute

revisions and internal or public disputes about them."n

Without waiting for a reply, Dodge characteristically went to the

top, sending a long "personal and confidential" letter to the preSident on

30 November. He stressed the centrality of the national security budget

and the short time remaining for key decisions. Dodge pointed out that

because of the attendance of Secretaries Dulles, Wilson, and Humphrey

and Foreign Operations Administration (FOA) Director Harold Stassen

at the NATO ministerial meetings on 14-17 December, they would not be

present at the scheduled NSC review of the budget, not to mention the

meetings with legislative leaders on 17-19 December. He then urged the

president to hold the NSC meeting before the 14th.* He reported that

the military services still had received no firm guidelines, Le., dollar or

manpower ceilings, without which there was little likelihood that the

* The president dismissed as inconsequential Dodge's concern over the absence of Wilson

and other officials from town at the time of the NSC budget discussions. Responsible heads,

he said, must make key decisions in advance and clear them with BoB and the White

House. Memo Pres for DirBoB, 1 Dec 53, ltr Dodge to SecDef, 4 Dec 53: PP(AWF), DDEL.
Cutting Manpower 173

services would take the necessary initiatives to meet the administration's

economy objectives. "It may be necessary to use presidential authority to

implement these objectives," because, as matters stood, there was no

assurance of spending reductions sufficient to put the administration

even within reach of at least a balanced budgetY

The Army Targeted

By this time the crisis over the Defense budget had become public

knowledge, and the issues were being debated widely. The "story" broke

on the evening of 19 November when the Columbia Broadcasting System

reported an "officially inspired" leak from Treasury to the effect that the

administration faced a $10 billion spending deficit in FY 1955, which it

hoped to reduce by $6 billion, of which $4 billion would come from DoD.

The next day the New York Times elaborated on the report under the headline: "Eisenhower Seeks Six Billion Slash in Fed Budget; High Official Says

Defense Outlay Will Be Cut, But Not At Expense Of Security." Five days later

Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen simultaneously revealed that the source

of the leak had been Treasury Secretary Humphrey, who (according to

Pearson) was "teed off" by the persistent foot-dragging of the military on

budget reductions and revision of strategy and had "decided to force the

Pentagon's hand." The Army-Navy-Air Force Journal fanned the flames

with a forecast of an imminent 10 percent cut in the military manpower

of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, involving, for the luckless Army, a

slash of 200,000 men by mid-1955. 13

On 26 November Assistant Secretary Hannah gave reporters an

authoritative version of the rumored manpower cut. It turned out to be

his 23 October guidelines, now opened to public inspection-an overall

reduction of about 400,000 for the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, a small

increase for the Air Force, and an end-strength total for the armed forces

of 3,128,000 in FY 1955. For the Army, it involved a cut of about 244,000,

for the Marines 43,000, for the Navy 115,000. Hannah stressed that the cut

was not mandatory; the services had been urged to make an honest effort

to achieve it but could offer alternatives if they thought it would impair

their comb;tt effectiveness. 14

Army officials, of course, had no doubt that it would. In a careful

analysis in the Baltimore Sun reflecting their views, Mark Watson

emphasized that the Army could not make the suggested cut of 200,000

without gravely reducing its ability to perform its assigned tasks. The

Army, he concluded, could whittle down its size as ordered by civilian

authority, but only by having its assigned missions altered by that civilian
174 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

authority. IS In fact, Secretary Stevens and General Ridgway had decided

to take this position in preparing their FY 1955 budget estimates, which

were based on the Joint Chiefs' original force recommendations of

2 October, aiming at a 20-division Army and a FY 1955 end-strength of

1,508,000, with a peak strength of 1,540,000 at the end of FY 1954. In a

"statement of risks" to accompany the budget estimates Stevens warned

that "any substantial downward revision in this budget, particularly as

regards the strength of the Army, will involve additional risks which it is

not within the prerogatives of the Army to assume, and which can be

evaluated only when the extent of the reduction is known."16

As the December budget deadlines loomed, the Army's leaders were

thus on a collision course with the president's stated rejection of a 1.5

million-man Army. Did they know this? Possibly not. Although Wilson had

received his marching orders on 11 November, he still had received no

specific personnel or dollar ceilings. And the 11 November decisions were

not necessarily passed on to Stevens. How far below 1.5 million men the

Army would have to reduce still remained negotiable, as were also the

cuts for the other services and the dollar limits to be placed on the DoD

budget. All these factors interacted. Wilson evidently decided to let

matters take their course, probably hoping that the services, with some

nudging from Assistant Secretary Hannah and the OSD staff, would see

the light and follow his manpower guidelines. At BoB, Dodge was less

optimistic. His 30 November appeal for presidential intervention elicited

on 1 December the usual prompt response the next day. By now, however, the president evidently felt that he had provided sufficient policy

guidance and it was up to his subordinates to take the necessary implementing actions without further delay. He confined himself essentially to

positions already taken. The 1955 budget would not be affected by any

last-minute alteration in strategy: "It requires a long time to adjust training

systems, organization, equipment contracts and other things to changed

ideas in the realm of strategy." He had already advised Wilson that the

only way to reduce DoD spending within a short time required lowering

personnel ceilings sufficiently to "place everything except a few units on

an austerity basis." The "few units" he had in mind included the forces

remaining in Korea, elements of the Strategic Air Command, certain air

defense squadrons, and units of the Navy and Marine Corps intended for

response to emergencies. With these exceptions, Eisenhower thought,

"practically all supporting units can safely be reduced by a definite percentage." Savings could also be made, he was sure, in foreign aid and

military assistance. 17

The next day, 2 December, replying to a reporter's question about the

proposed" 10 percent cut" in the Army, the president spoke in a similar
Cutting Manpower 175

vein, stressing the advent of a "cold war status" in Korea. There would be

no strength reductions in front-line units until this became politically

feasible, but on the other hand the full pipeline to replace casualties was

no longer needed. 18

Wilson in the Middle

Thus prodded, on 4 December Wilson issued approved, not suggested, personnel strengths for FY 1955-without waiting for the service

budget estimates due the next day and now overtaken by this action. 19

Army

Navy

Marine Corps

Air Force

Total

End

strength

1,305,000

682,000

210,000

970,000

3,167,000

Man-year*

average

1,338,000

710,000

217,500

960,000

3,225,500

The new end-strength figures were 39,000 higher than the lateOctober guidelines-24,000 of the increase going to the Army and 12,000

and 3,000, respectively, to the Navy and Marine Corps. The man-year

averages for FY 1955 gave the services some room for maneuver in

determining FY 1954 end-strengths that would alleviate the difficulties of

reaching the reduced goals a year later. Even so, the new goals represented

severe reductions from current strength. In submitting the Army budget

estimates on 5 December based on the unreduced 1.5 million strength

figure, Stevens implied that the Army accepted no responsibility for the

consequences of the new cutbacks, and now awaited "early advice on the

changes in missions that will necessarily ensue:'20 Inspired press reports

a few days later left no uncertainty on this point. "Reliable sources,"

according to the Washington Post on 9 December, "said Wilson has

settled this major issue [of responsibility], on which the size of the 1955

defense budget largely turns, by ruling that the projected reduction can

be made without endangering security. In effect, he is taking responsibility for the slash."21

The projected spending total of $39 billion for FY 1955 was almost

$3 billion too high to meet Dodge's asserted budgetary objective.22 Was

Wilson still dragging his feet? The precise size of the DoD budget was

still negotiable and would remain so until the president made his final

* This was the average strength over a full year.
176 STRATEGY, MONEY; AND THE NEW LOOK

decision. Although his wishes were plain enough, Eisenhower had

studiously refrained from prescribing exact numbers. In the NSC meeting

of 13 October he had said that the strength of the armed forces should

be reduced to three million, but no one seems to have taken him literally,

and he had not alluded to the figure again. Wilson's directed strength ceilings of 4 December were a response to presidential prodding, but they

were also a move in his bargaining contest with Humphrey and Dodge

over the ultimate size of the FY 1955 DoD budget.

In that contest Wilson's adversaries held most of the bargaining

assets, especially the high ground of the president's favor. Eisenhower unmistakably leaned most of the way toward their point of view and was

also clearly losing patience with Wilson's reluctance to cut short the debate

with the Army leaders and impose a solution. Wilson was fighting a rearguard action against Humphrey and Dodge. In the post-Korean War

climate it could be politically risky to oppose a balanced budget publicly,

and Wilson did not contest it as a policy for the long haul, arguing only

that to impose it now would dangerously weaken the nation's defense

posture. Humphrey, thoroughly out of patience with the military for what

he perceived as their stalling, rejected this argument while conceding

that a genuine emergency might justify temporary continuation of deficit

financing. Had Wilson been able to mobilize the Joint Chiefs to support

him on this issue, his argument might have carried more weight, since it

was, after all, largely a question of professional military judgment. But

Radford had virtually withdrawn the chiefs as a body from the debate

over the FY 1955 Defense budget, although as service chiefs they were,

of course, active participants.

Alone, with little room to maneuver between budget cutters and the

beleaguered but uncompromising Army and Navy leaders, Wilson now

had his back to the wall. Stevens and Ridgway had asserted in October, and

still held, that if the Army's forces must be reduced, so also must its missions. It was a typical affirmation of the military professional's view of his

role vis-a-vis his civilian superior-the latter was to prescribe ends, the

former to determine the military means required to achieve them. Whether

Wilson accepted this view is uncertain-doctrinal postures were not

his style-but he could hardly afford the luxury of simply rejecting

responsibility, as Stevens had done, for the consequences of an action

properly directed by a superior.*

* Stevens, after taking this position (i.e., that the directed personnel cuts would require

mission changes by higher authority), in the end yielded, under protest, to presidential

direction-and the president complimented him. Had Wilson taken a similar position in

resisting the president's expressed wishes, he almost certainly would have had to resign or

be fired.
Cutting Manpower 177

On the other hand, Wilson took no visible umbrage at Stevens's defiance of the OSD personnel guidelines in late October. Nor did he

challenge the Army staff's alarming estimates of the risks involved in

strength reductions considerably less drastic than those he was proposing. Those estimates were overtaken on 11 November (though, again,

not in the view of the Army leaders) when the president decreed that

conventional force levels could be reduced simply on the basis of increased reliance on nuclear weapons. But by how much? How were the

numbers to be arrived at? If manpower cuts could be determined solely

by Humphrey-Dodge spending levels, then the question would boil down

to simple arithmetic. No responsible official, including Humphrey and

Dodge, admitted to such a view. Since everyone agreed that the Defense

budget should embody some mixture of economic and military considerations, DoD planners were still expected to make estimates, using

processes more objective and quantitative than intuition or divine

revelation, of the forces the nation needed to ensure its security under

the president's new guidelines.

To what extent would the great firepower of nuclear weapons

actually reduce the need for manpower in FY 1955? Putting aside the

rejection of that premise by Ridgway and others, and even assuming that

the new weapons would be used wherever available, bases for such a

calculation simply did not exist in December 1953. How many of what

kinds of tactical atomic weapons would be needed to replace the firepower of a single ground division? No one could answer this question

with confidence for lack of experience data. The tendency at this time

was to think rather in terms of "substituting" nuclear-armed strategic airpower for ground forces, particularly in near-term projections in which

tactical weapons were only a marginal factor. "If one H-weapon can wipe

out an entire attacking division, or an entire army corps in the field,"

wrote Hanson Baldwin in a think piece on the New Look, "one wing of

forty-five B-47 bombers to carry the H-bomb might possibly be substituted, some argue, for one of our own defensive divisions." The currently

popular slogan, "a bigger bang for a buck," however, had already aroused,

as Baldwin remarked, as much skepticism and antipathy as optimism.

"One cannot simply substitute atomic bombs for ground divisions,"

wrote Walter Millis, "without at the same time profoundly affecting the

strategies which can be employed and limiting the kind of objectives

which can be maintained." Radford, next to the president the authority

on these matters, in a highly publicized speech in mid-December, refused

to elaborate on the manpower implications of his own statement that

nuclear weapons had "virtually achieved conventional status within our
178 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

armed forces." He ventured only a cautious comment that increasing

reliance on these weapons would in time ease manpower needs. 23

Wilson Acts

As it turned out, Wilson found a rationale for part of the required

manpower cuts the president required not in the new nuclear weapons

policy but in the first of the major "disengagement" redeployments from

overseas heralded by the New Look. Secretary Dulles's unexpected proposal on 11 November to initiate troop withdrawals from Korea had not

resulted in any immediate action, primarily because the Joint Chiefs were

torn between their desire to rectify the worldwide overextension of U.S.

forces and their fear that any significant withdrawal from Korea would

weaken U.S. control over President Rhee and be exploited by the Communists as a sign of lack of resolve. The issue was complicated, moreover,

by General Hull's proposal to return the Army's 24th Infantry Division to

Japan, leaving its equipment behind for the expanding ROK army. In

mid-November the JCS recommended to Wilson that the United States and

its allies press the Communists to agree to a phased withdrawal from

Korea by both sides. The JCS stipulated that no U.S. forces be withdrawn

without similar Communist moves at the same time, and that the United

States proclaim its determination to defend South Korea. Earlier the JCS

had approved fitting two more ROK divisions with equipment to be left

behind by departing U.S. units, as part of a contemplated expansion of

the ROK army from 16 to 20 divisions. 24

When the issue came before the NSC on 3 December, the prospects

for early initiation of the redeployment did not seem bright. Relations with

President Rhee were still tense following a visit in November by Vice

President Richard Nixon, who brought a blunt warning from Eisenhower

for Rhee to cease public threats of renewing hostilities against North

Korea. Talks with the Communists about a political conference were on

the point of breaking down; the NSC agenda on 3 December in fact

included a JCS plan for responding to any Communist renewal of hostilities

with major nuclear air attacks against both North Korea and China. Despite

these ominous overtones, Radford opened the redeployment discussion

with the observation that if the present stalemate continued the JCS

believed the withdrawal of U.S. forces should begin as soon as the ROK

army attained a level of 20 combat-ready divisions. If equipment could

be made available, he offered the optimistic appraisal that this might

be possible within two or three months. Dulles and Wilson promptly
Cutting Manpower 179

applauded this prospect. The president, Dulles, and Radford all agreed

that prompt redeployment of two divisions, far from weakening the U.S.

position, would encourage allies and warn enemies by conveying a sense

of confidence; it would also, they decided, signal that the United States

had no aggressive intentions toward Communist China and might even

give Rhee second thoughts about American support should he throw off

the traces and attack the North. Wilson remarked that the two-division

redeployment "would fit in very nicely" with the new program.

At this point Humphrey, who had joined the chorus of approbation,

demanded to know why the redeployment could not begin at once.

Radford reminded him of the threat of a new attack from the North; U.S.

forces must remain poised for instant retaliation. But Wilson seconded

Humphrey; he wanted "to be able to count on having the two divisions

back" in the United States before 30 June 1954 so that the movement

costs would not have to be covered in the FY 1955 budget. Before Radford

could reply, the president said that he saw no need to wait for the council's action on the JCS recommendations for responding to a Communist

attack. Radford, backed into a corner by the president's intervention, could

only reply that the JCS had made their proposal for redeployment contingent on the existence of a "prolonged stalemate." The president retorted

that if, as Radford said, 20 ROK divisions would be combat-ready in

February or March, then the 2 U.S. divisions could be brought home

between 1 March and 1 May and then demobilized. He wanted to give

the news to Churchill when he joined him a few days later in Bermuda.

At that time he would make it clear the United States expected the British

to leave their own contingent in Korea. Wilson, delighted with the turn

of the discussion, remarked that he saw no need to consult with the UN

allies about the planned move.

So it was ordered. The council agreed that, beginning about 1 March,

"assuming a continuation of present conditions," two U.S. divisions should

withdraw from Korea, and, if the stalemate continued, the United States

should seek allied agreement to the phased reduction of UN forces as

proposed by the JCS. 2

5 A week later the president and Dulles, back from

the Bermuda conference, reported to the council that the prime minister

had seemed to take the news in good part. After some discussion it was

agreed, with Radford's full concurrence, that the president would make the

public announcement of the redeployment probably in a week or twO. 26

It was only a small step. Demobilizing the two divisions would reduce

the Army's rolls by about 35,000 men-hardly more than a token cut.

Even with the 56,000 Korean pipeline allowance (for Army and Marines

combined) thrown in, the total reduction would not likely impress Dodge.
180 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

But time had run out. On 11 December Wilson issued a new set of

approved FY 1955 personnel strengths, rescinding those directed a week

earlier. Unlike the latter, they represented only man-year averages, thus

leaving the military services a modicum of flexibility in determining

beginning and end strengths-an additional task for the weary OSD and

service staffs to grapple with during the few remaining days before the

budget deadlineY

TABLE 3

Approved Personnel Strengths for FY 1955

Army

Navy

Marine Corps

Air Force

Total

FY 1954

Actual

Strength

(Dec 53)

1,481,200

765,400

243,800

912,500

3,402,900

FY 1955

Overall

Man-year

Averages

1,300,000

706,000

220,000

960,000

3,186,000

FY 1955

Begin

Strength

(l Jul 54)

1,407,500

740,532

225,021

955,000

3,328,053

FY 1955

End

Strength

(30 Jun 55)

1,164,000

688,909

215,005

970,000

3,037,914

A Smaller and LeanerArmy

The December manpower cuts placed the major burden of FY 1955

Defense spending reductions unequivocally on the Army. The first salvo

on 4 December had projected a reduction of almost 200,000 in the Army's

then current strength by June 1955; the second a week later raised the

total to 317,000, more than 20 percent of the Army's actual strength at

the end of December 1953. By contrast, the Navy and Marine Corps escaped

with reductions of only 10 and 12 percent, respectively, while the still

expanding Air Force received a 6 percent increase. In the armed forces

as a whole the cut came to less than 11 percent. In December 1953 the

Army comprised almost 44 percent of the uniformed forces; over the

next 18 months it was slated to dwindle to only 38 percent. 28

When Wilson directed the first personnel cuts on 4 December, he

was fighting a delaying action against threatened crippling budgetary

reductions. The overriding cuts of 11 December marked his belated submission to the president's insistence on a highly unequal distribution of

the burdens of economy in FY 1955. Too, it represented a significant
Cutting Manpower 181

compromise on the larger issue of the level of DoD spending in that year,

an issue that mattered most to Humphrey and Dodge and perhaps to the

president himself, since it would decisively influence the size of the

federal budget deficit. Given the growing pressures for economy at this

time, with increasing uncertainty whether Congress would support the

tax extensions the president wanted, Wilson had a right to feel that the 11

percent manpower cut he had negotiated for FY 1955, which priced out

the budget at about $37.6 billion, was a reasonably good deal.

This looked especially good in light of the "austerity basis" the

president seemed at the beginning of the month to have in mind for

most of the armed forces. DoD had an ongoing initiative for thinning out

noncombat personnel, which by November had identified some 160,000

noncombat spaces as dispensable; 69,000 of them went in the reduction ordered by Wilson in October, and the remainder were used for

combat positions. Assistant Secretary Hannah projected a total reduction

by June 1955 of 151,000 support personnel below the June 1953 level; as

in the earlier phase, presumably some of the men released were to be

reassigned to combat units. 29 This was a Defense-wide effort.

Rigorous measures would be necessary, especially in the Army, to

achieve the required cuts. Ridgway, perceiving Wilson as the willing tool

of the president, recounted in his memoirs a conversation in Wilson's

office in which the latter urged him to reduce the strength of divisions

and other combat units. "Pull them down to 85 per cent. Why don't

you inactivate certain units? Just keep them on a cadre basis." Ridgway

indignantly refused, remembering the skeletonized regiments that had

been overwhelmed by invading North Korean forces in the summer of

1950. "I would not reduce the strength of combat units who stood face

to face with potential enemies overseas, thus exposing them to possible

disaster, unless 1 had clear, specific, and direct orders from him to do so."

Wilson responded, according to Ridgway, that the idea of reducing unit

strength "came directly from the President," whose wishes and military

expertise the Army chief of staff would be ill-advised to ignore. But

Ridgway indicated that the "clear, specific and direct orders" he demanded

never came.*

Forced to accept strength reductions which "would leave us

dangerously overextended geographically, with a personnel base incapable

of supporting the overseas deployment we had considered essential to

our safety," Ridgway at least had his way, against Wilson, on the method

* The allusion to specific decisions on force reductions in mid-December seems to place

this episode at some time. during the two weeks following Eisenhower's 1 December memo

to Dodge, describing the nature of the reductions he had in mind.
182 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

of applying the cuts. 30 From Wilson's and the president's point of view a

principal though seldom acknowledged objection to reducing the number

of major combat units was that it could raise in question, far more

demonstrably than merely an overall reduction in manpower, the Army's

ability to fulfill its commitments, perhaps even its mission. Even if allowed

200,000 more troops than planned in FY 1955, Stevens and Ridgway had

asserted, on the strength of staff analyses, that the Army would have to pull

back four of the eight divisions in the Far East, dangerously dilute the manning of the general reserve in the continental United States, renege on its

NATO war commitments, and eliminate two divisions from its structure.

In December with eventual redeployment of up to six divisions from the

Far East in prospect, the threat to NATO commitments seemed less acute.

This issue occasioned intensive negotiations between OSD and the

Army during December. According to an informed newspaper account,

the Army had successively screened and thinned out its service units, its

rear-area support elements, and even the combat engineer, heavy artillery,

and other combat units required when divisions were combined into

corps and armies. There remained the divisions themselves and the 18

separate regimental combat teams-should they be diluted internally or

should the total number be reduced? Probably a combination of the two

methods would be adopted, but it seemed certain that two or three

divisions would have to go. Similar reductions in the Marine Corps were

also under study. 31

The president had already conceded this kind of solution by stating

in the NSC meeting on 3 December that the first two divisions to be

withdrawn from Korea should come home and be demobilized, although

the decision apparently had not been formalized. The final decision,

reached sometime before 16 December, eliminated 3 Army divisions,

reducing the total to 17, by the end of FY 1955; the 18 regimental combat

teams would remain, and the Marine Corps would keep its existing 3

divisions and 3 air wings. 32 Elimination of the 3 Army divisions would account

for 52,500 of the 317,000 personnel the Army had to remove from its rolls

before mid-1955. Another 51,000 spaces would go with the elimination of

the pipeline allowance for wartime attrition in Korea. The Marine Corps

would take a similar reduction of 5,000. Removing the remaining 213,000-

odd spaces of the Army's cut was now essentially a problem of internal

management over the months ahead. Some part of the 213,000 would

come out of the ongoing effort to reduce support personnel; OSD

guidelines following the NSC decisions of 16 December stressed that

combat units must not be reduced in strength until "all possible" reductions

had been made elsewhere. From the shrinkage the Army would emerge
Cutting Manpower 183

in mid-1955 a leaner and smaller force, with a division slice* of only 65,000

as compared with its 1953 slice of 74,000. The Navy and Marine Corps

faced a similar, if somewhat less painful, process. 33

For the Army it was a familiar ordeal. In all of the nation's wars the

Army had experienced the greatest growth in manpower, and after each

war it had suffered the greatest reduction in strength. That there might

be a different outcome after the Korean War, even in the face of a

peacetime threat greater than the country had ever had to contend

with before, was too much to expect. But the heavy cuts were made all

the harder to bear because they were inflicted by one of the Army's

own-former Chief of Staff General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower.

* Division slices were determined by dividing the number of divisions into the total

strength of the Army.
CHAPTER IX

Containment's New Testament

In many ways the most impressive intellectual and policymaking

achievement of Eisenhower's first term was the so-called "New Look" in

national policy and strategy for the cold war. Although national security

in the face of the threat of communism was its central concern and military responses to the threat its primary focus, the New Look was far more

than a military strategy; it embraced political, economic, psychological,

and even social responses as well. Like any major collective policymaking

effort, it did not spring full-grown onto the national scene, but grew and

matured, after its initial formulation, under the pressure of public debate

and changing circumstances. The conceptual and policy core of the new

cold war strategy appeared in a single document, NSC 162/2, approved

by the president on 30 October 1953 after several months of intense

study and deliberation. 1

The final product of the re-examination of containment policy originated with the Solarium study (May-july 1953).2 NSC 162 was originally

drafted during August and early September by a special committee of

the NSC Planning Board and then submitted to the NSC as a split paper

on 30 September. On 7 October the paper occasioned a stormy discussion

within the council, resulting in the resolution of many disputed points,

some of them by the overriding decision of the president. After further

revision by the board, the council debated and settled the remaining

unresolved issues on the 29th. 3

Necessarily a tissue of compromises on a wide range of issues, NSC

162/2 nevertheless reflected a consensus at the top of the administration

on the state of the world and the nation. Despite its bleak analysis of the

threat posed by world communism, it portrayed optimistically a strong

and resourceful United States likely to remain for the foreseeable future

184
Containment's New Testament 185

the dominant power in a world gradually becoming less perilous and

chaotic. In its policy prescriptions NSC 162/2 essentially reaffirmed the

optimistic, middle-of-the-road approach of containment, rejecting both

supine caution and now-or-never final solutions in favor of demonstrable

strength, clear resolve, and steady but flexible resistance to aggression.

An examination of how the major conceptual and policy questions were

debated and resolved reveals the complexity of both the process and

the circumstances it addressed.

Soviet Threat, Free World Weakness

Perhaps the most basic compromise embodied in NSC 162/2 concerned the nature of the Soviet threat, hotly debated by the council early

in October and subsequently by the Planning Board. In both forums

Treasury and BoB representatives had argued vehemently for defining

the Soviet threat as both military and economic: spiraling U.S. defense

costs would lead to unsound fiscal policies, inflation, depression, and

ultimately political and social regimentation. While no one in the administration was inclined to dispute the reality of the dual threat, a majority

of both the NSC and the Planning Board-most emphatically, the Joint

Chiefs-had favored a clear subordination of the economic to the military threat, especially when the argument came to focus on whether

to accept some risk to national security by balancing the federal budget

at the expense of defense programs. Secretary Humphrey, pressing the

argument for acceptance of risk at the council meeting on 7 October, had

found most of his colleagues in opposition, including Secretary Dulles.

The president clearly felt more strongly than most the urgency of reducing defense expenditures even though he was unwilling to make the deep

cuts necessary to balance the FY 1955 budget. 4

The upshot was that the draft sent to the council on the 29th deftly

finessed the issue by recognizing the gravity of both the military and

the economic threat without imputing precedence to either. 5 The council

accepted the change, which stated the "basic" national security objective

at the outset-to meet the Soviet threat without seriously weakening the

U.S. economy. This would require a strong military posture, a 'protected

mobilization base, a strong and growing economy, maintenance of public

morale and free institutions, and public support of measures to preserve

security. The paper affirmed the importance of a "strong healthy and

expanding U.S. economy." A saving proviso demanded by State and

Defense-"The United States must ... meet the necessary costs of the
186 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

policies essential for its security" -was offset by reassurances to the

Treasury-BoB views on budget-balancing. 6 In developing the theme that

"a sound economy based on free private enterprise" was imperative, NSC

162/2 asserted that the security of the whole free world depended on

steady expansion of the u.S. economy and avoidance of recession. Stated

requirements for defense spending must be weighed in the light of

dangers to the economy, including the threat to productivity in defense

industries. The policy paper also warned that while the supply of qualified manpower annually coming of military age was sufficient to support

existing military requirements, advancing technology constantly increased

the need for technically skilled personnel. Any considerable increases in

military manpower demands would therefore require additional measures

to meet specialneeds.7

Although the final compromises in NSC 162/2 generally reflected a

somewhat less alarming view of the balance between Communist and

free world capabilities, the image of the Soviet Union as a great and

growing power with malign intent was disturbing enough: one sixth of its

GNP devoted to military spending; huge conventional forces with modern

armaments and dramatically increased nuclear capabilities; a docile, hardworking people and abundant economic resources; dependent, effectively

controlled and exploited satellite states; a basic community of interests

with the Chinese Communists, controlling limitless manpower reserves

and strategic territory-in sum, a worldwide subversive apparatus. While a

deliberate attack on the United States in the near future seemed unlikely,

largely owing to U.S. retaliatory capabilities, the ability of the Soviets to

carry out such an attack was increasing steadily; soon they would be able

to deal a "crippling blow to our industrial base and our continued ability

to prosecute a war," while having greatly improved the defenses of their

own industrial centers.

At a future stage of nuclear plenty, NSC 162/2 speculated that a

standoff might result, but Soviet leaders would always be susceptible to

the temptation to attack preemptively in the hope of destroying the

American capacity for effective retaliation. Long before then, the growing

Soviet nuclear capability would tend to erode the deterrent effect of

U.S. nuclear power against both local or peripheral aggressions, thus

enhancing the risks of unwanted escalation of local conflicts through

miscalculation. Some day Soviet leaders might experience a change of

heart or mind as a result of declining revolutionary zeal and pressures

from different quarters. They might then be willing to negotiate on major

issues-but "without necessarily abandoning [their] basic hostility to the

non-Soviet world."s
Containment's New Testament 187

It was a grim assessment, not wholly offset by the analysis of prospects for successful free world resistance to Communist aggression or

penetration. This analysis, a rather confused mixture of positives and

negatives, evidently reflected the efforts of the drafters to satisfy both

the optimists and the pessimists. Since 1950, NSC 162/2 asserted, the

"coalition" of allies and friends of the United States had, with American

help, succeeded in increasing its relative strength and cohesion, probably

deterring a second Korea-type aggression. In Western Europe, NATO had

enough strength now to make a Soviet invasion costly. Nevertheless, a

full-scale Soviet attack would certainly overrun Western Europe. American

retaliatory power remained the chief deterrent. Since U.S. military assistance to Europe must eventually be reduced, it was imperative for the

Western European nations, including West Germany, to build up their

defenses quickly.9 In the Far East, as in Europe, any material increase in

free world military strength would require the economic and military

revival of another former enemy-japan.

Throughout the coalition, NSC 162/2 warned, the effort to rearm and

concert policies suffered from natural resentment against American domination, pressures to increase trade with the Soviet bloc, the high cost of

rearmament, ancient antipathies such as those between France and

Germany, the divisive colonial issue, and chronic governmental instability

in certain countries, such as France and Italy. Moreover, many Europeans

feared involvement in a general war to support American interests in

the Far East, or indefinite prolongation of the cold war through policies

inspired by a rigid and paranoid anticommunism. Rhetorical advocacy in

this country of extremist or adventurous policies ranging from preemptive war and "liberation" to isolationism sapped confidence in the

stability of American leadership. Finally, there existed a widespread

tendency, rooted in the fear of general war, either to discount the threat

of Soviet aggression or, accepting it, to write off defense as futile or too

costly. Plans to rearm Germany and Japan aroused deep fears among

their former victims. All these factors converged to build up pressure

to reach accommodations with the Soviets, encouraged by the recent

"peace gestures" launched by the new Soviet leadership. 10

Beyond the free world coalition lay the "uncommitted" areas, defined

in NSC 162/2 as those mostly weak and underdeveloped countries outside

the Soviet bloc that were presently "unwilling to align themselves actively

with the United States." These countries were permeated by "forces of

unrest and of resentment against the West" -racial animosity, rising

nationalism, social and economic ferment, overpopulation, static social

patterns in process of disintegration, and religious and social philosophies
188 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

alien to Western culture. Perhaps more important, their governments were

typically unstable, unreliable, and short-lived. This was not an encouraging environment for building firm government-to-government relations.

Unfortunately, the "Third World," as it came to be known, could not be

ignored. With immense resources of raw materials, vast manpower, and

high growth potential, the uncommitted areas could, if absorbed into the

Soviet system, alter the world power balance to the detriment of the

United States; conversely, if they could be transformed into "more stable

and responsible nations, able and willing to participate in defense of the

free world," they would be a welcome addition. 11

If it was important to cultivate cooperation in the uncommitted

areas, the support of allies was absolutely indispensable. The United States

depended on them to provide overseas bases for strategic airpower,

especially in a war waged on the Eurasian continent. More generally, the

United States needed on its side "the armed forces and economic resources

and materials of the major highly-industrialized non-communist states.

Progressive loss to the Soviet bloc of these states would . . . isolate the

United States and alter the world balance."

Fortunately, the need was reciprocal. The allies lacked the nuclear

capability and most of them lacked the political and economic stability

required to support their armed forces. Under existing treaties and

policies, the United States would help to resist an attack on the NATO

countries, West Germany, Berlin, Japan, the Philippines, Australia, New

Zealand, and South Korea. Certain other countries, such as Indochina

and Formosa, were so strategically important to the United States that it

would probably react militarily to an attack on them as well. 12

On the more controversial matter of foreign aid, which the administration hoped to wind down as rapidly as possible, NSC 162/2 proved

cautious. "Essential" allies in Europe and the Near and Far East could expect to continue to receive military aid, although in diminishing amounts.

Even in Europe, where American military assistance was indispensable, it

should be reduced "as rapidly as United States interests permit."13

New Emphasis on Retaliation

The American response to the Soviet military threat, according to

NSC 162/2, would be, in essence, to contain it-that is, by deterring and,

if necessary, repelling it: "The risk of Soviet aggression will be minimized

by maintaining a strong security posture, with emphasis on adequate

offensive retaliatory strength and defensive strength. This must be based

on massive atomic capability, including necessary bases; an integrated and
Containment's New Testament 189

effective continental defense system; ready forces of the United States and

its allies suitably deployed ... and an adequate mobilization base; all

supported by the determined spirit of the U.S. people." This was, to be

sure, not quite containment in the old style, which stressed defensive

responses at the point of aggression. Deterrence and retaliation now had

a more prominent role, and defense less so, than before. But the essence

of containment-reactive responses to aggression, and deterrence through

the perceived capability to react effectively-remained at this stage of its

evolution, the heart of the New Look strategy. The more radical and imaginative concept of retaliation decoupled from the place of aggression was

not yet explicit, even though not far below the surface. What kind of

security posture could emphasize both offensive strength and defensive

strength? One might conclude that the ostensible sharing of "emphasis"

between offensive retaliatory strength and defensive strength heavily

favored the former. Significantly there was no provision for waging a

general war other than an adequate mobilization base and sufficient

forces to discharge "initial tasks."14 Such a war would, of course, require

far more-a vast expansion of the industrial base and full mobilization of

the nation's manpower, under the threat and perhaps the terrible reality

of nuclear devastation-a contingency to which NSC 162/2 did not address itself except as a calamity to be deterred. Even for limited conflicts

abroad, the New Look strategy envisaged that the United States would

depend on its allies to provide most of the ground forces, as well as

bases for American airpower and expeditionary forces.

Reduced to simplest terms, then, the new-style containment would

depend primarily on offensive retaliatory power, chiefly strategic nuclear

weapons plus continental defense. All other elements of military power

would play a subordinate role, particularly conventional ground forces.

The effort to incorporate in NSC 162/2 a single unequivocal statement

of this fact, overriding the tenacious resistance of the military chiefs of

the Army and the Navy, produced a major confrontation during the final

debate on the paper.

Early on, NSC 162 had stipulated as a requirement for meeting the

Soviet threat a capability "to inflict massive retaliatory damage by offensive

strategic striking power." The Joint Chiefs had then recommended, at

Admiral Carney's instance, an amendment that the U.S. military posture

should merely "include" this capability, thus avoiding the implication that

strategic airpower (which alone could inflict "massive" damage on the

USSR) was the primary element of offensive strength. Admiral Radford

and General Twining, who presumably preferred the original, may have

accepted the amendment in the interests of unanimity. At the discussion
190 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

of NSC 162 on 7 October, the council merely noted the ]CS comments.

When, however, the revised document emerged from the Planning Board

in mid-October as NSC 162/1, the statement had been amended to provide for "a strong military posture, with emphasis on the capability of

inflicting massive retaliatory damage by offensive striking power." From

Carney's point of view, this was little less objectionable than the originaL

At his instigation, the chiefs again submitted their proposed change to

Secretary Wilson on the 27th. 15

When Cutler introduced the issue in the council on the 29th, the

president declared that the argument seemed "highly academic." He liked

the Planning Board's version, he said, "because it provided some sense of

priority for our military planning. Certainly we do not want to build up

equally all types and varieties of military strength." As the only member

of the ]CS present, Carney may have felt obligated to explain the chiefs'

position more fully. The ]CS, he told the president, were "feeling the

pinch of trimming their sails." Since national commitments remained

unchanged, the time had not yet come to alter the existing "character and

composition of our forces," the effect of the priorities implied by the

statement. This reassertion of the standpat position underlying the chiefs'

2 October force proposals apparently touched a raw nerve in Secretary

Humphrey, who demanded, "with some heat," when the admiral expected

that time might come. Secretary Dulles also challenged, with "some impatience," the implication that the existing mix and disposition of U.S.

forces were tied rigidly to commitments.

Humphrey swung the discussion back to the central concepts of the

New Look strategy. For the NSC to accept the ]CS amendment would mean

"abandoning all our attempts to secure a radically new and different

military policy." Emphasis on one type of military mission did not imply

the exclusion of other important missions. Coming to Carney's defense

Wilson pointed out that additional expenditures would be required for

other purposes besides retaliatory airpower, such as continental defense.

Carney agreed; it would be unwise, he declared, "to put all our eggs in

one basket of striking power." The proposed amendment sought to

express "a reasonable balance of military capabilities."16

The president attempted to take a mediating stance. "No matter what

we now decided as to the size and character of our military establishment, we could not effect changes in its present composition very

rapidly." The president reiterated his preference for the Planning Board's

version. "No deterrent to war could compare in importance with this

retaliatory striking power. Why don't we therefore say what we mean

to emphasize?" But Carney would not back down. The term "emphasize,"
Containment's New Testament 191

he argued, really meant "giving first priority to this attack force" and

might lead to "many undesirable imbalances." Humphrey retorted: "But

are you not planning ultimately to change your strategy and the composition of your forces?" Carney plunged boldly ahead. The first task given

the new chiefs, he said, was to study how the cost of the military establishment could be significantly reduced. They had concluded that the

only way was to bring back forces from overseas, but, he pointedly added,

the chiefs had not made "an immediate recommendation that such redeployment be initiated." Humphrey pounced on this statement. His own

understanding, he asserted, had been quite the contrary, that the chiefs

"meant to begin such redeployment at once." Carney finally declared that,

"if, in the course of JCS analysis of the redeployment problem, the conclusions turned out to be different from those originally hoped for, the

chiefs had no option but to change their views."

It was a tense moment. Wilson, who must have been dismayed at

Carney's open defiance, was the first to speak. As the president had said,

the nation's military posture could not be changed overnight, nor could

the State Department control political conditions abroad. The Defense

Department, Wilson went on, recognized the need for economic stability

at home but still had responsibility for maintaining military strength

abroad; it favored the original JCS proposals for restructuring the military

establishment but understood why, given still unchanged commitments,

they opposed precipitate action. "Meanwhile, the budget has got to be

prepared" for submission to Congress, and more money would have to

be provided to strengthen continental defenses. 17

If Wilson had hoped to change the subject, he failed, but his remarks

seemed to relieve the tension. The president moved to terminate the argument by firmly restating his preference for the Planning Board's amendment: "In effect, we should state what we propose to do, namely, to keep

the minimum respectable posture of defense while emphasizing this

particular offensive capability." "Nobody," he added sarcastically, "could

possibly reduce from such a statement that we propose to abandon

the defense of New York City." When Cutler asked whether DoD dissent

should be formally noted, the president replied that "he would tolerate no

notice of a JCS dissent in the record of action." It was for them to advise,

for him to decide. If, "after a suitable interval" they had serious reservations about the statement in question, "he fully expected them to come

to him and tell him so. He would then reconsider the problem."18

So the emphasis on retaliatory offensive striking power was affirmed.

At the end of the stormy meeting, Dulles attempted to soothe wounded

feelings by stressing the delicacy and magnitude of the impending force

withdrawals from overseas and the parallel shift of emphasis to offensive
192 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

retaliatory forces; these changes might well extend over a period of

years. Nevertheless, "if we do not decide now on this change, no change

will ever occur." His remarks, the president graciously acknowledged,

expressed his own views "with greater clarity than he himself had been

able to," and Wilson agreed that the issue was "sufficiently clarified."

Carney said nothing. 19

How all the Joint Chiefs except Carney "happened" to be out of town

on 29 October, leaving him their sole spokesman during the climactic

council debate on the New Look policy paper, deserves examination.*

Carney had an evident interest in defending his position before the

council. Radford's absence (if it was not ordered) is more difficult to

explain, as is, to a lesser degree, Twining's and Ridgway's. Both Radford

and Twining supported the emphasis on offensive retaliatory striking

power even though they had gone along with Carney's proposed changes

in NSC 162/1. It may have been a matter of tactics and timing. That

Carney's proposal would be defeated in the council may have seemed a

foregone conclusion; it is possible that Radford may have received advance

hints to this effect from Cutler. In that case, if Carney's position was unshakable, nothing would be gained by airing the chiefs' differences before

the council. 20

Carney's argument was not really academic, as the president seemed

at first to think. In principle, Carney's proposal struck at the heart of the

military New Look. To say that the U.S. military posture should merely

"include" a capability to inflict "massive retaliatory damage" on the USSR

was not really a major change; the United States already possessed such

a capability within its existing, relatively balanced force structure. As he

admitted when driven to the wall, Carney's real concern was that force

restructuring might go too fast and too far, dangerously weakening capabilities to perform existing missions and fulfill existing overseas

commitments. These missions and commitments might be reduced or

modified, but the ultimate provision for them, under the New Look concept, would require normalization of nuclear weapons and increased

reliance on allied manpower, shifts of emphasis that could not be achieved

overnight. NSC 162/2 could only state the basic policy. The president's

subsequent qualification of the "emphasis" clause, stating that "offensive

striking power" embraced all forces possessing that capability, including aircraft carriers, did not alter the fact that it emphasized the specific

• Originally, Carney himself had planned to leave on an extended inspection tour, according to a press report, sometime after 27 October, Navy Day; the other chiefs had departed

on the 25th, for similar tours. It is possible that Carney postponed his departure in order

to defend his proposal in the NSC on the 29th.
Containment's New Testament 193

capability to "inflict massive retaliatory damage." That capability belonged

preeminently to the Strategic Air Command; carrier aviation could not

plausibly claim more than a small share of it.

As it turned out, the Navy would get funding for another new carrier

in FY 1955 over and above one already under construction, and it

incurred relatively modest manpower cuts in the general New Look

cutback. Naval and Marine Corps aviation retained more than a one-third

share of the nation's total airpower. 21 No such largesse was in the cards

for the Army, whose leaders had caught a glimpse of its bleak future in

the late October personnel guidelines issued by OSD. In pleading for a

stay of execution in the New Look force restructuring, Carney was

apparently defending the Army's role along with the Navy's, but Eisenhower evidently assumed that his chief concern was for the Navy's carriers.

Since the president had already tagged the Army to absorb the bulk of

the New Look's force reductions, his qualifying proviso to the "emphasis"

policy in NSC 162/2, explicitly including aircraft carriers in "offensive

striking power," seems to have foreshadowed the impending heavy cuts

in the Army.

What turn might the NSC discussion on 29 October have taken had

Ridgway, rather than Carney, been the ]CS spokesman? Unlike Carney,

Ridgway outrightly rejected the fundamental premise of the New Look

that modern limited wars could be fought and national security preserved

by numerically small forces heavily weighted with strategic airpower and

nuclear weapons, relegating ground forces to a minor role. 22 Like most

professional military men, Ridgway did endorse the idea of a mobile

central reserve based in or near the United States, but he had serious

reservations about the other side of this coin in New Look doctrinethe large-scale withdrawal of U.S. forces from overseas and an overall

reduction in uniformed manpower. While agreeing with his colleagues

that U.S. forces were overextended, and in particular favoring the withdrawal of most forces from Korea, he opposed similar redeployments

from Europe, which he feared would result in the disintegration of NATO.

The mobile central reserve, he believed, provided a supplemental and reinforcing base, not a substitute for deployed forces. And not ground

forces alone. To the New Look contention that greater reliance on

firepower and airpower would make the strategic air arm paramount

over both the ground forces and the surface and submarine Navy,

Ridgway defiantly reaffirmed the traditional concept of modernized,

balanced forces of all arms. 23

No traditionalist in his view of advanced military technology, Ridgway

believed in full exploitation of the lethal power of the new weapons, as

well as of the new technology of movement and communications, and he
194 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

was convinced that these developments could enhance the capabilities

of the Army at least as much as those of the other services. He did not

believe that nuclear weapons would reduce the need for manpower in

any sphere of warfare. He thought it folly to assume, as some theorists

seemed to, that the enemy would not also have and use them. Both sides

must anticipate suffering enormous casualties and destruction, and must

therefore develop new tactics, organization, and equipment. As chief of

staff, Ridgway claimed that he had already begun to "lay the foundations

for a totally different Army than any we have known to date-an Army

trained, equipped, and organized to fight and win an atomic war."24

In October 1953, this undertaking lay mostly in the future. Still

Ridgway did approach it with an emotional conviction amounting to

faith that even in the atomic age wars would be won ultimately by the

foot soldier. To the question, which service was best suited to "put out

big fires or little ones wherever the Communists might set them," he

answered: "That is the role of the foot soldier, the man with the rifle. The

great intercontinental bombers cannot do it, even though they may be

armed with the fission or the fusion bomb The Navy cannot do it, for

modern wars are not won upon the sea Wars are still fought for little

bits of bloody earth, and they are only ended when the enemy's will to

resist is broken, and armed men stand victorious on his home soil."25

Reduction ofthe Soviet Threat

The provlslOns of NSC 162/2 for reducing (as opposed to responding to) the Soviet threat reflected a compromise between a hard-line and

a relatively soft-line approach. The finally approved policy asserted that

"the United States must seek to improve the power position of itself and

the rest of the free world in relation to the Soviet bloc" while keeping

the door open to negotiation of issues. It went on to express the cautious

hope that the Soviet leadership might in time become amenable to negotiated settlements if the United States and its allies increased their

strength and cohesion, or "if for any reason Soviet stability and influence

are reduced." NSC 162/2 also renounced efforts (other than through

propaganda) to "dictate the internal political and economic organization

of the USSR."26

NSC 162/2 did advocate aggressive measures, both overt and covert,

to reduce the Soviet threat. They included efforts to discredit Soviet

prestige and ideology, reduce the strength of Communist and other

pro-Soviet groups, and prevent Communist takeovers in other nations,

as well as "selective, positive actions to eliminate Soviet-Communist
Containment's New Testament 195

control over any areas of the free world." With a view to inducing the

Soviet leadership to consider negotiated settlements, NSC 162/2 advocated

propaganda and covert measures to make trouble for the Soviets

generally-for example, by undermining Soviet relations with Communist China, Soviet control of satellites, and the military and economic

potential of the Soviet bloc. Omitted from this activist finale of the paper,

eVidently as a result of concerted pressure from the Defense, aDM, and

FaA members and the JCS adviser of the Planning Board, was a provision

renouncing "aggressive actions involving force against Soviet bloc territory." According to Dulles, who somewhat grudgingly consented to the

omission, the provision was intended to forestall such adventures as

those recently proposed to detach Albania from the Soviet bloc or to

invade Hainan. Since such projects would have to pass muster in the

NSC, the secretary yielded. 27

Nuclear Weapons and Redeployment

The interrelated issues of use of nuclear weapons and redeployment

of forces from overseas remained central to the development of longterm policy in NSC 162/2. The Joint Chiefs had opened the debate in

their August concept paper urging the enunciation of a firm policy on

the first as a basis of the second. In their 2 October force proposals they

had pointedly underlined the absence of such a policy as one justification

for resisting an immediate reduction in U.S. forces. In NSC 162, which

came up for its first NSC debate on the 7th, the Planning Board included

a simple statement that "the United States should use special weapons

whenever they are required by the national security," and should also

obtain "understanding and approval" from other governments "as far as

possible." This apparently represented a compromise between the chiefs'

desire for an even less qualified statement and the State Department's

desire for a more qualified one. 28

In the meeting the debate centered on the "understanding and approval" proviso, in which State wanted to insert a further clause limiting

the policy to "hostilities resulting from aggression." But the president, it

developed, wanted to qualify the statement even further, stipulating that

"approval and understanding" must be secured before such weapons were

used and before any public announcement. "Nothing would so upset the

whole world," he said, "as an announcement at this time by the United

States of a decision to use these weapons." Wilson objected that DoD

needed to know for sure whether it could plan on the use of nuclear

weapons. The president assured him that since the ultimate decision was
196 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

his, Wilson could be certain that the weapons would be used if the

nation's security so demanded. Radford, still not satisfied, asked about

using the weapons from U.S. bases, since no foreign government's permission would then be required. In planning for general war, Eisenhower

told Radford, the JCS could count on using nuclear weapons, but not

in "minor affairs." Moreover, there were certain places where, if the

weapons were used, "it would look as though the U.S. were initiating

global war." And there must be no public statements until "we have ...

a chance to convince our friends" of the desirability of the policy.

Ridgway interposed that both Prime Minister Churchill and Chancellor

Adenauer had recently told him in confidence that they would not object

to the launching of nuclear weapons from their territory in the event of

war; the French, however, had not committed themselves. At the end of

the discussion the president stated the two principal points: On the one

hand, "we needed ... to be able to hit the Soviets, if necessary, from any

point on the compass"; on the other, he found it "very undesirable to

knock the coalition over the head by precipitate action on this issue."

For the present, he implied, the former had to yield. 29

With work still under way on NSC 162, on 13 October the council discussed DoD's first cut at the FY 1955 budget. When the nuclear weapon

issue came up again, the impasse between the president and Radford

hardened. The former insisted that the forthcoming revision of NSC 162

gave the JCS all the assurance they needed for planning the use of nuclear

weapons, while the latter stubbornly asserted it did not, citing the contingency of resumed hostilities in Korea as a case in point.

It was a curious instance of opposing arguments failing to meet head

on. The NSC 162 policy statement, as now revised, read: "In the event of

hostilities, the United States will consider nuclear weapons to be as available for use as other munitions. Where the consent of an ally is required

for the use of these weapons from U.S. bases on the territory of such ally,

the United States should promptly obtain the advance consent of such

ally for such use. The United States should also seek, as and when feasible,

the understanding and approval of this policy by free nations .... This

policy should not be made public without further consideration by the

National Security Council." The president pronounced this perfect and not

to be tinkered with further. It would permit the Joint Chiefs, he declared,

to count on using nuclear weapons from U.S. bases in the event of an

attack on the United States, the only kind of war we were "really scared

of." This eliminated conventional general war, but in all other conflicts

the decision on nuclear weapon use would be made on the merits of

the case. When Radford put the president's ruling to the test with his

query about a renewal of hostilities in Korea (which would be at least a
Containment's New Testament 197

major limited war), first Dulles and then the president replied that in

Korea a nuclear response would be justified-subject, however, to previous agreements with the other 16 allies; also, he did not contradict

Dulles's remark that those allies should be consulted. 30

The new policy clearly intended to normalize nuclear weapons by

making their use a legitimate option in any kind of conflict. Previously

military planners, lacking explicit guidance, had had to discount heavily

their use in virtually all situations short of a nuclear attack on the United

States. "We have now reached a stage," Radford wrote Dulles, "where the

number, diversity and power of atomic weapons, together with their

application to tactical situations, makes necessary the adoption of a

general policy for their use in the event of hostilities. Up to now our

military services have not been furnished with any firm and clearly

stated governmental policy which establishes how and when atomic

weapons will be used. We have been embroiled in costly warfare for the

past three years. During .this period there has been reluctance to utilize

atomic weapons. As a result, the military services when recommending

and justifying their forces, have been forced to discount the use of

these weapons."31

The new policy did not dictate the nuclear option for any situation

in advance, including even for the general war the president had assured

the Joint Chiefs they would not be expected to wage with conventional

weapons alone. Wilson and Radford justifiably felt that prudence dictated

they be prepared to wage either conventional or nuclear war at any level

of conflict, but the president's personal assurance provided them only

with predetermined choices at the top and the bottom of the scalei.e., nuclear general war and conventional small wars.

It was not a policy calculated to slash costs or justify a radically

smaller military establishment. Were those the sole aims, the new policy

theoretically should have provided for use of nuclear weapons without

restrictions on launchings from bases in allied territory. Such a policy

was not really a practical possibility even if the restrictions might in time

be negotiated away. A viable national strategy must above all be flexible.

On the other hand, the New Look reforms themselves would tend

to reduce flexibility by restructuring the armed forces around a nuclear

weapons strategy with significantly reduced conventional war capabilities.

If pushed far enough, they could ultimately have the same effect as a

positive (as opposed to permissive) nuclear weapons policy. New Look

doctrine mitigated this risk by increased reliance on allied manpower,

especially ground forces, to replace a large part of the U.S. forces deployed

around the world. These considerations undoubtedly lay behind Radford's insistence on 13 October that only a "blanket" (i.e., unrestricted)
198 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

nuclear weapons policy would permit an early inauguration of the New

Look reforms in force structure and size. In effect he was reminding the

council that the original New Look concept, as set forth in August, had

envisaged a progressive shift of emphasis from conventional to nuclear

weapons paralleling the pullback of forces from overseas and the buildup

of indigenous allied forces to replace them. The president had already

asserted, however, before this point came up, that the process of reducing the size of the armed forces could begin immediately with major

cutbacks in FYs 1954 and 1955, independently of nuclear weapons policy

and redeployment, simply by thinning out support elements, selectively

reducing manning requirements, and in general "computing force levels

on a genuine austerity basis." And this was how the required reductions

were finally made in the FY 1955 Defense budget.32

Following the 13 October decisions, Dulles went to London where he

held promising exploratory talks with Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden on

the impending nuclear weapons normalization policy. Dulles took with

him an explanatory statement drafted by Radford and approved by the

president: "The United States will use atomic weapons in military operations in repelling aggression whenever it is of military advantage to do so

in the following order of priority: (a) Immediately against military forces

operating against us or our allies. (b) Against targets that would support the

build-up of enemy military forces for renewed operations. (c) Unrestricted

atomic operations in retaliation for such attack on the United States or

its allies."33 The statement relegated "unrestricted" retaliatory strikes at

the enemy homeland to third priority, after purely military targets (enemy

forces and rear-area installations), implying that tactical, rather than strategic, nuclear weapons were expected to be the usual instrument of

response to aggression.

From the first, the question of redeployment had been handled with

kid gloves in the framing of NSC 162, primarily because of the sensitivity

of the issue in Europe, and it was one of the split items in the paper discussed by the NSC on 7 October. No one disputed that U.S. forces were

overextended and should be disengaged and repositioned; the differences

concerned timing and degree. At Radford's behest, Cutler inserted a

provision reflecting the considered view of the Joint Chiefs that "with the

understanding of our allies ... during the next few years ... the bulk of

our land forces and other forces not required to guard overseas bases"

should be redeployed toward the United States. In the Far East, this would

have to await an "acceptable settlement" in Korea. At the same time, a

strong diplomatic effort would be mounted to persuade allied governments to go along. 34
Containment's New Testament 199

During the council discussion, however, it soon became evident that

the president and Dulles regarded the issue of troop withdrawals from

Europe as so delicate that, even though favoring them in principle, they

were reluctant to risk a clear statement of policy, even in a highly classified document, for fear that it might leak to the public. Unless handled

with the greatest delicacy, Dulles warned, it "could bring about the complete collapse of our coalition in Europe." The chiefs' proposed version

was accordingly rejected, although some of its language was retained. As

revised, the statement pointed out that U.s. forces were overextended

and then went on to say that any major withdrawal of forces from the two

principal overseas areas would have the effect of undermining allied

solidarity. The concluding paragraph adroitly avoided any overt admission that U.s. forces would nevertheless be redeployed: "Our diplomacy

must concentrate upon clarifying to our allies in parts of the world not

gripped by war conditions that the best defense of the free world rests

upon a deployment of U.s. forces which permits initiative, flexibility and

support; upon our political commitment to strike back hard against any

aggressor who attacks such allies; and upon such allies' own indigenous

security efforts."35

This settled the broad policy of the redeployment question. In the

final discussion on 29 October, the advocates of a more forthright statement did not conceal their unhappiness. Speaking for the Joint Chiefs,

Carney argued that until u.s. commitments to defend Europe were modified, large U.s. forces would continue to be pinned down there, making

impossible the structural reforms envisaged in the New Look. Humphrey

impatiently sounded again the let's-get-on-with-it refrain. This time both

Dulles and the president felt called on to defend themselves against the

imputation of being soft on redeployment. 36 The policy line held firm and

the revised paragraph carried over intact when NSC 162/2 was approved

on the 30th.

Even before that date, fears of a leak proved well-founded. When

Dulles returned from London on the 21st, after his talks with Eden, he

found to his dismay that, as he wrote the preSident, "there was a general

impression among the press that plans were under way to withdraw some

of our U.s. troops now in Europe." High administration officials, not underlings, had let the cat out of the bag. Wilson said in a press conference a

few days before that the increased reliance on nuclear weapons would

eventually permit major retrenchments overseas, and Deputy Secretary

Kyes in a speech made a similar prediction with specific reference to

Europe. Such statements, Dulles complained, were causing disastrous repercussions in Europe and might well scuttle the already waning prospects
200 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

for ratification of the European Defense Community treaty. Both the

president and Dulles gave hasty reassurances that there were no plans

to withdraw U.S. forces from Europe, and the president rapped Wilson's

knuckles for his indiscretion. 37

The issue would not die. Early in December Dulles, contemplating a

NATO foreign ministers meeting, felt obliged to reprimand Wilson for

"emanations from Defense and the military to the effect that we are planning to pull back troops from Europe." He reminded the defense secretary

of the warning against such public statements written into NSC 162/2.

EVidently he also complained to the president, for the latter on 10 December delivered a stern lecture on the subject to the NSC. "Philosophical

dissertations" on the relationship between strategy and the new weapons

were permissible, he warned, but not comments on how they might affect

the U.S. force posture in Europe. On this matter he "wanted everybody to

keep still."

Wilson spoke up. Was it not advisable, he asked, in talking publicly

about future U.S. forces in NATO, to at least suggest the possibility of

gradual reductions, so that the U.S. position would not become frozen?

Humphrey quickly picked up the point and expatiated on it. The president should, he thought, layout in an early public statement "the pattern

of our new defense posture" in order to answer the speculation certain

to be stimulated by the forthcoming announcement that two divisions

were to be pulled out of Korea, following earlier publicity about total

force reductions and budget cuts. The president did not disagree, but

again stressed the "very touchy feelings" in Europe and pointed out that

the British, with not even a single division in their home islands, justly

"regarded themselves as far more 'stretched out' than we are." When

Wilson remarked that "we now seemed hopelessly caught between the

fear of the Europeans as to the use of atomic weapons, and our own

desire to bring our forces home," the president "reacted with some

warmth." Our first priority, he replied, was to secure ratification of the

European Defense Community, which depended on allaying the "almost

hysterical fear" of the French that the Americans and British would one

day abandon Europe and leave them alone on the continent with a

superior German army. We could not afford "even to talk about redeployment" until we reached this objective. 38

Meanwhile, the obstacles to early withdrawals from the Far East unexpectedly lifted. At the beginning of November, General John B. Hull,

the theater commander, urged initiation of the exodus of U.S. forces

from Korea as soon as a political settlement with the Communists could

be reached. In December, with no such settlement yet in sight and a
Containment's New Testament 201

prolonged stalemate likely, the president abruptly decided during a

meeting of the NSC, under prodding from Humphrey and Wilson, that

two divisions should be brought back from Korea and demobilized, leaving their equipment behind for newly activated ROK divisions. This

gave Wilson a small slice of the Army's required personnel reduction in

FY 1955, and inaugurated the planned contraction of the vast overseas

establishment. 39

Nuclear weapons policy received a final airing by the NSC on

29 October in connection with Dulles's report on his recent talks in

London. These had been encouraging but inconclusive. The British ambassador had called to ask for further clarification. Did the United States

want to modify the existing agreement that no nuclear weapons would

be launched from U.S. bases in Britain without prior consultation? Precisely, Dulles answered: The United States hoped to obtain prior consent

to such launching in event of general war. The ambassador then suggested

that it might be appropriate to raise also the question of exchange of information between the two governments on nuclear energy-a hint, Dulles

inferred, that this might be a bargaining point. He suggested that the

matter might be taken up with Radford who would visit London soon.

The president observed that only in the event of a Pearl Harbor type of

attack, requiring an immediate response, could prior consent to the use

of British bases be requested. "In a war which broke out in, so to speak,

normal fashion," the British could hardly be expected to grant what

amounted to sovereignty over part of their territory "by allowing us to

make the sole decision as to using these bases for an atomic attack."

Although Carney was present to represent the Joint Chiefs in

Radford's absence, Dulles now undertook to set forth their position.

They had, he said,

repeatedly insisted on the necessity of knowillg whether they

could count in advance on being able to launch such attacks

from bases in allied countries .... As he understood it, the Joint

Chiefs of Staff, in view of vital considerations of economy, felt

that it was impossible to continue our military buildup with both

conventional and special weapons. Accordingly they want to

know now, and with assurance, that they can plan on the use of

atomic weapons. Paragraph 39-b (of NSC 162/1) gives them a

green light to do so in so far as atomic weapons are launched

from bases in the United States. But what the Joint Chiefs are seeking is the same clarity of decision with regard to the launching

of atomic attacks from U.S. bases in foreign countries. 40
202 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Since Carney made no objection, this presumably was an accurate

paraphrase of the JCS position. But paragraph 39b did not give the chiefs

a green light to plan on launching retaliatory nuclear attacks from U.S.

bases, or indeed to do anything else; it merely held this out as an option

for the president. The assurance the JCS desired derived from the president's oral (and duly recorded) pledge to the council on 7 October and

again on the 13th. For all other contingencies, the JCS still had to make

provision for conventional as well as nuclear responses to an attack.

Conceivably, the chiefs now hoped to get from the president another

personal pledge ("the same clarity of decision"), this time that he would,

when the occasion arose, authorize a nuclear response from U.S. bases

in foreign countries, irrespective of the outcome of the negotiations for

prior consent called for in NSC 162/1. Such a rash and far-reaching commitment defying a solemnly registered basic national security policy was

not in the president's style, particularly in a matter involving his favorite

ally, Great Britain.

Eisenhower saw the point immediately. In that case, he replied, it

would be necessary to pose the issue in different terms. Both governments must "decide now that henceforth atomic weapons would be

considered in the same light as any other weapon." Dulles agreed but

pointed out that the British seemed to want to bargain, seeking a freer

exchange of atomic information as a quid pro quo for their prior consent

on the base issue. The president accordingly authorized continued negotiations, remarking that, in his view, "we were idiots to deprive the British

of significant information on this subject." Evidently, however, he clung to

the idea of seeking a basic identity of policy with the British on the use

of nuclear weapons, remarking a few moments later that "he wished

paragraph 39b to look like a bilateral decision of the two governments."

By this time, of course, paragraph 39b was virtually set in concrete, and

was in fact approved by the president as it stood in the final document

the following day, 30 October. Eisenhower proved a good prophet, nevertheless. More than a year later, in December 1954, after prolonged negotiations, the North Atlantic Council would authorize SHAPE to plan on the

use of nuclear weapons in the event of war. 41

So much could not, of course, be foreseen in October 1953, and

developments in the next few weeks were not encouraging. In adopting

NSC 162/2 on 29 October the council had directed prompt action to

"conform existing arrangements regarding atomic weapons to subparagraph 39b," and formed a special committee to deal with the matter.

It soon developed that State and DoD had opposing interpretations.

EVidently Wilson and Radford had agreed to continue to press, at this
Containment's New Testament 203

level, their view that the new policy amounted to a decision that nuclear

weapons would be used, if militarily useful, in any future hostilities.

State, conceding that the military could now make plans on the assumption the weapons would be available for use, insisted that the decision to

use them must be made by the president in the light of circumstances at

the time. No doubt in certain extreme situations, such as an atomic Pearl

Harbor, the use of such weapons would be "virtually automatic," and as

tactical atomic weapons became more numerous and versatile, "certain

kinds of tactical use" might be envisaged in reacting to aggression. But the

State Department held that paragraph 39b had not decided these issues

and that they ought to be "further explored to establish suitable procedures which will take account of the political issues in deciding upon use

of atomic weapons in a particular case."42

Dulles had an opportunity on 3 December to press State's view in the

NSC during a discussion of the ]CS war plan to meet a sudden Communist resumption of hostilities in Korea. He pointed out that the ]CS

proposal for massive initial nuclear air strikes at Chinese forces in Korea

and North China would almost certainly involve the United States in a

general war not only with China but with the Soviet Union as well. The

consequences would be to isolate the United States from the United

Nations, propel the European allies toward neutrality pacts with the

USSR, lead to a large-scale Chinese invasion of Indochina, and a long list

of other dread possibilities. Dulles did not OpPoS€! the use of nuclear

weapons as such in Korea; he proposed instead a graduated course of

action confined as far as possible to the peninsula itself and calculated

to "produce a victory in Korea," with a good chance that the Soviets

would not intervene, rather than aiming, as in the ]CS plan, at a "total

victory over China," which almost certainly would bring an immediate

Soviet entry. In the discussion that followed, Radford, in effect, backed

down, acknowledging that the ]CS plan had erred in making assumptions

as to ultimate objectives, the prerogative of the NSC. 43

When the question of predetermined use of nuclear weapons, with

particular reference to Korea, came up at the Bermuda summit conference

early in December both the British and the French expressed their

aversion bluntly. Churchill opposed unleashing nuclear weapons in Korea

except by agreement of all United Nations allies at the time, and warned

that any first-use by the United States there or elsewhere would cause a

worldwide revulsion. Dulles, reporting the Bermuda talks to the NSC on

10 December, remarked resignedly that "our thinking on the atomic

weapon was several years in advance of the rest of the free world." The

president expanded on the theme: "We, more than any other people, have
204 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

accepted the atomic age. Many European peoples are lagging far behind

us and think of themselves only as the defenseless targets of atomic

warfare." Dulles pointed out that Churchill, while concerned about world

opinion, also understandably worried that "the British people ..., on

account of their exposed position ..., would suffer if the Soviets retaliated

against our use of atomic weapons by attacking the population centers of

the British Isles." He stressed, however, that no final conclusions had been

reached in the talks and that the United States "had not renounced its

right to use atomic weapons if war were forced upon us by the Soviets."

The president added an encouraging sequel, reporting that in his

private conversations with Churchill the latter had shown more concern

over publicity than the actual use of nuclear weapons, making the telling

point that people would have difficulty squaring a U.S. public announcement of an intention to use the weapons with the president's forthcoming speech to the United Nations on peaceful uses of atomic energy.

The old statesman had said, in effect, "let us plan to use these weapons

if necessity arose, but let us not talk about these plans.,,44

Nuclear weapons policy was only one of the host of factors and

decisions that faced the Defense Department at every major juncture in

taking necessary actions to carry out the broad and compelling mandates

of the New Look. Like all overarching policy guides, the New Look confronted DoD with an imperative challenge to make it work. For Wilson

and the Joint Chiefs, trying to do more with less would be a continuing

and vexing annual struggle requiring much resolution, flexibility, perseverance, and compromise.
CHAPTER X

The New Look Takes Form

In a directive to the Joint Chiefs on 16 October 1953, Secretary Wilson

initiated the formulation of a military strategy and program to implement NSC policy paper 162/2, while that document was still in its final

stages of revision. "It is of urgent importance that we determine now

the broad outline for the size and composition of our armed forces for

some years ahead in the light of foreseeable developments in order to

establish a sound basis for planning." He asked the chiefs to develop a

military strategy "to implement the national strategy," together with

recommendations for the size and composition of the armed forces during the next three fiscal years. The desired military strength by the end of

this period was to be between 2.5 and 3 million. As he had told the NSC

a few days earlier, he wanted a posture that would provide "reasonable

security (1) without causing financial and economic unrest at home, (2)

without raising fear abroad that we were proposing to unleash global war,

and (3) without raising apprehensions among our allies that we were

withdrawing from the arena." 1

It would be a military establishment that would be appropriate to the

cautiously optimistic containment strategy of the New Look and that the

nation could afford. For guidance as to "feasible annual expenditures and

new appropriations" Wilson referred the chiefs to information provided

by Treasury and BoB. In particular, he called the chiefs' attention to the

problem of defending the continent against air attack, the importance of

a sound free world economy, and the new policy that nuclear weapons

would be used "whenever it is to military advantage to do so." Wilson

wanted the study. by 15 December. 2

205
206 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The Everest Committee

The chiefs delegated the task of producing a first draft to a committee headed by Director of the Joint Staff Lt. Gen. Frank F. Everest, USAF.

Thereupon, they departed on separate tours of base inspection and factfinding in Europe, North Africa, the Pacific, and the Far East, returning in

mid-November. 3 For unexplained reasons, when the committee submitted

its report on 30 November it recommended "level-off" overall force and

strength levels for only FY 1957. Even with this simplification the

committee could not reach agreement. The Air Force, Navy, and Marine

Corps members wanted a strength of 2,750,000, while the Army wanted

2,765,000. More serious were the differences among the services over

the composition and distribution of the total force, on which they divided

along service lines, as shown in the following tabulation: 4

TABLE 4

Everest Committee Proposal

Personnel (recommended by)

Army

Force Levels (recommended by)

Army

Army

Navy

Marine Corps

Air Force

Total

Army (divs)

Navy (ships)

Marine Corps (divsiwings)*

Air Force (wings)

1,060,000

580,000

175,000

950,000

2,765,000

14

799

2+

120

Navy-MC Air Force

900,000 950,000

693,000 630,000

207,000 170,000

950,000 1,000,000

2,750,000 2,750,000

Navy-MC Air Force

12 12

1,093 904

3 3-

127 137

* Numbers of divisions with associated air wings.

Considering the earlier strong resistance by all the services to

reductions for FY 1955, the committee's acceptance of additional cuts

seems more remarkable than its disagreements. The Army members

understandably were the most adamant about cuts, insisting that the 14

divisions proposed were an absolute minimum, acceptable only on the

assumption that by 1957 Japan would have mobilized 8 divisions and

that all U.S. Army forces would have been withdrawn from the Far East.
The New Look Takes Form 207

Faced with the inevitable, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps had by now

reconciled themselves to their own reduced strength and the expansion

of the Air Force. 5

General Ridgway later charged, and it was widely believed at the

time, that the final manpower totals were cut to the cloth of a dollar

ceiling. "We could have had a substantially higher [strength] figure,"

Ridgway told a House subcommittee early in 1956, "had the dollar ceiling

been higher."6 That the spending total projected for Defense in FY 1957

was dictated can hardly be disputed. The budget authorities had given

the Everest committee guidance on projected expenditure limits. Projected total revenues of $60 billion and expenditures of $19.6 billion for

non-security activities left a "remainder" of $40.4 billion for the security

programs. After allowing $1.9 billion for the Atomic Energy Commission

and $4.7 billion for the Mutual Security Program, both radically reduced

from existingievels, DoD would get $33.8 billion. 7 The committee thus had

the task of contriving an acceptable mix of personnel, materiel, and operating and maintenance costs that would price out at or near this figure.

Establishing an accurate relationship between the strength of the

armed forces and the total cost of their support in any given year is, to

say the least, elusive, because of the host of mediating ,assumptions concerning the structure and composition of the force, plans and programs

for equipping it, and the norms governing its training, supply, maintenance, state of readiness,and operations. Direct military personnel costs

ranged from less than 25 percent (Air Force) to about 42 percent (Army)

of the service budgets envisaged in the 2,750,OOO-man force. Other

budgetary components, such as operations and maintenance, major

procurement and production, reserve components, and military public

works, were only indirectly affected by the assumed personnel strength.

The number and types of Army divisions and Air Force wings, for example, not the manpower strengths, were the primary determinants of the

budgets; and the number of divisions and air wings varied depending

on the size of the force, types of units involved, state of their manning

and equipment, and a variety of other factors. A principal source of the

growth in operating and maintenance costs, virtually unrelated to personnel strength, was the increasing proportion of jet aircraft in the Air

Force and the Navy; another was the flight training and routine flying,

or (in the Navy) steaming, factors affecting fuel consumption. Thus,

personnel strength was only one of many determinants of cost.

The Everest committee could not agree on a single price tag for the

competing forces and activities projected, settling finally on ranges

of cost within some of the major budget categories between what the
208 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

individual services considered to be irreducible minimums and negotiable

higher figures. The annual costs for the aggregate 2,750,000-man force

on which the Navy and Air Force had agreed ranged from $31.1 billion

to $35.9 billion; the Army, demanding a slightly larger total force, priced

it at $34.235 billion. 8 For aircraft procurement, for instance, the Navy's

estimated cost spread covered projected buys ranging from 1,600 to 2,475

aircraft; the Air Force's estimates ranged from 4,750 to 7,340 aircraft. 9

Except for redeployment from Europe, the Everest committee evidently

had little difficulty in agreeing on the outline strategy called for in Wilson's

directive. In the full report submitted to the chiefs on 30 November only

the Army members protested the prescription of manpower and dollar

guidelines as firm ceilings, which, they asserted, had forced the committee to make overly optimistic assumptions and to accept unwarranted

risks. The other members deemed the risks acceptable. The chiefs generally

supported the position taken by their committee representatives. General

Twining endorsed the strategy and the proposed 2,750,000-man force.

Admiral Carney and Marine Commandant General Shepherd approved

the strategy in general, but called for a more balanced force structure

that could react to various contingencies. General Ridgway presumably

made his views known during the JCS discussions and later submitted a

highly critical report to Army Secretary Stevens. 10

The chiefs finally reached formal agreement on the Everest committee's recommendations on strategy and force posture and raised slightly

the total proposed strength level. Their final recommendations to Wilson

on force and strength goals for FY 1957 were as followsY

Army

Navy

Marine Corps

Air Force

Total

Strength

1,000,000

650,000

190,000

975,000

2,815,000

Forces

14 divisions

1,030 ships

3 divs/3 wings

137 wings

The whole pnclllg exercise, in the final submission, was labeled an

"approximation ... pending detailed costing," and each of the chiefs declared that higher levels of major procurement should have been provided

for. 12 The outcome would appear to belie Ridgway's later complaint that

the final strength level of 2,815,000, well below Wilson's original limit of

3 million, was dictated by the imposed ceiling on spending. With more

money to spend, the chiefs could, of course, have financed a larger total

force, but it seems clear that the Navy and Air Force chiefs preferred to

buy more, or perhaps more expensive, aircraft, raising their procurement
The New Look Takes Form 209

accounts substantially. For his own, relatively low-technology, more manpower-intensive service, Ridgway obviously wanted a higher mission

recognition that would open the way for a larger force, with a larger

overseas establishment. Yet in the final negotiations, the Army yielded a

smaller percentage of its original manpower goal than did the Navy, and

the whole 2,815,000-man force was priced lower than even the BoB dollar

ceiling of $33.8 billion. Evidently the principal barrier to a higher total

strength ceiling was Wilson's determination, probably reflecting direct

guidance from the president, to hold military manpower appreciably below

the three-million level, not primarily to save money but rather because of

anticipated shrinkage in the nation's pool of qualified manpower. 13

The New Strategy and Posture

The Joint Chiefs' outline strategy amounted to little more than a restatement of the military policies and courses of actions already set forth

in NSC 162/2. It recapitulated the central New Look doctrine of maintenance of effective military strength for the "long pull," within the limits

of available funds and manpower. The report then walked through the

catalogue of New Look postulates: (1) present overextension and overcommitment of U.S. forces; (2) greater reliance on nuclear weapons;

(3) emphasis on massive strategic retaliatory striking power and nuclear

capability as "the major deterrent to aggression" as well as a principal

weapon for waging general war; (4) an "integrated and adequate"

continental defense system; (5) control of essential sea and air communication lines; and (6) maintenance of an adequate mobilization base for

general war. The summary section included an item not heretofore made

explicit, although recalling Radford's 13 October formulation of nuclear

weapons policy: "the provision of tactical atomic support for U.S. or

allied military forces in general war or in a local aggression whenever the

employment of atomic weapons would be militarily advantageous."14

Predictably, redeployment received more extended treatment. In the

Everest committee, the Army members had stonewalled their colleagues'

attempt to prescribe a limit of three U.S. divisions in Europe by 1957. The

JCS paper, prescribing a "global regroupment," asserted the need for a

substantial reduction of ground forces deployed overseas as a prerequisite

to establishment of a strategic reserve in the United States. The chiefs

concluded that a maximum of six Army divisions would be available for

station overseas and recommended only unspecified "changes in the

present U.S. deployments in some forward areas." Implementing actions
210 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

included early withdrawal of u.S. forces from Korea (except for a military

advisory group and logistical support for ROK forces), but no other significant prospective withdrawals. In the Far East, since the United States

would help defend the Japanese offshore islands and South Korea and

would retain its bases, "suitably deployed" forces would be required.

Moreover, "certain other countries," including Indochina, were so vital to

the United States that any attack on them would probably compel a

military response. The chiefs proposed, however, that U.S. forces in the

Far East be given immediately a nuclear capability, both for retaliatory

(i.e., strategic) attacks on the mainland and for support (i.e., tactical) of

ROK forces. This implied that only air and naval forces would be required,

a point made explicitly by the Everest committee and reinforced by the

chiefs' recommendation that overseas force requirements be continually

reviewed and reassessed in the light of developing nuclear capabilities.

The chiefs also urged that Japan be "encouraged" to speed the organization of its own defense forces, noting that Japanese awareness of the U.S.

intention to withdraw would tend to accelerate the process.

As for Europe, the chiefs finessed their disagreement by suggesting

that it might be necessary to retain U.S. ground forces there beyond FY

1957. They recommended an "educational program to promote understanding among our allies "of the contribution to their security made

by American nuclear capabilities and massive retaliatory striking power.

They noted particularly the great advantage in flexibility to be gained

from the constitution of a combat-ready strategic reserve in the Western

Hemisphere and the growing importance of U.S. tactical atomic support.

The other side of this coin called for the allies to provide the major share

of ground forces for their own defense, and a policy of "discrimination" in

the distribution of U.S. foreign aid. Meanwhile, "the full German potential

for creating and maintaining military forces must be utilized."15

In transmitting the JCS paper to Wilson, Radford stated that the JCS

had agreed on the size and composition of the military establishment and

had settled on an outline strategy as directed. The recommended establishment was expected to be maintainable "in a qualitatively improved

state of readiness over an indefinite period of time." It also should provide an improved mobilization base for a general war as well as fully

ready forces to deal with "peripheral" aggressions and enable the United

States "promptly to furnish an atomic contribution to supplement the

indigenous forces of our allies." Any increase in danger or reduction in

threat would require new studies and estimates. 16
The New Look Takes Form 211

Ridgway Objects, Stevens Demurs

These qualifications became the focus of much attention as a result

of Ridgway's public references to the "stated assumptions and limitations"

under which the chiefs had concurred in the recommendations. In

testifying on the FY 1957 budget two years later, Ridgway stressed the

general condition of "no substantial deterioration in the world situation,

as well as a whole lot of others relating to western Europe, and the Far

East, and the growth of the Japanese force." 17 Whether deliberately or from

lapse of memory, Ridgway overstated the qualifications in the JCS report.

Ridgway may well have forgotten the distinction made in December

1953 between conditions and "implementing actions." At the time, he

apparently attached little importance to it. Writing to Secretary Stevens

on 9 December 1953, Ridgway expressed his concern over the "prescribed

limitations of personnel, money and time" imposed by higher authority.

The subject, he wrote, "has had my studied consideration to the practical

exclusion of all other official business for the past six days." The position

he and the other chiefs had taken amounted to a "directed verdict, the

only one possible under the prescribed limitations placed upon them."*

Ridgway did not contest the legality of this procedure. He accepted the

"verdict"-Le., recommended forces virtually dictated by the imposed limitations as "a basically sound view" under the no change conditions the

chiefs, for their own protection, had stipulated regarding the world

situation. But to stipulate such conditions made the whole exercise unreal,

since the international situation that would exist in 1957 was totally unpredictable, partly because the effects of the resulting reductions in U.S.

military strength on relations with allies could not be foreseen. The Army

was in a dilemma, without a proper basis for estimating force requirements and, as seemed likely, without adequate funds to carry out the

missions it prescribed for itself. If he did not articulate the thought,

Ridgway may well have been asking himself how the Army could possibly

have the manpower it needed under proposed manpower ceilings that

would shrink it from a strength of 1,481,000 as of December 1953 to 1

million in FY 1957, a loss of 33 percent.

Ridgway contended that the Joint Chiefs had been forced to conduct

an exercise that amounted to "an inversion of the normal process." They

had not been furnished an adequate statement of missions, and their

military judgment had been "circumscribed at the outset by the fixing of

* Ridgway's actual words, in the light of what followed, were misleading: "verdict which

could only be reached within prescribed limitations." Later paragraphs indicate that the

paraphrase used here is more accurate.
212 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

an overall control, namely, the funds expected to be available." Approval

of the JCS recommendations would, he feared, begin the process of

reducing the military establishment to the level envisaged for 1957. The

Army's undoubted overextension needed correcting, but to attempt to do

this by 1957 would be disruptive and would have "severe and undetermined effects" on the free world coalition.

Ridgway may have felt that the decision to recommend strength

and force levels only for 1957, rather than for 1955-57, as Wilson had

requested, was intended to make more feasible a speedup in force reductions, particularly in the Army. Under the BoB dollar ceilings the chiefs

might have faced the same kind of "directed verdict" for 1955 and 1956

as they did for 1957, forcing them to commit themselves to a three-year

downward slide to the level-off point in FY 1957. Ridgway's plea to Secretary Stevens aimed to slow down what he regarded as the radical restructuring and shrinking of the armed forces aimed at in the New Look. He

urged Stevens to try to hold the line of Army strength at 1,305,000. 18

Stevens forwarded Ridgway's memorandum to Wilson on the same

day along with a reinforcing message of his own. His message emphasized,

however, not Ridgway's go-slow plea on strength reductions but rather

his disquisition on the proper role of the military adviser in national

policymaking. Stevens had discovered what apparently seemed to him a

powerful argument to support Ridgway's case: congressional testimony

in June 1947 by none other than then Army Chief of Staff General

Eisenhower, who had declared that he appeared before the Senate committee "only as a professional soldier .... It is my duty as Chief of Staff

to tell you gentlemen what I believe is necessary for national security.

The issue is then in the hands of the Congress." Similarly, in the current

situation, Stevens went on, it was "not correct procedure to place the professional military man in the position of having his military advice

circumscribed by economic and fiscal considerations in which he does

not claim to be expert." Having thus supported Ridgway, Stevens concluded by assuring Wilson of his "complete acceptance of the new Army

strength figures provided in your memorandum of 4 December." 19

Apparently neither Ridgway's protest nor Stevens's endorsement of

it made much impression on Wilson, or, indeed, went beyond his office.

Both documents were notably weak in tactics as well as in logic. Ridgway

and Stevens both seemed absorbed by the effort at defining the legal and

ethical boundaries of their roles as advisers and commanders. To a man

of Wilson's pragmatic temperament and background this could only have

seemed a waste of intellectual energy if not pure pedantry. From his perspective, since neither challenged the legality of the constraints imposed
The New Look Takes Form 213

on the JCS study, Ridgway and Stevens faced the same simple choice of

either doing the president's bidding, or, if in good conscience they could

not, resigning.

Finally, Ridgway's explanation of his concurrence in the JCS recommendations must have seemed to Wilson a tortured rationalization. As a

member of the Joint Chiefs, he seemed to argue, he had a responsibility to

concur in the action agreed to by his colleagues, whereas, as Army chief

of staff, he also had a responsibility to express his "personal" views to his

statutory commander, the secretary of the Army. These, it turned out, did

not flatly contradict the position he had endorsed as a member of the

JCS, which, after all, he asserted to be "basically sound" under the conditions stated. What seems even less defensible, he then urged rejection of

that position as dangerous to the nation's security. Nor did his "directed

verdict" argument stand up under examination. As noted earlier, the

aggregate manpower ceiling imposed by Wilson remained negotiable,

although within rather narrow limits; the distribution of that figure among

the services was, in fact, vigorously negotiated both in the Everest committee and among the chiefs; and the program finally recommended

amounted to almost $1 billion less than the dollar ceiling imposed by BoB.

Ridgway still had the option of formally taking his case to higher authority, to Wilson, and perhaps the president, with resignation the probable.

outcome. Since Ridgway did not mention these alternatives to Stevens,

his decision to go along with the so-called "directed verdict" suggests a

capitulation to pressures for conformity.

Wilson forwarded the JCS recommendations to the president on

11 December, with a pro forma comment that they would "materially assist

us in the final preparations of the 1955 budget."2o In fact, they contributed

little if anything. Nothing in the proposed strategy and force posture was

inconsistent with the budget as it now stood, and Wilson finally provided

the missing strength figures for FY 1955, which the JCS had failed to

recommend. On 16 December, both the DoD budget and the three-year

strategy-and-posture paper were presented to the NSC, with the service

secretaries and JCS in attendance. In presenting the JCS report, Radford

emphasized the chiefs' qualifying conditions and warned of the difficulty

of convincing allied countries that withdrawal of U.S. forces would be

in their mutual interest. In Wilson's absence McNeil summarized the DoD

budget, noting the emphasis on airpower, continental defense, and a

strengthened reserve, with estimated expenditures of $37.6 billion (as contrasted with current spending at an annual rate of $44 billion). He requested

appropriations of $31. 2 billion. 21
214 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Discussion was perfunctory, the council members taking their cue

from the president's obvious satisfaction with both documents. The only

hint of dissent came from Stevens who, at the president's invitation, read

a short statement recording his objections to the cutback in Army manpower. Much of the four minutes Stevens allowed himself he devoted to

declarations of loyalty, freedom from service bias, constructive intent,

and incomplete knowledge. What he objected to was less the cutback

itself than its timing. To reduce the Army within 18 months by 330,000

(actually 317,000) "in this period of international uncertainties" was "too

drastic" and should be postponed to a later date.22

Unmoved by Stevens's little speech, the president graciously thanked

him, adding that the proposed manpower reductions would be subject to

review over the next three years. He wound up the meeting with a few

soothing words primarily for the Army, though addressing ostensibly all

the service representatives present, voicing his pride in the way they had

subordinated personal and professional concerns to the national interest.

He expressed particular sympathy for the Army, which had a special place

in his heart, and felt sure that the Army's traditional sense of discipline

would sustain its morale and help it to continue working as an important

member of the team. 23

Eisenhower must have known that he was asking for more self-denial

and breadth of vision than it was reasonable to expect of mere mortals in a

competitive bureaucratic environment. The planned shrinking of the Army

would reduce its strength by one-third over the next 3 1/2 years, and by

21 percent during the first 18 months of that period. The armed forces as

a whole would be dWindling at the same time, but at a much slower paceby only 17 percent over the entire period and 11 percent during the first

18 months. From its current 43 percent of the armed forces, the Army

would drop by mid-1957 to only 36 percent. The destined rise of the

Air Force to paramountcy in the service hierarchy was now clear, and for

most members of the other services probably no longer galling. But the

magnitude of the amputations to be inflicted on the Army placed it in a

class by itself, with no other service to share its distress. Stevens might

accept the president's decision, but he spoke only for himself. The Army

as a whole viewed its diminished status with genuine alarm.

Selling the New Look

By the time President Eisenhower unveiled the FY 1955 Defense

budget in January 1954, the main outlines of the New Look had taken
The New Look Takes Form 215

shape. The president previewed its principal themes in his State of the

Union message on the 7th and provided detailed highlights in his formal

budget message to Congress on the 21st. These two important addresses

gave the national security budget prominent billing in a well-orchestrated

effort to focus public attention on the administration's "purposes and

accomplishments." This major promotion effort cast the president as a

star performer, with news conferences almost every week, a barrage of

special messages to Congress on a variety of topics, and a radio-television

address on taxes on 15 March.24

An important theme in the publicity campaign to sell the FY 1955

DoD budget was its asserted close link with the New Look. According to

the official line, this budget was not a product of the economy axe, and

its substantial reductions involved no decrease in military strength or risk

to national security. Rather, it projected the first of a planned series of

New Look budgets shaped to the new long-haul strategy and the planned

restructuring of the armed forces that would, as the president assured

the nation, "make and keep America strong in an age of peril." It was, he

said, "based on a new military program unanimously recommended by

the Joint Chiefs of Staff and approved by me."25 The public presentation

of the new DoD budget and the New Look thus went hand in hand.

The New Look's unveiling had occurred in December 1953, even

though by then the term itself was a byword and the policy had been

Widely, if not yet authoritatively, reported. Admiral Radford made two

speeches on the subject early in December, his first since his appointment as JCS chairman. 26 The New Look, he said, was really not new

except in being prepared by the "new" Joint Chiefs and in being based on

a guiding precept of preparing for the "long pull, not a year-of-crisis."

As a starter a tentative military posture had been projected over the

.next three years. International communism and the "tremendous destructive power of atomic weapons" imposed on the United States two

requirements: "We must be ready for tremendous, vast retaliatory and

counteroffensive blows in the event of a global war, and we must be

ready for lesser military actions short of all-out war." Radford used

uncharacteristically effusive rhetoric in describing the role of airpower.

Emphasis in the armed forces, he declared, was "pointed toward the

creation, the maintenance, and the exploitation of modern air power ....

Offensively, defensively, and in support of other forces, it is a primary

requirement." He stressed that he meant national airpower, including the

military aviation of all the services and the civil aviation systems and

aircraft industry backing them up-airpower already "superior to that of

any other nation.'0Z7
216 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Radford said little in either speech about the FY 1955 budget and

the service manpower cuts, alluding to the current force planning for

FY 1955 as an "interim look." As late as 14 December he told reporters

that he knew nothing of the planned (by then directed) manpower cuts

beyond what he had read in the newspapers, and recalled his earlier

statements that in FY 1955 no significant force changes were planned

except in the Air Force and continental defense. 28 Evidently Radford still

believed, as he had late in October, that the big decisions on New Look

strategy would not be made until the spring of 1954 at the earliest. He

was avowing publicly, as the president had already conceded privately,

that FY 1955 would not be a New Look year, and the FY 1955 Defense

budget would be at most a prelude to the New Look budgets of 1956

and beyond.

Unfortunately, this was not the official line, as became apparent

on 7 January when the president announced in his State of the Union

message that the new DoD budget was "based on" the Joint Chiefs'

recently completed long-range plan. In his budget message two weeks

later he made the same point with references to the national security

budget as a whole. DoD spokesmen routinely echoed the line during

the weeks following, and it quickly became conventional wisdom.

Meanwhile, on 12 January Secretary of State Dulles launched the real

promotion of the New Look with a new focus.

Massive Retaliation

Dulles's celebrated 12 January address to the Council on Foreign

Relations in New York, broadcast on radio and television, evoked

responses ranging from angry denunciation to enthusiastic acclaim. 29 It

merited attention not only as an important statement of administration

policy, but for its substance and presentational skill as well. Dulles

carefully delimited his subject at the outset as "an over-all view of

those [foreign] policies which relate to our security." He thus detached it

from the mainstream of official New Look pronouncements (the term

was not mentioned in the speech), keeping to the higher altitudes of

generalized foreign policy interpretation.

The secretary conceded that the previous administration had acted

promptly and vigorously to meet the Soviet threat, once it became manifest,

but "what we did was in the main emergency action, imposed on us by our

enemies." The Soviets were planning "gradually to divide and weaken the

free nations by over-extending them," so that, according to Lenin, "they
The New Look Takes Form 217

come to practical bankruptcy." It was not enough to ward off immediate

dangers; "it is also essential to do so without exhausting ourselves."

Dulles then moved to his two principal points. Permanent security at

affordable cost required, first, collective action, and second, "more reliance

on deterrent power, and less dependence on local defensive power."

In stressing the shift of emphasis from local defense to deterrence,

Dulles gave the New Look concept a new and significant twist, portraying nuclear weapons as both more formidable and more narrowly

focused than previous spokesmen had done. With a few deft strokes he

enhanced his initial dichotomy of local defense and deterrent power. "So

long as our basic policy concepts were unclear, our military leaders· could

not be selective in building our military power. If an enemy could pick

his time and place and method of warfare-and if our policy was to

remain the traditional one of meeting aggression by direct and local

opposition-then we needed to be ready to fight in the arctic and in the

tropics; in Asia, the Near East and in Europe; by sea, by land, and by air;

with old weapons and with new weapons."

The economic and monetary burdens imposed by this disadvantage

had been ruinous, and Dulles recited a few budgetary figures to dramatize the point. Of course, local defense remained a primary requirement,

but no local defense alone could contain Communist land power. Accordingly, the administration had taken a basic decision "to depend primarily

upon a great capacity to retaliate, instantly, by means and at places of

our choosing Instead of having to try to be ready to meet the enemy's

many choices it is now possible to get, and share, more basic security

at less cost."30

The new policy, Dulles declared, had already demonstrated its effectiveness in Korea, where a cease-fire had been negotiated "on honorable

terms" because the enemy, after being forced back by traditional means,

"was faced with the pOSSibility that the fighting might, to his own great

peril, soon spread beyond the limits and methods which he had selected."

Moreover, the Communists had received warning that the response to a

renewal of aggression "would not necessarily be confined to Korea." A

similar warning had been issued to Communist China regarding intervention in Indochina. A major withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from

Korea was under way, but the United States would continue to maintain

highly mobile naval, air, and amphibious forces in the Far East, with an

even greater capacity to oppose aggression than before. In Europe, the

North Atlantic Council had recently accepted the U.S. "long haul"

concept, aiming at the steady development of defensive strength at an

affordable rateY
218 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

There was plenty in the speech for critics to quibble over, and Dulles

could probably agree with some of his critics. Presumably, however, he

was more concerned with effect than with strict accuracy. Indeed,

Dulles's image of a monolithic Communist world systematically overwhelming local defenses in detail bore little resemblance to the actual

course of events since World War II. With the major exceptions of

Indochina and the Communist revolution in China, which in the climate

of 1954 were assumed to have been made-in-Moscow operations, the

free world had demonstrated an impressive capacity to mobilize for its

own defense, while the ostensibly cohesive and centrally directed Communist world had been conspicuously unsuccessful in its foreign

aggressions-notably in Iran, Greece and Malaya-and little less so in its

fomented revolutions.

Dulles knew all of this, of course, better than his critics. His real

answer to the charge of exaggerating the Communist menace was probably

that it was imperative to arouse the public to a greater sense of urgency

in order to make the counterthreat of nuclear retaliation credible. And

credible deterrence seemed to Dulles the only way, in the long run, to deal

effectively with the threat of recurring Communist aggression and subversion. As President Eisenhower said early in 1954, "We shall not beaggressors, but we and our allies have and will maintain a massive

capability to strike back."32 Communist leaders in Moscow and Peiping

must be made to fear the possible consequences of even local and limited

aggression.

What would the consequences be? On this matter Dulles spoke

pointedly-"local defenses must be reinforced by the further deterrent of

massive retaliatory power." Massive retaliation gained immediate perception as the operative concept. His hearers and readers generally

assumed, as Dulles knew they would, that he meant strategic nuclear

bombing, an assumption reinforced by the omission of any mention of

tactical nuclear weapons. The omission was conspicuous, even more so

perhaps than the studied avoidance of the words "atomic" or "nuclear."

Some might consider tactical "nukes" part of massive retaliatory power,

but they were more distinctively associated with local defense and

counteroffense. Even so, for the architects of the New Look they appeared the wave of the future, an essential complement to the strategic

bomber and the element of flexibility and versatility in the nuclear

arsenal. Dulles may have ignored them because the distinction between

strategic and tactical weapons may have seemed overly technical

and not really essential to his argument. Moreover, calculated ambiguity

had its uses. Thus far tactical weapons had been deployed to only a few
The New Look Takes Form 219

areas, and their future deployment was still undetermined. To link them

explicitly with deterrence would be to suggest a graduated scale of

response proportionate to the provocation. Why encourage the listeners

in the Kremlin to assume that in areas where these weapons were not available, small aggressions would still beget only small and local responses?

The convoluted psychology of deterrence was only beginning to be

studied in 1954; we cannot be sure how deeply Dulles had explored its

ramifications in his own mind. But the 12 January address, beneath its

rhetoric of reassurance, exhortation, and threat, had many hallmarks of

a carefully crafted message beamed to the top decisionmakers of the

Communist world. Dulles obviously understood that the effectiveness of

a deterrent threat depended not so much on its being fully believed (not

an easy requirement to meet for a threat of nuclear annihilation), but only

on its being not wholly disbelieved. It may be assumed that the secretary

did not really expect SAC bombers to be unleashed in retaliation for a

Communist coup in, say, Central America or the Near East, or even for a

Soviet occupation of an adjacent border area in Iran (as the Soviets had

in fact done in 1946)-or that Communist leaders would seriously expect

such a response. For more serious provocations Dulles had shown himself

a counselor of caution, notably in his opposition in December to the JCS

plan for an automatic "massive" response to a Communist renewal of

major hostilities in Korea. In the same spirit he had refused to go along

with DoD's argument that the policy of normalization of nuclear weapons laid down in NSC 162/2 meant that they would be used automatically,

if militarily useful, in any future conflict.

But in his 12 January speech none of this caution was evident. Dulles

seemed to be warning Communist leaders that massive aggression would

doubtless bring massive retaliation, and even for small provocations the

United States would consider all its options. In the Kremlin, Communist leaders were not likely to be deterred from limited aggression in

remote nonstrategic areas, particularly if they used proxies, by the theoretical risk that SAC bombers might retaliate against Moscow. But that

risk would appear less and less theoretical as they contemplated increasingly serious provocations. Deterrence by uncertainty would then

become operative.

Dulles confessed that he did not expect Communist leaders always to

be deterred. At some times there might be setbacks, presumably because

local defenses were too weak, rescue operations (a la Korea) could not be

mounted in time, or, most important, the United States was unwilling

to invoke massive retaliation. This prospect was preferable, he implied,

to the exhausting drain of repeated tit-for-tat emergency responses to
220 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

aggression over the past eight years. Henceforth, Dulles said, liberation

of captive peoples would be sought through diplomacy, while rigidly

avoiding "diplomatic moves which would seem to endorse captivity";

already, for example, the Soviets had agreed to discuss ending the occupation of Austria at the forthcoming conference in Berlin. 33

The Debate Begins

How the men in the Kremlin would read, or misread, Dulles's address

remained to be seen, but Dulles had plenty of misreaders at home. Generally speaking, his idea of deterrence through uncertainty, as opposed to

fully credible deterrent threats, was over the heads of many reporters

and the press initially almost ignored it. On the assumption that a deterrent threat must imply a firm decision to carry it out if deterrence failed,

it was widely believed that Dulles had proclaimed a policy of responding

to any Communist aggression primarily by instant massive retaliation.

This interpretation, in turn, frequently gave way to the assumption that

this would be the predetermined response to massive aggression, i.e.,

an all-out attack on the United States-leaving the policy for dealing

with lesser aggressions still unclear. After the president's budget message on 21 January, public analysis tended to become both more critical

and more penetrating. Hanson Baldwin, senior military analyst of the

New York Times, concluded that the administration had basically decided

to prepare primarily for "one type of war rather than ... for all kinds

of war everywhere," the kind in which its great retaliatory power could

be brought to bear. If so, it contradicted Admiral Radford's recent, presumably authoritative assertion that the United States now faced a

twofold preparedness requirement for both all-out retaliatory strikes and

lesser offensive and defensive actions employing ready mobile forces.

Baldwin and Walter Millis of the New York Herald Tribune reminded readers that the central ideas of the New Look had been around

for some time. In important respects, indeed, the policy was really the

pre-1950 policy of the Truman administration with a higher price tag.

Before the Korean War the United States relied on the threat of atomic

retaliation against the Russian heartland to deter war, and in 1950 and

1951 both former President Hoover and Sen. Robert A. Taft were urging

a general pullback from Europe and Asia, concentration of military

strength in the Western Hemisphere, and primary reliance on air and sea

power. Then the invasion of South Korea showed the futility of invoking

the threat of atomic devastation to deter such aggression. The United
The New Look Takes Form 221

States had been forced hurriedly to rebuild its land and naval forces, while

simultaneously expanding its air forces, and to execute large-scale deployments not only to Korea but worldwide. "Now that the fighting in Korea

is finished," wrote Baldwin, "and the costs of maintaining very strong land,

sea and air forces overseas seem prohibitive, we are reverting once again

to a military policy based essentially upon much smaller land forces, a

somewhat smaller Navy, and a strengthened Air Force keyed to the threat

of massive and instant atomic retaliation."34

Why should the pre-1950 policy prove more effective in the future than

it had in the past? Apart from Dulles's strong intimation (which reporters

generally ignored) that the threat of atomic reprisals had brought the

Communists to the conference table in Korea, administration supporters

also pointed out that the u.S. nuclear weapons menu was now both larger

and more varied than in 1950. The president had made this point indirectly in his State of the Union address. To some critics, this argument

seemed pure self-deception. "We can no more 'choose' places at which

to retaliate effectively than we could in 1950," declared Millis, "when we

had the bombs but when we discovered that the only effective retaliation open to us was with infantrymen and tankers." General Alfred M.

Gruenther, Ridgway's successor as Supreme Allied Commander in

Europe, noted that it was not at all certain that the introduction of

nuclear weapons would reduce the need for conventional ground

forces; more likely, the need would increase. Millis argued that to make

nuclear weapons a tool of what might be called "strategic" warfare might

well gain victory, but "only at the cost of a universality of destruction

and death which must defeat any rational reason for resorting to military

means to begin with." Finally, Baldwin registered the point so often overlooked: since the Soviets also possessed nuclear weapons this was a

game that two could play. 35

For every sophisticated critic like Baldwin or Millis there were apparently a dozen who saw nothing in Dulles's 12 January speech beyond

the phrase "massive retaliatory power." Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel prizewinning nuclear physicist, criticized the administration for adopting the

threat of atomic war "as its policy for policing the world." America's new

commitment to air-atomic power and reduced ground forces, charged Rep.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., could well become Russia's "secret weapon."36

On 2 February Wilson tried to counter what looked like a growing

public obsession with the issue of massive retaliation. Asked to define the

role of nuclear weapons under the new defense policy, he replied that it

was to "use all kinds of new weapons" if war came; he added a plaintive

wish that "we could quit rattling the atom bomb," especially since the

Soviets had been careful to play down such talk. 37
222 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

These efforts at damage limitation were dutifully reported by the

media, but Wilson's effusions got more attention than a plea the president had made for sobriety. Dulles, unfortunately, was away in Berlin

attending the Four-Power Conference, and thus not on hand to mend his

own fences. The whole effort was swamped by the daily menu of news

that tended to keep the massive retaliation issue in the forefront of

public attention-the worsening situation in Indochina, new Soviet

weapons, the ongoing reduction and reshaping of the Army, proposed

atomic information-sharing with the British, and a series of vivid feature

articles on the Strategic Air Command.

Even more important, the Soviet response to Dulles's 12 January

speech made clear that massive retaliation was a two-way street. An

article in Izvestia, as reported by the alarmist Alsop brothers at the end

of January, drove home the point with chilling force, describing in detail

the various ways in which the "destructive forces of modern weapons

will descend with all their power" on Western Europe and the American

continent, and mocking Dulles's evident assumption that America alone

possessed the technical means of implementing an intercontinental

strategy. Especially disturbing were hints in an article by an East German

military commentator that the Soviets could now launch nuclear-tipped

missiles from submarines in the Atlantic and had developed a "twin" rocket

with trans-Atlantic range. 38

In a second article two weeks later, on 15 February, the Alsops described two new heavy Soviet bomber equivalents of the B-36 and the B-52,

reportedly already in production, capable of round-trip nuclear attacks

on the United States. The new bombers were already in squadron formations, asserted the article, while the U.S. Strategic Air Command would

get nothing comparable for many months. "It is plain dishonest," they

concluded, "for the Pentagon to go on smugly boasting about American

air-atomic striking power, without at least uttering a warning word or

two now and then about Soviet air-atomic striking power." The information about Soviet heavy bombers purveyed by the Alsops may have

been planted Soviet propaganda, but it served to fan the flames of

debate over the New Look. On the same day that the Alsops' article

appeared, Sen. Stuart Symington made a blistering attack on Wilson in

the Senate based on the same information and warned of the dire consequences of underestimating Soviet ability to produce long-range bombers. 39

If massive retaliation was, or soon would be, a two-way street, the

headlines from Indochina reminded daily that it also was an unusable

weapon for a distant colonial war. Early in February the administration's

decision, at the request of the hard-pressed French, to send some Air Force
The New Look Takes Form 223

technicians to Indochina raised fears among leading Senate Democrats

that the move would lead to deepening U.S. involvement in a land war

in Asia. 40 Peppered by questions at his news conference on 10 February,

the president avowed his passionate determination to avoid any such involvement but refused to "try to predict the drift of world events.,,41 One

columnist subsequently reported that senators were asking how the

problem could be dealt with by a strategy that placed more reliance on

deterrence and less dependence on local defenses. 42

As a test of the administration's new strategy, the deepening Indochina crisis brought to a head the debate triggered by Dulles's "massive

retaliation" speech. Under Secretary of State Walter B. Smith and Admiral

Radford appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in closed

session on 16 February to explain how the new strategy might apply to

Indochina and what role Congress would play. They encountered a

barrage of questions to which they could not supply instant answers. 43 If

the Chinese intervened in force, would instant massive retaliation then

be invoked against China's coastal cities? Would such a decision be first

cleared with Congress? Would the allies be consulted? Or, even without

Chinese intervention, what if it developed that American combat forces

would be needed to avert a French defeat, despite recent official assurances that such action was not contemplated? Would Congress be

presented with a fait accompli? In both houses, the Democratic leadership made plans to exploit the whole issue of the New Look in committee

hearings and floor debates. 44

A Party Line Takes Shape

Partisan criticism of the New Look reached a climax on 6 March with

a speech by Adlai Stevenson broadly attacking the administration. Witty

and elegant, his analysis of the new strategy seemed also blatantly political and not particularly penetrating. The former Democratic presidential

nominee remarked on the irony that the administration, after cutting

back and then only partially restoring the buildup of airpower, was now

"acting as if air-atomic power were a completely satisfactory substitute

for reduced military and naval power.,,45 The administration mobilized

its heavy artillery to reply. Speaking separately on 10 March, Wilson,

Radford, and Navy Secretary Robert B. Anderson (just nominated to

succeed Roger Kyes as Wilson's deputy) rebutted Stevenson's principal

charge, that the new strategy as expounded by Dulles in January constituted

an invitation to general war and a weak tool for dealing with lesser
224 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

crises. In the process they significantly diluted the emphasis on massive

retaliation that had aroused such alarm. Wilson explained to reporters

that there was no predetermined policy on the kind or level of retaliation that would be visited upon an aggressor in any given situation.46

Radford's explanation of the New Look was the most methodical and

comprehensive, enlarging considerably the narrow focus on massive

retaliation conveyed in Dulles's 12 January speech. At the end of it he

addressed the misunderstandings that had emerged in recent public discussion. "It is not correct to say that we are relying exclusively on one

weapon, or one service, or that we are anticipating one kind of war. I

believe that this Nation could be a prisoner of its own military posture if

it had no capability, other than one to deliver a massive atomic attack ....

It certainly should be evident from the forces we intend to maintain that

we are not relying solely upon air power." These forces, he reminded his

audience, would include a million-man Army and the most powerful Navy

in the world; never before in its history had the United States attempted

to maintain so strong a military posture indefinitely during peacetime.

In effect, said Radford, the new strategy served notice on the Communists that if they struck at one point the United States might, but not

necessarily would, strike back at another; the idea was, as Wilson had said,

to keep them guessing. 47 In a news conference on 12 March Radford

stated unequivocally that the first response to limited aggression

anywhere would be by whatever allied forces were immediately involved.

If the situation got out of control, the United States would consider

sending air and naval forces to the scene. In the last resort, nuclear

weapons might be used, "if it were to our military advantage to do so,"

but all available options would have to be examined.48

The president himself undertook to deal with the politically sensitive

issue of "instant" retaliation as it affected the constitutional prerogative of

Congress to declare war. Stevenson had earlier attacked Dulles's reference

to this capability as implying that the American response to, say, a Communist try at another Korea would be to "retaliate by dropping atom

bombs on Moscow or Peiping or wherever we choose." Democratic Sen.

John C. Stennis (Miss.) had promptly followed up by expressing fears

that this outcome might even be brought about by the killing of one

American technician in Indochina. On 10 March the president gave a

firm, eVidently prepared response, significantly not limited to the hypothetical situation Stennis had posited: "I will say ... there is going to be

no involvement of America in war unless it is a result of the constitutional process that is placed upon the Congress to declare it. Now let us

have that clear.',49
The New Look Takes Form 225

Almost immediately it became apparent that the president had overreached himself. In his anxiety to allay fears that he might act recklessly

and in defiance of the Constitution, he had now committed himself,

some thought, to inaction in an emergency until Congress declared a

state of war, regardless of the severity of the crisis and even if Congress

were not in session. How could the United States be counted on to

retaliate instantly in any situation in the light of the president's new

commitment? It was recalled that President Truman, in the Korean

emergency of 1950, had justified ordering the armed forces into action

under his implied authority as commander in chief. Allied officials,

ironically, were beset by twin fears: would the president precipitate

American retaliation in a crisis that might have been resolved without

a massive response, or would he wait for a congressional declaration

of war before unleashing SAC. 50 Canadian Foreign Minister Lester B.

Pearson stated that Dulles's 12 January speech had clearly implied

collective consultation and collective action by the free community, not

response by just one nation. 51

Dulles provided a lawyer's answer to some of these questions in a

news conference on 16 March, his first in two months. Under the Constitution, he said, the president had full power to order immediate

retaliation for any direct attack on the United States, but use of American bases in foreign countries such as Great Britain and Morocco would

require the consent of the host governments; consultation with allies

was thus implicit in any such situation. As for the president'S basic

authority to order retaliatory action, Dulles pointed out that Senate

approval of both the North Atlantic and the Rio de Janeiro treaties meant

that he had the authority to act, without consulting Congress, in response

to an attack on either the United States or its treaty allies. An attack on

the United States when Congress was in recess would call for immediate

response, and the president's remark about "constitutional process" at his

10 March news conference did not imply that he would necessarily wait

to call Congress back into session before taking action. The hypothesis of

Chinese intervention in Indochina was a different matter altogether, since

the latter, despite its relationship to France, was not allied to the United

States. In general, in some instances the president had clear legal authority to act without consulting Congress and in others he did not. In

between, Dulles admitted, was a twilight zone in which precedents were

unclear and the lawyers had no precise answers. 52

At his own news conference the next day (17 March) the president

expanded on his obligation under the Constitution to act promptly to

protect the nation in the event of a large-scale surprise attack. Any
226 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

president who failed so to act, he said, "should be worse than impeached,

he should be hanged." On the other hand, the exclusive authority of

Congress under the Constitution to declare war, as opposed to taking

emergency action, was not in dispute, and when time permitted, he

implied, Congress should be consulted on the important decisions leading to involvement in a major conflict. "After all, you can't carryon a

war without Congress."53

Dulles's Second Thoughts

In the press, the week following brought a flood of sober, generally

sympathetic editorials and analytical pieces on the New Look that

played down the massive retaliation theme. 54 Their most important source

was Dulles, who now took center stage to confound his critics principally through a short article written over his name in the April issue

of Foreign Affairs.* The article hewed rather closely to the 12 January

speech, using much of the same phraseology; somewhat longer, it was

less a revision than a straightforward elaboration of it. It abandoned the

notion of a single "basic" decision to rely on great retaliatory capacity in

deterring Communist aggression and portrayed the deterrent strategy as

one that the United States had hammered out pragmatically under the

Eisenhower administration and hoped to concert with its allies and other

free nations. In net effect, it softened the earlier emphasis on massive

retaliation and corrected the implication that such action would henceforth be the predetermined, or even the preferred, response to all

Communist aggressions, great and small.

The central question, Dulles again asserted, was how to organize collective security for the free world so as to provide maximum protection

at minimum cost. The simple answer was to deter aggression, not merely

prepare for attack, by ensuring that a potential aggressor "be left in no

doubt that he would be certain to suffer damage outweighing any possible

gains from aggression." Against the immense manpower of the SovietChinese bloc the free world must devise a strategy based on exploiting

its "special assets," including "air and naval power and atomic weapons

which are now available in a wide range, suitable not only for strategic

bombing but also for extensive tactical use."55

* The Foreign Affairs article, "Policy for Security and Peace," was drafted by Robert R.

Bowie, head of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, and was released by the State

Department under the same title, as Press Release No. 139, 16 Mar 54. For a somewhat

different reading of the article from that suggested here, see Samuel F. Wells, Jr., "The Origins

of Massive Retaliation," Political Science Quarterly (Spring 81), 31-52.
The New Look Takes Form 227

Much of the article centered on refuting the charge that the exploitation of "special assets" would result in "turning every local war into a

world war." Effective deterrence, Dulles asserted, depended on having

the "flexibility and the facilities which make various responses available." Some areas, most notably Western Europe, were so valuable that

they must be defended at any cost. Even in less vital areas, a local

capacity for defense was essential, not only to deal with subversion

and minor aggressions, but also to demonstrate credibly a determination

to resist. Nuclear bombs would not "necessarily" rain on the great industrial centers of China or Russia in retaliation for a Communist attack

"somewhere in Asia." The essential aim was that aggression of any kind

be perceived by the enemy as "too risky and too expensive to be

tempting.,,56

Taken out of context, the "not necessarily" attached to the bombing

of enemy industrial centers could have left the impression that massive

retaliation for minor aggressions was still more than a remote pOSSibility.

But the numerous administration protestations to the contrary, together

with the heavy emphasis placed on local self-defense as the initial and

main response to aggression, helped downplay the massive retaliation

threat that had come through so ominously in the 12 January speech.

The president himself sought to add the clincher in his earlier news

conference on 17 March. Replying to the inevitable query about bombing

Moscow and Peiping, he observed that any suggestion that such a response

would be justified merely by a small attack somewhere "on the fringe

or periphery of our interests ... 1 wouldn't hold with for a moment."

Secretary Dulles, he said, had meant only that it was useful to have a

capability "of doing certain things" to deter aggression. 57

The New Look Demystified

Not content merely to neutralize the massive retaliation issue, the

president sought also to "de-mystify" the New Look itself. This, indeed,

had been an undercurrent in Radford's remarks for some time, including

even the statement that the current strategy was a logical response to

trends already evident when the administration came to Washington

and would have been adopted "no matter what administration was in

power."58 At his news conference on 17 March Eisenhower spoke of the

use of the term New Look: "I just don't like this expression because it

doesn't mean much to me .... This 'new look' ... is just our effort to

solve in one field, that of the direct military attack, to produce the
228 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

best results we can for the protection of America."59 This would seem to

leave little to argue about-perhaps the state of affairs the president

hoped to bring about.

The barrage of official reassurances on the implications of massive

retaliation and the president's deflation of the mystique of radical newness that the public had come to attribute to the administration's defense

strategy eVidently had the desired effect. Media response was predominantly favorable and the New Look gradually, if temporarily, receded from

the headlines. Looking back over the whole brouhaha triggered by

Dulles's now famous speech, Walter Lippmann wryly noted that there

had been no official reluctance to explain, but an evident inability to

clarify, the complexities of the issue. What had been said since 12 January

by Dulles and the Joint Chiefs made it clear that "there has been no

radical change in our strategic policy." Confusion and controversy could

have been avoided if the new developments to which strategy must be

responsive "had been described soberly without playing to the gallery

and without trying to smooth down the ruffled feathers of the isolationists."* The Dulles speech, Lippmann wrote, amounted to an announcement that the United States would never repeat the Korean experience,

accompanied by dire threats of what might happen to any aggressor

who attempted to exploit this determination. Dulles's verbal violence had

succeeded only in frightening America's allies, probably without impressing the Soviet Union.60

The administration's success in deflating the public image of the New

Look strategy in the aftermath of Dulles's 12 January speech temporarily

relieved the strains on bipartisan harmony and public receptivity. While

friends at home and abroad might now take comfort in official assurances that the United States had many strings to its bow and would not

recklessly unleash a nuclear holocaust, Communist leaders, hearing the

same assurances, presumably were equally comforted. U.S. responses to

future Communist aggressions might well be prompt, flexible, and not

wholly predictable, but official spokesmen had made it clear that the

present intention was, in general, to make the punishment fit the crime.

As Walter Millis put it,recognizing that Dulles's primary message might

have been addressed to the Kremlin, "one could not help wondering a

little at the diplomatic efficacy of a declaration for foreign consumption

which almost immediately has to be explained away for the domestic

market."61 In the long run, however, Dulles had the last word. In the

* Lippmann cited the British White Paper of 19 February, describing Britain's program for

building a strategic nuclear deterrent complementary to the American, as an example

shoWing that new developments affecting strategy could be stated soberly.
The New Look Takes Form 229

popular mind, if not in the studies of specialists, massive retaliation

was to become virtually synonymous with the New Look, certainly its

centerpiece.

For the short run, the prospects of effective deterrence of limited

aggression based on the threat of massive retaliation had probably been

undermined if not dissipated. The cost of deflating the massive retaliation

threat was difficult to assess, particularly since its credibility, given the

Soviet Union's possession of a formidable and growing atomic power

of its own, was already limited for provocations less serious than, say, a

renewal of large-scale hostilities in Korea. The deflation of the threat in

March reduced its credibility still further, and in April and May the

president's decisions not to risk the escalation that might have resulted

from mounting a rescue operation for the beleaguered French garrison

at Dien Bien Phu in Indochina provided Communist leaders an additional, more concrete indication of what they might in the future regard

as a safe level of aggression.

With the official deflation of massive retaliation virtually to a singlescenario role, that of deterring an all-out attack on the continental

United States, the New Look by mid-March had acquired a new focus.

The administration seemed to be telling the public that the new strategy,

apart from this one paramount but somewhat remote contingency, was

really a long-haul, cold-war doctrine designed to deter and, if necessary,

wage limited and brush-fire wars, mainly with conventional weapons and

capabilities. Most editorialists and commentators stressed what the New

Look was not, reassuring their readers that massive retaliation almost

certainly would not be resorted to in any crisis less serious than the

ultimate one, even though the option to do so would be kept open for

talking purposes.

Walter Millis bluntly discounted the "basic policy decision ... to

depend primarily on a great capacity to retaliate instantly." The basic

premise of the New Look planners, he thought, was that "once the Korean

truce had been signed, there would be very little danger of any more

shooting war" for the foreseeable future. Hence the decision to plan for

the "long pull" rather than for a "crisis year." This made it feasible and not

too risky to yield to the demands of the powerful advocates of fiscal orthodoxy for radical reductions in defense spending.

In Millis's view, the New Look did not rely, even "primarily," on

"instant massive retaliation." D~ring the next few years the principal

reliance would obviously be on large conventional forces. The New Look

would not provide "more defense for less money." Economy measures

involved real sacrifices of combat power, while the increases in airpower
230 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

would bring commensurately higher costs. Nor would the reductions in

combat strength be offset, despite official affirmations, by "new weapons"

and "improved mobility." The former, except for strategic nuclear bombs,

were still "pretty much an unknown quantity," while little was being done

to improve mobility.

Yet, despite this disparaging analysis, Millis assessed the New Look

as, on balance, "a quite sound and self-consistent response to the actual

conditions it has been designed to meet."

Of the structure as it stands, one may say that it will probably

be proportionately more efficient (largely because of technical

advances), on its reduced base, than any military structure designed in the Truman years could have been; that, even counting

in Allied resources, it still is probably quite inadequate to meet

the shock of all-out war tomorrow; that it is probably sufficient,

on the other hand, to reduce the danger of such a war to nearly

negligible proportions, and that its conventional forces, though

reduced, are reasonably adequate, in all likelihood, to take care

of any "brush fire" wars likely now to develop.

"And what more than that," he asked, "do the national interest and safety

really demand?,,62
CHAPTER XI

Congress and the New Look: FY 1955

When the House Appropriations Committee opened hearings on the

FY 1955 budget at the beginning of February 1954, the promotion of

the New Look was part and parcel of the exposition of the proposed

DoD budget. There existed, of course, a broad division of labor between

the principal civilian spokesmen, who tended to focus on dollars and

other budget numbers, and the military chiefs and their aides, who were

cast as experts on strategy, weapons, military manpower, and force

structure. The line was often crossed in both directions, but the primary

focus of discussion in the hearing rooms remained on the budget, which

most legislators construed broadly to cover the whole field of Defense

administration. With a few exceptions, senators and representatives

showed little interest in the New Look as a political-military strategy or

as a body of strategic doctrine and did not question its official rationale.

As one uncharitable but perceptive critic described the prevailing

attitude: "Most members of the Congress received the New Look sympathetically. Few did so thoughtfully . . .. The question of what .actually

might be the military and political effects of the New Look stirred only

a ripple of curiosity within Congress and within the defense appropriations subcommittees."!

First New Look Budget· Presidential Preview

The president set the stage and the official tone for the hearings in

his budget message to Congress on 21 January. The document breathed

confidence, stressing that this was the administration's first budget for

which, unlike the revised FY 1954, it could claim full responsibility. The

231
232 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

president spoke forthrightly to the public demand for government

economy and lower taxes, flogging Truman's wartime spending and the

proposed budget for FY 1954 his predecessor had left behind. Actual

spending for the current fiscal year, he declared, would be about $7 billion less than the Truman administration had proposed, and the FY 1955

budget would reduce spending by a further $5 billion. Appropriation

requests also had been held below the level of estimated revenues, thus

reducing the huge accumulation of unfinanced obligations incurred from

past appropriations. Despite major revenue losses through tax reductions,

lowered spending would bring the new budget closer to a balance, with

an estimated deficit of only $2.9 billion. This was about one-fifth of the

deficit projected by Truman for FY 1955, and $7 billion less than Truman

had projected for FY 1954. Finally, $2.9 billion was only a long-range

estimate; there was every expectation that it would be further reduced in

the course of the year. 2

National security programs (including atomic energy, military assistance, and stockpiling) accounted for $44.86 billion (68 percent) of the

total expenditures and $34.86 billion (62 percent) of the total new

obligational authority requested in the proposed budget. 3 The DoD

budget still dwarfed the other three programs, although spending for

TABLE 5

National Security Budgets, 1950-55

($ million)

Estimate Estimate

Expenditures 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955

DoD 11,892 19,765 38,898 43,610 41,550 37,575

Mutual Military 130 991 2,442 3,954 4,200 4,275

Atomic Energy 550 897 1,670 1,791 2,200 2,425

Stockpiling 438 654 837 919 770 585 --- --- --- ---

Total 13,010 22,307 43,847 50,274 48,720 44,860

New Oblig. Auth.

DoD 14,370 47,719 60,382 48,776 34,495 30,993

Mutual Military 1,359 5,222 5,291 4,236 3,800 2,500

Atomic Energy 794 1,919 1,266 4,079 1,043 1,366

Stockpiling 425 2,910 579 134 0 0 --- --- --- ---

Total 16,948 57,770 67,518 57,225 39,338 34,859

Source: Annual Budget Message to Congress: FY 1955, 21 Jan 54, Eisenhower

Public Papers, 1954, 120-21.
FY 1955 233

both military assistance and atomic energy was slated to increase in FY

1955. This continued the rising trend since the inception of these programs, accounting for 9.5 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively, of national

security expenditures. Only the stockpiling program was reduced.

The new DoD budget accounted for 84 percent of the estimated

national security expenditures in FY 1955, and 89 percent of the requested new obligational authority. The military departments had, of

course, asked for much more. Their requests for new obligational authority added up to $35.1 billion-$1O.076 billion for the Army, $11.516 billion

for the Navy, $13.515 for the Air Force. McNeil's staff had shaved more

than $4 billion off these amounts. As scheduled, the reduced budget had

gone to BoB on 19 December. 4

In his budget message the president pointed out that the projected

$37.6 billion of expenditures for DoD was $4 billion less than those now

estimated for FY 1954, which in turn were $2.1 billion less than actual

spending in FY 1953-belying the prediction of the previous administration that FY 1954 spending would continue the rising wartime curve.

These welcome developments, he said, resulted in large part from the

administration's achievement in ending hostilities in Korea and the heavy

costs associated with them. The process of shrinking the war-inflated

military establishment from its peak uniformed strength of 3.7 million in

the spring of 1952, putting it on a peacetime footing, and restructuring it

for the years of uneasy peace ahead was now well under way, substantively as well as rhetorically. Regrettably, the level of spending in

FY 1955, as in FY 1954, would remain higher than new appropriations,

because of the still large backlog of unexpended dollars remaining from

earlier appropriations, mostly obligated for long lead-time procurement,

but this imbalance would soon be rectified as war programs were phased

out or ran their course and current expenses were reduced. 5

Administration spokesmen insisted that reduced spending involved

no reduction, but rather a real increase, in military strength. The new DoD

budget, declared the president, "points toward the creation, maintenance

and full exploitation of modern airpower," on which would be lavished

more generous outlays than in any year since World War n. During the

next three years the current active inventory of 33,000 aircraft (one-third

jet-powered) of the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps would increase to

more than 40,000, more than half jet-powered. By mid-1957 the Air Force

would have 137 wings; naval airpower would comprise 16 carrier groups

and 15 antisubmarine squadrons; Marine airpower would remain at

its current level of three wings. At the same time the defenses of the U.S.

continent were being expanded, with record expenditures, to counter the
234 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

threat of growing Soviet air-atomic capabilities, and civil defense was

being strengthened to help provide earlier warning of impending attack

and more effective evacuation and dispersal planning for major cities. 6

Complementing this emphasis on airpower, the budget provided for

strong naval, amphibious, and ground forces. The message tried hard to

sugarcoat the December ground force cutbacks: In all forces, combat

effectiveness would be enhanced and reduced numbers compensated for

by modernization-applying new weapons, tools, and techniques to old

military tasks. Since this emphasis had already been built into earlier

budgets, it was not dramatically reflected in the new one. Even so, estimated expenditures for aircraft procurement in FY 1955 were only slightly

less than in 1954 and accounted for 22 percent of the entire DoD budget,

compared to less than 13 percent in 1952. Across the board, major procurement expenditures were estimated at about 15 percent below 1954

levels, while research and development funding was only slightly reduced. 7

The president stepped carefully around the prickly issue of manpower

cutbacks. "After 3 years of hostilities," he said, "we are now in the first

year of an armed peace." With the new emphasis on airpower and

modern weapons, it had become possible to "support strong national

security programs over an indefinite period with less of a drain on our

manpower, material, and financial resources." He recalled the massive

mobilization of manpower for the Korean War, from a strength of 1.5

million at the outbreak to a peak of 3.7 million two years later. Even now,

six months into the truce period, total strength still exceeded 3.4 million.

He planned to bring this down to 3.3 million by the end of June, and to a

little over 3 million a year later, averaging 3.2 million during the budget

year. The reduction would be paralleled by withdrawal of substantial

forces from abroad, starting with the two Army divisions recently scheduled for early return from Korea, but without impairing capacity to oppose

any renewal of Communist aggression. Republic of Korea forces would

also be supported at a "high level of effectiveness." On the planned reduction in Army divisions, the president waffled: The number "may be less"

than currently, but "increased mobility and ... modern weapons" would

give each division "increasingly greater striking power." He noted the

increase in antiaircraft battalions for the expanding continental defense

and the handsome budgetary payoff in FY 1955 from personnel cutbacks-almost $600 million less in direct military personnel costs than in

FY 1954. Reduced personnel strength would also bring reductions in

operation and maintenance costs. 8
FY 1955 235

Presentation: Briefing the Committees

With Republican majorities in both houses, the proposed DoD budget did not encounter serious criticism in the hearings, which for the

most part turned out to be little more contentious than free-form briefing

sessions. The opposition was now split between champions of the Army

and the Air Force. An aggrieved band of partisans charged that the Army

had been singled out to bear the brunt of irresponsible budgetary economies because, as the manpower-intensive service, it was most vulnerable to

quick dollar-saving personnel reductions. The airpower partisans, ascendant during the FY 1954 budget debate, were now a spent force, reduced

to a hard-core minority through defection of moderates who had been

seduced by the continued preferred status of airpower in the post-Korea

hierarchy. Senator Symington, airpower's chief and almost only effective

congressional spokesman, served on the Armed Services Committee but

not the Appropriations Committee. Barred from the budget hearings, he

could only attack occasionally from the Senate floor. Among government

witnesses, with General Vandenberg's voice now stilled, the airpower

spokesmen were all firm administration supporters. The opposition's

center of gravity had shifted to the Army partisans. Vandenberg's ostensible successor as dissenter in the FY 1955 budget debate, General

Ridgway, the Army chief of staff, commanded wide respect and was an

authentic military hero, but he could not quite match Vandenberg's singleminded and passionate commitment. to the cause he championed, nor,

of course, could he attract the kind of sympathy that flowed naturally to

a dying man pleading that cause.

Personalities aside, the FY 1955 budget debate lacked the pyrotechnics of its predecessor, and its outcome was even more predictable,

because both the administration and Congress had correctly sensed the

popular mood-the usual craving after an unpopular war for a return to

peacetime pursuits, lower taxes, lower tensions, and lower government

spending-all, of course, without endangering national security.

Secretary Wilson led off the formal presentations in both houses. For

backup he relied mainly on McNeil, again the principal architect and

repository of budget "numbers" and procedures, and Assistant Secretary

for Manpower John Hannah. Admiral Radford again spoke as chief

expositor of the New Look's military aspects. These four carried the main

burden of the budget presentation. For interrogation by the separate

service subcommittees, each military department fielded a similar,

somewhat larger, team headed by the secretary and military chief.
236 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Like its predecessor, this new budget reflected a preponderance

of expenditures over new appropriations, reversing the proportions of

the budgets during the Korean War buildup. The requested total of almost

$31 billion of new obligational authority, about 10 percent less than

provided the year before, included $1.1 billion for new military construction, mostly Air Force bases, to be submitted later. The Army's budget

had taken by far the deepest cuts; its $8.2 billion of requested new obligational authority fell $4.8 billion below the FY 1954 level, a 37 percent

reduction. The Air Force budget, $11.2 billion, showed only a slight

reduction; the Navy's $9.9 billion, a half-billion increase. Added to an

anticipated $51.6 billion unexpended carryover from prior-year appropriations ($10.5 billion less than a year earlier), the new budget would

make available $82.6 billion for expenditure in FY 1955 and (mostly) later.

FY 1955 expenditures were projected at a little under $37.6 billion, almost

$4 billion less than the amount estimated for FY 1954. Expected reductions in spending rates during FY 1955 were mostly in military personnel

costs, operations and maintenance, and procurement of vehicles, ammunition, and production equipment. 9

The end of hostilities in Korea had already permitted substantial

reductions in FY 1954 expenditures. Almost all of the $2.2 billion originally

provided for Korea in that year's budget was still unobligated and would

remain so, a circumstance taken into account in determining the need

for new money in FY 1955. The $2.2 billion of aggregate savings resulting from cessation of hostilities came from operation and maintenance

($1 billion), major procurement ($800 million), and military personnel

($400 million).lo

MILITARY PERSONNEL

The same three budget categories-military personnel, operation

and maintenance, and major procurement and production-accounted

for 87 percent ($27 billion) of the new obligational authority requested

for FY 1955. Of these, military personnel costs (pay, subsistence, clothing,

travel, etc.), even after the deep personnel cuts ordered in December 1953,

still remained the largest, although substantially reduced from FY 1954Y

As the largest service, the Army received the lion's share (almost 40 percent)

of the $10.7 billion requested for military personnel, even though, on a

per capita basis, soldiers came "cheaper" than sailors or airmen, whose

costs reflected the more expensive skills and hardware of the "high tech"

services. The military strength reductions underlying the new budget

contemplated a shrinkage of more than 8 percent (290,000) of the armed
FY 1955 237

forces during FY 1955, more than two-thirds during the last six months

of the year. But the reduction would be very unequally distributed

among the services, 79 percent of it falling on the Army alone, which

would lose 17 percent of its strength during the fiscal year. The NavyMarine Corps loss would be only 21 percent, while the Air Force would

gain 1.5 percent (15,000).12

The services underwent heavy pressure to carry out these reductions with the least possible impairment of combat strength-Le., by

eliminating primarily non-combat people and, within that category,

primarily those ambiguously labeled as "supporting." In practice this

proved difficult since most units included both combat and non-combat

personnel. The Army's projected three-division cut, for example, would

remove some 52,000 combat troops, only partly balanced by the support

personnel who would go with them. By November 1953, the four services

had marked 160,000 jobs for elimination, predominantly in non-combat

categories. Some 69,000 were eliminated, but the remaining 91,000 were

transferred to newly activated combat units or priority projects. In FY

1954, the Army lost only one of its three divisions slated to go, and the

Air Force activated nine new combat wings while reducing its total

strength. The net effect was a dramatic increase in combat strength during

that year, both absolute and relative, the increases in the Army and Air

Force swamping small declines in the other two services. In FY 1955,

the Army's loss of two more divisions would be offset by the creation of

more antiaircraft battalions for continental defense. The Air Force would

activate eight more combat wings and deactivate three non-combat ones

in an expanding force. The Navy's relative combat strength would continue to decline, but the Marine Corps would make good the losses of

the preceding year. Over the two-year span, the projections indicated a

gratifying achievement of the ,basic objective: an overall increase in relative combat strength from 54 to over 60 percent of total strength while

losing more than a half million people.

The Army's performance looked by far the most impressive. By the

end of FY 1955 its combat forces were expected to comprise almost 63

percent of its drastically reduced strength, 11 percent more than two

years earlier. The Marine Corps, too, projected a remarkable increase of

6,500 men in its fighting forces despite an overall reduction of 10,000.

The Air Force planned to increase its combat strength from less than 50

to 57 percent of its total by the end of FY 1955.

The services faced different manpower problems, of course, and dealt

with them in different ways. The Army's problems were especially daunting. Its dependence on two-year draftees to supply about two-thirds of
238 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

its total strength created a monumental turnover every other year beginning in 1951; the next one would occur in 1955, when the Army expected

to lose 620,000 trained men, almost half its enlisted strength, through

expiring terms of service. Since in this same year the Army would have

to reduce its strength by about 243,000, not all these losses would have

to be replaced, but the training load would be heavy enough, particularly under the continuing pressure to reduce the ratio of non-combat

personnel. Anticipating this condition, the Army had already instituted procedural changes. Numbers of recruits, after completing the first

eight weeks of basic training, were now being assigned to active units

to complete the remaining eight weeks, thus reducing the requirement

for training overhead. 13

The Air Force handled its manpower problems less impressively than

the Army, although they were less intractable. Nevertheless Wilson gave

the committees a glowing portrayal of that service's recent exploits in

manpower management, particularly the vigorous effort launched by

General Twining, Vandenberg's successor as chief of staff, to achieve

expansion goals under radically reduced personnel ceilings. In the Defensewide review of manning tables, for example, the Air Force had scored a

higher "kill rate" of unneeded positions than any of the other services. On

the other hand, the Air Force resisted admonitions to reduce its high ratio

(compared with other services) of overhead personnel to trainees. 14

As a "high tech" service, the Air Force found it especially difficult to

maintain the proper mix of technical and non-technical military skills,

the hasty wartime expansion having produced a combination of shortages in the former and surpluses in the latter. The postwar contraction

reduced the demand for both, but the emphasis on modernization

created higher requirements for technically skilled personnel while making it harder to find useful employment for the large numbers of

unskilled, low-skill, and hard-to-train people. Compounding the difficulty

were the four-year enlistees not due to leave until 1955 and 1956. All

this created a prospect of high peaks and deep valleys in personnel input over the next two years, and of violent fluctuations in training loads

and staffing needs, requiring both closing and reactivation of facilities.

To deal with this, the Air Force had instituted in 1953 an early-release

program to hasten clearing out surplus and unsuitable enlisted personnel.

About 67,000 airmen were being released in FY 1954. 15

These measures produced impressive statistics. From a military

strength of 980,000 in April 1953, the Air Force, Secretary Wilson reported,

without pressure from above had cut back by the end of December to

912,000. It now expected by the end of FY 1954 to produce not only the

110 wings OSD wanted but also 5 more; this meant adding 9 combat wings
FY 1955 239

to the 90 combat and 16 troop carrier wings in being in June 1953, all

under a military personnel ceiling of 955,000. Over the next three years

a corresponding acceleration was promised, still within modest manpower

limits. The contrast with earlier Air Force expectations was startling:

Early 1953 Estimates Revised Estimates

By end of

FY 1954

FY 1955

FY 1956

FY 1957

Wings

110

115

120

Mil Personnel

997,000

1,031,000

1,053,000

Wings

115

120

127

137

Mil Personnel

955,000

970,000

975,000

975,000

The 137-wing objective was the Air Force's revised version of the 143-wing

force approved during the Korean War. It comprised substantially the same

number of combat wings (126) with a reduced complement of troop

carrier wings (11).16

OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE (O&M)

For operation and maintenance, the "housekeeping" account, Defense

requested $9.064 billion in new money, $594 million less than in FY

1954. This net reduction combined a $500 million increase in the Air

Force budget and reductions of $1 billion in the Army and $76 mi1lion

in the Navy budgets. 17

Overall, the reduction reflected the shrinking of the armed forces,

the cessation of Korean hostilities, and, of course, the continuing effort

throughout DoD to economize and improve efficiency. Much of this effort,

Wilson readily conceded, grew out of studies and programs launched by

his predecessors; but unlike them, he artfully added, he was trying to

replace "protracted studies" by finding new ways to save. Wilson and

McNeil described in some detail the management and reduction of the

huge inventories of materiel built up during the war. Until 1953 the Navy

had been the only service with a financial property accounting system;

only in that year did the Army and the Air Force take the first steps to

maintain dollar figures on inventories and issues in their continental

U.S. depots. OSD aimed to extend the system as rapidly as possible in all

three services to overseas depots and to posts, camps, stations, and bases

worldwide. 18 At the same time, an establishment-wide drive, Operation

Cleansweep, had begun to purge military warehouses of unserviceable,

obsolete, and surplus material. I9

Wilson reported with especial pride his progress in reducing

Defense's civilian work force from 1,329,795 when the administration

took office to 1,179,438 eleven months later, an 11 percent reduction
240 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

carried out largely by attrition and at an estimated saving of more than a

half billion dollars. 20 McNeil reported another noteworthy achievementthe Navy's administration of the Military Sea Transport Service (MSTS)

under "industrial fund" management, which was "saving Uncle Sam about

$250 million a year over what it cost 3 years ago to handle the same volume of traffic." This system of management, which DoD was instituting

in many areas, sought to create a buyer-seller relationship between an

activity and its military "customers," and permitted coordination of

operating and fiscal responsibilities under a single management and

reduction of overlapping and duplication of services and facilities. 21

How much in the aggregate the Defense managers expected to save

by more efficient management in FY 1955 was a question that, curiously,

the economy-minded legislators of the 83d Congress did not ask, even

though such savings were supposed to be "credited" in the budget. Witnesses supplied numbers in great profusion bearing on the question, but

they added up to a collection of apples and oranges that defied aggregation into a total of management savings. 22 As noted earlier, the new money

requested for the O&M account showed a net reduction of $594 million

from the FY 1954 budget, attributable in part to savings from improved

management. No one on the House committee picked up on the point,

but inasmuch as the termination of Korean hostilities had freed about $1

billion in O&M money for deferred obligation in FY 1955, and the availability of this sum had been taken into account in determining the

new request, not $9 billion but at least $10 billion would be available

for O&M needs in FY 1955-more than had been provided in FY 1954. 23

In budget discussions during 1953 a round estimate of $1 billion

had often been mentioned as the probable size of management savings

to be expected from Wilson's economy effort. Even with the handsome

payoffs from the expanding stock funds, the aggregate savings DoD's top

managers were willing to claim were well under this figure. It is tempting to suspect that they were guided by the bureaucrat's ancient rule that

it is always prudent to promise less than one hopes to deliver, since it is

better to disappoint oneself than one's superior.

MAJOR PROCUREMENT

Major procurement and production was the third of the "top three"

FY 1955 DoD budget accounts, with an appropriation request of $7.3

billion. Unlike the Personnel and O&M accounts, which had held fairly

stable through the war years and FY 1954, it was 30 percent lower than

its FY 1954 predecessor, and little more than one-third the size of the
FY 1955 241

FY 1953 request. The reason for the precipitous drop was not so much

the expectation of diminished procurement activity in FY 1955, although

spending in that year was expected to be about $2.7 billion less than in

FY 1954, as the availability of large sums carried over from previous

years. Out of the $83 billion provided by Congress for major procurement during the four years 1951 through 1954, the department expected

to have at the beginning of the next fiscal year $36.3 billion still unspent,

including $6.6 billion still unobligated. With the new money requested,

the services would thus have $13.9 billion available for obligation and

$43.6 billion available to spend in FY 1955 and beyond. 24

None of the new major procurement money requested was intended

for the Army. By the end of FY 1954 it expected to have an unexpended

balance of $7.3 billion in its major procurement account, of which about

$4 billion would be available for obligation. Since the Army expected

to spend less than $2.1 billion for this purpose in FY 1955, the funds on

hand would suffice to meet its needs in that year and beyond, particularly with its basic equipment requirements largely filled and, in the absence

of a shooting war, ammunition and fuel expenditure at a low ebb. 25

Aircraft constituted by far the largest procurement item, with projected Air Force and Navy expenditures of $8.3 billion in FY 1955-about

the same as in FY 1954 and almost a billion more than in FY 1953. In

new obligational authority for aircraft, the Navy would receive $1.919

billion and the Air Force only $2.48 billion, more than a half billion less

than in FY 1954, reflecting the planned tapering off of new contracting.

Both services were making an effort to reduce production peaks and

smooth the flow of aircraft to combat units. New models would be held

back from production until fully proved; after going into production they

would be held at a low monthly rate for as long as 18 months while

being further tested. Under this plan the development and production

phases overlapped and kept factory output low to avoid the high costs

of erratic output and modification. Savings could run into hundreds of

millions of dollars. 26

For ships and harbor craft the president expected the Navy to spend

$990 million in FY 1955, slightly less than in FY 1954, and asked for

$1.15 billion in new money to help overcome block obsolescence of an

aging fleet built largely during World War II. For combat vehicles, only the

Marine Corps needed new money, $34 million. Both the Marines and the

Army had by now practically completed equipping their active forces with

combat vehicles and were stretching out production for mobilization reserves in order to keep production lines active for a longer time. Estimated

expenditures were $280 million, down from $700 million in FY 1954.
242 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Ammunition production had been sustained at high rates after the

end of Korean hostilities in order to build up mobilization reserves. The

plan was to maintain output at low rates in order to avoid shutting the

production lines down completely. The new money request of $513 million amounted to less than one-fifth of the FY 1954 provision; estimated

expenditures of $1.9 billion fell well below the $3.4 billion in FY 1954.

Guided missile procurement, a high priority under the New Look, was

ticketed for increased spending by all three services in FY 1955, $660

million as compared with $442 million in FY 1954, and $295 million in

FY 1953. With $1 billion remaining from the $2.5 billion provided for

missiles in FYs 1951-54, however, DoD requested only $401 million in new

funds, down from $748 million in FY 1954 and $896 million in FY 1953.

The budget request for electronics and communication equipment

was $419 million, slightly less than in FY 1954; expenditures were

estimated at $675 million, as compared with $863 million in FY 1954

and about $1 billion the preceding year. For military production equipment and facilities Congress had provided $6.2 billion over the past four

fiscal years, of which about $2.3 billion was expected to remain at the

end of the fiscal year. Expenditures in this category were estimated at

$932 million, down from $1.3 billion in FY 1954 and $1.7 billion

in FY 1953. 27

The Military Perspective

The military leaders had to speak also to issues-strategy, weapons,

missions, the threat, force composition-that went beyond budget numbers although obviously interacting with them. These issues came to

the fore as the Joint Chiefs appeared before congressional committees

in their chiefs of services capacity and received public attention.

"Pros in Pentagon Cool to New Look" blared a headline in the New

York Times about a week before the House hearings began in February

1954. The reservations of the professional military, according to the

article, concerned the administration's basic proposition: "that the United

States in the next three years can somehow buy more security for less

money and with fewer men under arms than in the recent past." General

Ridgway was the only officer mentioned by name, but chiefly to make

the point that he and the service he represented had decided to "live

with" the administration's decision "rather than carry its fight to Capitol

Hill as the Air Force did a year ago." In a recent speech, the article

reported, Ridgway had hinted at his misgivings but had also "made clear

his reluctance to challenge the new policy in public." Other officers,
FY 1955 243

unnamed, had expressed doubts about the effectiveness of untested

atomic weapons against troops in the field, about "bomb[ing] an

aggressor nation into submission" with nuclear weapons, and about

withdrawing major ground forces from the Far East. 28 The reader was left

to draw his own conclusions as to the service affiliation of the skeptics.

In the hearings, Ridgway sounded the only discordant note in the

military high command, but his dissent was tempered and selective. His

colleagues, in brief prepared statements, all voiced the undiluted official

line and under interrogation supported it undeviatingly. Admiral Radford,

firing the opening shot before a House committee, weighed his emphases

carefully, stressing two fundamentals: the long-haul, no-year-of-crisis concept, and the overriding importance of airpower. He simply listed other

features: an expanded continental defense, collective security and the

complementary role of allied forces, the three-year program of manpower reduction and force restructuring, a healthy economy, an adequate

mobilization base, and strengthened reserves. Evidently trying to offset

Dulles's excessive emphasis on massive strategic retaliation and deterrenceby-threat, Radford's treatment of atomic weapons was low-key, but he

was careful to point out that they were, "presently and prospectively," a

family of weapons available to all the services and thus, by implication,

usable at many levels of conflict. Similarly he stressed the need for

limited-war capabilities, as well as an ability to deliver "tremendous, vast

retaliatory and counteroffensive blows" in a global war. He also made

a point of correcting his December gaffe of decoupIing the FY 1955

budget from the New Look. The budget, he now declared, was based on

and constituted the first step in the implementation of the Joint Chiefs'

new three-year military program. 29

General Twining's presentation naturally portrayed the Air Force as

the centerpiece of the New Look. He prOVided full and vivid confirmation

of Dulles's generalized allusions to an overwhelming strategic retaliatory

power that was, he declared, "the principal deterrent to aggression." At

the same time, legislators haunted by visions of SAC bombers taking off

for Moscow or Peiping while Communist armies overwhelmed allied

defenses on the ground, may have been reassured by his description

of the diversified capabilities of "air-atomic power." Strategic air forces,

Twining said, would be able to take part in land-air battles, as they had

done in World War II and in Korea, and tactical air forces carrying atomic

weapons could attack strategic targets within their range.

On the air defense mission, both for the continental United States

and for bases abroad, Twining proved less reassuring. An attacker had an

inherent advantage, accentuated in air warfare, in being able to choose
244 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the time, place, and method of attack, and Soviet capabilities for longrange air attack were growing at an alarming rate. "One grand-scale atomic

blow by the Soviets on our industrial and population centers could be

decisive if allowed to be conducted without interference." The air defense

mission, therefore, was becoming more and more important and must

not be neglected, despite its high costs and inherent difficulties. Twining

gave the legislators a highly reassuring picture of an Air Force rapidly

approaching state-of-the art modernization, with the conversion to jet

fighters virtually complete, the introduction of supersonic models getting

under way, eight bomber wings already equipped with the medium B-47,

and the first operational B-52s scheduled for the following year.

The 137-wing program, said Twining, cautiously approaching that

dangerous subject, was "not simply a reduced version of our previous 143-

wing program. Its size and composition are based on the latest Air Force

views on air requirements, and reflect the concepts of our new national

strategy." The vast effort poured into the 143-wing program, he concluded, had served the important purpose of strengthening the u.S.

military position and evidencing capability for rapid development of our

airpower; this may have had an effect on Soviet actions in the cold war. 30

Twining had obvious reasons for embracing a national strategy that

ensured the dominant status of his own service for years to come. Equally

clearly, Admiral Carney's official attitude toward the New Look was

colored by the fact that he could envisage no such future for his service, although it did not fare badly in the proposed budget. Committee

members listening to his opening presentation on 10 February (the day

before Twining's testimony) may well have wondered whether he really

believed that the new strategy had much relevance to the Navy's mission.

He began with an earnest discourse on sea power, expounding the

Mahanian thesis that the United States must command the seas in order

to project its military strength overseas and act in concert with its allies.

The Navy, he asserted, was the chosen and essential instrument for

performing this mission.

Alluding to the New Look's major reductions in the personnel

strength and combat units of all the services except the Air Force, Carney

declared that the Navy understood and accepted the changes. He then

came to his main point: "The shift in emphasis within the military concept

has in no way altered the roles and missions of the services ....The Navy

continues to be responsible for maintaining control of the sea, and the

importance of that task continues undiminished, especially since the

Soviet Union manifests increasing interest in seapower. OUf ability to

project our armed strength overseas and to sustain and operate our
FY 1955 245

overseas bases depends entirely upon the ability of the Navy to do its

job." Carney then proceeded to a nuts-and-bolts exposition of the Navy's

program. In FY 1955 it would maintain its fighting forces with undiminished effectiveness while at the same time reducing the size of the active

fleet and supporting establishment. Antisubmarine and mine warfare

would continue to receive heavy emphasis, and continental defense would

get increased attention. Although some active fleet units would be inactivated, there would be no reduction in the effectiveness of the air ann,

Navy or Marine: The number of operating aircraft, 9,941, would remain

the same as in FY 1954. With the purchase of 1,450 aircraft, most to be

delivered during 1956, the Navy would reach 87 percent of its modernization goal in December 1956. For the active fleet the Navy planned to

construct a fourth Forrestal carrier, a third nuclear submarine, and 28

other vessels and modernize 17 more. 31 Later in the day, General Shepherd briefly described the Marine Corps' planned programs for FY 1955,

centering on the three-division force with associated air wings. 32

Carney appeared to have decided that the New Look was a strategy

he could live with. At this juncture, just before the dawn of the ballistic

missile era, the Navy had relatively few areas of serious friction with the

Army. As for the Air Force, its primacy in the service constellation ruled

out a revived "first line of defense" role for the Navy. All three services

would have to share that role, with the Army and Navy relegated to

junior-partner status. But if the Navy could not yet match the intercontinental nuclear-armed bomber in the armory of massive retaliation,

the attack carrier and the Marine Corps' amphibious and heavily armed

ground forces with built-in air support were instruments superior to

anything the Air Force possessed for projecting and using military power

around the world in the most probable scenarios of cold-war rivalry-and

in the long run this might prove to be a more useful and enduring role

than that of deterrence through the threat of massive retaliation. Under

the new budget, happily, New Look doctrine protected the Navy against

cutbacks in its air arm, prOVided for continued modernization of the fleet,

and kept overall strength reductions within tolerable limits.

Ridgway's misgivings over the probable impact of the new strategy

and proposed budget on the Army had hardened by the time the hearings began. Secretary Stevens, whose own misgivings, though real, were

neither so strong nor so deep, had made his peace with the new dispensation and supported it in the· hearings. Evidently respectful of each

other's views and disinclined to air their differences in public, they

managed to avoid a direct clash, Ridgway in particular being inhibited by

an apparently ingrained deference toward civilian superiors. His replies
246 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

to questions were guarded, and generally limited to factual information,

but he said enough to raise serious questions about the validity of the

assumptions on which the New Look rested. In his prepared statement

he asserted that the reduction of the Army's strength already under way

would weaken its capabilities, "while our responsibilities for meeting the

continuing enemy threat have yet to be correspondingly lessened."33

Under the new expenditure ceilings, Ridgway told the appropriations

committees in both houses, the Army had been forced to cut its procurement programs to the bone. Over the preceding two years, the policy

had been to keep production lines operating and reduce the rate of

accumulation of reserve stocks, with a view to improving materiel readiness while maintaining a rapidly expansible production base. Now,

however, "cutbacks and even cancellations of procurement contracts have

had to be ordered and many currently active production lines are being

placed in standby or will return to civilian production. This will narrow

the operating production base and thereby reduce its capability after

D-day. The Army will increase its materiel readiness at a much slower

rate than planned earlier."34

In addition to its multiple commitments around the world, the Army

had responsibility for maintenance of a mobilization base for general war,

operation of a network of military missions and military assistance groups

in 28 countries, and military intelligence and civil affairs/military government services. To meet these responsibilities, the Army would have,

as a result of the latest cutbacks, a strength of 1,172,000 at the end of

FY 1955, about a quarter-million down from a year earlier. Ridgway stressed how much of the Army's strength went to functions other than manning the nation's defenses. About one-quarter of the Army consisted of

trainees, instructors, transients, patients in hospitals, and doers of other

odd jobs required by law, and about one-fifth of the remainder performed

logistical and support functions. This would leave fewer than 700,000 of

the Army's end FY 1955 strength for combat units. Of the 1.4 million

on-hand strength forecast for 30 June 1954, expiring service terms would

remove about 707,000 during the ensuing 12 months; only about 463,000

replacements would be brought in. These figures made concrete Walter

Millis's assertion that "almost the whole working force has to be recruited

and trained and shipped anew every two years."35

Ridgway especially doubted the New Look tenet that "new weapons"

would prove a substitute for manpower. No skeptic regarding the power

of technological modernization to multiply and expand the capabilities

of his own service, as well as of the more technology-intensive Navy and

Air Force, he provided figures showing that the current infantry division,
FY 1955 247

with only 15 percent more personnel than its World War II predecessor,

"theoretically" could generate 84 percent greater firepower. The new

Nike antiaircraft battalions, with a strength of 481 men as compared

with 610 in the regular gun battalions, had demonstrated something like

a 5-to-l superiority over the latter in general effectiveness and perhaps as

much as a 10-to-l superiority in target kills. On the other hand, personnel

savings in units were probably offset by heavier requirements for maintenance and training personnel. 36 Ridgway warned that much of the new

lethal gadgetry being talked about, and too often assumed to be already

available, was operationally far down the road. Meanwhile the Army would

have to make do with the mixture of old and new weapons it now hadY

Ridgway also made the point that most of the "whole range of modern

weapons" the president was fond of alluding to would be of limited value

in many potential "brush fire" environments. The mountains and rice

paddies of Korea and Indochina, he reminded his audience, had proved

inhospitable to tanks and mechanized vehicles and demanded large concentrations of ground troops. Even in Europe, where American superiority

in strategic and tactical nuclear weapons was counted on most heavily,

the Soviets still held a strong card in their ability to overrun the continent and exploit its industrial potential-forcing the United States to

choose whether or not to devastate its allies' homelands in order to deny

the occupiers the use of their resources. Strong ground forces, as the

Korean War had conclusively demonstrated, remained indispensable. 38

Testimony during the hearings also tended to undermine the credibility of another supposed offset to numerical weakness-the anticipated

increase in mobility and flexibility. When Secretary Stevens suggested that

troops could be airlifted more quickly from the United States than from

places where they were currently tied down, Florida Rep. Robert Sikes

asked him whether that could be done more quickly in 1955 than in

1954. "With every year that goes by," Stevens replied, "we hope we will

have a greater capability of airlift." "How much greater?" Sikes queried.

Stevens confessed he could not say and looked to Ridgway for help. "I

would have to go into Air Force plans to consider that," said Ridgway.

Whereupon the colloquy went off the record, presumably to make the

point that (as Ridgway well knew) the Air Force's 137-wing program

called for a cutback of troop carrier wings from 17 to 11. At a hearing

later in the month, an Air Force spokesman claimed that there were

adequate aircraft to meet the Army's requirements. 39

In addition to enhancing the firepower and other capabilities of

the Army's shrunken standing force, the administration counted on supplementing it, at modest cost, from two sources: the large pool of veterans
248 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

still obligated for service and the potentially abundant manpower of

allied countries. Under a new approach still in the mill, the Army hoped to

induce obligated reservists to participate actively in the organized reserve

(they had no legal requirement to do so) by taking mobilization assignments with periodic stints of training in Reserve, National Guard, or active

Army units near their homes. The Army, together with the reorganized

reserve and the three-division Marine Corps, constituted an adequate standing force. In turn, testified Radford, they formed part of the "larger system

of collective Allied forces." Given the astronomical cost of maintaining

standing modern military forces indefinitely, no other course was economically feasible. "We cannot do it by ourselves, but by helping our allies

we can generate collectively sufficient strength.,,40

Ridgway tried to be fair in assessing how allied manpower and advanced weapons affected the ability of the Army, with dwindling strength,

to fulfill its responsibilities. He professed to be "very optimistic" that the

new reserve plan would work, but less so regarding the buildup of effective allied forces. The recent expansion and improvement of the ROK army

was encouraging, he thought, noting that 18 of the planned 20 divisions

were now combat-worthy. NATO forces had grown rapidly at first,

but their expansion had slowed markedly during the past year. He

was skeptical about the prospective addition of German forces to NATO.

As for the Japanese defense force, it was disappointingly small. In

general, he saw no security gain for the United States or the free world

in a wholesale withdrawal of the Army from its overseas stations,

which would tend to weaken the American commitment to defend its

own and its allies' interests abroad. 41

Understandably, Ridgway was proud of the Army and confident of its

prowess. "There is nothing as good that I know of in any other firstclass military organization anywhere in the world."42 Three fewer divisions,

however, would make a difference in the capacity to defend exposed but

vital positions, such as Japan. 43 Ridgway believed that a 20-division Army

came very close to being an irreducible requirement to fulfill the Army's

responsibilities under existing circumstances. The 17 divisions to which

he insisted the Army must reduce in FY 1955 to match its strength of

1,164,000 men at the end of that year represented a division slice only

slightly smaller than that of the existing 20-division force. Convinced that

the 20 divisions and supporting forces represented a substantially exact

calculation of what the Army needed now, he could concede, as Stevens did,

that it might somehow manage to make do with three divisions and a

quarter-million men less in FY 1955, but only if its responsibilities were

correspondingly reduced. 44
FY 1955 249

Rigid within his professional sphere of competence, Ridgway remained ambivalent outside it. A question that had tortured Stevenswhether the reduction of the Army represented a top-level decision to

gamble that its adequacy would not be put to the test-Ridgway simply

rejected as outside his competence, saying "the Army is not in the business of making foreign policy."45 His.strongest resistance to making a

forthright statement was on the bottom-line question-did he agree to

the reduction of the Army? During the Senate hearing, Sen. Burnet Maybank

of South Carolina unexpectedly asked Ridgway whether he was "perfectly

satisfied" with the budget allocation to the Army. Ridgway said he

"accepted" it:

Maybank: I did not ask you if you accept it. I can understand

that ... a career officer will accept orders from above .... But

you do not recommend that?

Ridgway: The time for recommendation is past, sir.

Maybank: I understand that, but did you recommend it to the

Joint Chiefs of Staff?

Ridgway: I believe, Mr. Chairman, that I would like to submit to

you the propriety of answering these particular questions in

executive session. 46

The following day Radford, who had been present during this

exchange, told the committee that the Joint Chiefs in December had

agreed "unanimously" to the whole military program. When Sen. Homer

Ferguson reminded him of Ridgway's recent comments, they were,

Radford said, "not exactly clear to me." Ferguson pressed him further:

Was the military program truly a joint product reflecting the views of all

the JCS, or was it presented to them on a take-it-or-Ieave-it basis? Radford

suggested that perhaps the disagreement Ridgway implied had been over

the question whether it was proper for the chiefs, as military advisers,

to examine the economic feasibility of the program rather than restrict

their study to the purely military aspects, and whether in following this

procedure the chiefs were acting voluntarily or under a directive. He,

Radford, believed the problem before the chiefs was historically unprecedented and required them to probe the question of economic feasibility.

"As military men, ... we must take economic factors into consideration,"

and it was his recollection that all his colleagues had agreed. "I did not

feel in this case that we were operating under a ceiling or directive." All

the chiefs had the privilege of dissenting. None did. 47
250 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

In effect, Radford seemed to be saying, Ridgway's insistence that he

had "accepted" the program without being fully satisfied with it at the

time, or being willing to "recommend" it to the Joint Chiefs, was a distinction without a difference. To Radford, the important point was that

the Army chief of staff had failed to exercise his prerogative of formally

dissenting. Most of the senators, whatever their public stance, probably

agreed with Radford. Radford's was the last word. Even though Ridgway

got the executive session he had asked for, by that time senatorial apathy

had set in. Neither Maybank nor any of his colleagues pressed further

the question of Ridgway's "acceptance" of the New Look. Radford, on

the other hand, received plaudits for his exposition. 48

The reduction of the Army's status and weight in the service hierarchy

touched Ridgway on a sensitive nerve-his profound belief in the central

role in warfare of the individual soldier and in the enduring primacy

of ground forces and land warfare in armed conflict. In his prepared

statements in both chambers, he devoted his entire conclusion, a carefully written, deliberately rhetorical peroration of two to three minutes'

duration, to an unabashed affirmation of his personal service bias. It

was an impressive performance, particularly since the other service chiefs

all adhered strictly to the conventions of pedestrian language and a

"team play" portrayal of interservice relations. Ridgway stressed the human

qualities of the individual soldier, which made him, he declared, the

ultimate key to victory. "No machine can replace the intangible qualities

of the human spirit nor the adaptability of the human mind."49

No spokesman for the Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps, or the

administration was likely to disagree publicly with such an assertion. But

in the context in which it was delivered, it obviously implied the superiority of the "manpower-intensive" Army over the "machine-intensive" Air

Force and Navy. Ridgway also took issue with the proposition that the

new technologies of airpower, and to a lesser extent sea power, had

raised those two services to a paramount role in modern warfare. New

weapons and the growing importance of airpower had, indeed, given

"new meaning" and "wider scope" to land warfare, but "without changing

war's nature and basic objectives." In deference to the interservice code,

he stopped there, refraining from claiming for the Army, as the service

rooted in the land, primacy in the effort to control the land. But in

later writings he would go further, asserting the Army's superior inherent

capabilities for achieving the objectives sought by the New Look. 50
FY 1955 251

Wrap-up

Even before the House committee got to work on the DoD budget

early in February, the Army had volunteered some $127 million of additional reductions; during the course of the hearings the services offered

another $183 million for a total of $310 million. To this was soon added

$355 million, the result of the committee's decision to relieve DoD of the

requirement to budget for goods and services it expected U.S. troops to

receive from foreign governments. Beyond these, the committee's further

cuts of $541 million from the president's original $29.99 billion brought

the total reduction to $1.2 billion and the finally recommended appropriation, on 26 April, to $28.7 billion in new obligational authority.

The Army's final total, $7.6 billion, was $5.3 billion less than in FY

1954. The committee's only contribution to this excision was a handful of

minuscule cuts adding up to $139 million (1.7 percent of the Army budget).

Otherwise, the total was a consequence of the absence of any new requirement for procurement funding or of expenses for ongoing hostilities,

both of which had been major budget items in FY 1954, and of the

preliminary reductions noted above. 51

By contrast, the Navy's request for $9.9 billion in new money represented an increase of almost a half billion dollars over FY 1954. The

committee's net cut of only $209 million in the Navy's request, spread

thinly over a hodge-podge of small appropriations, hardly scratched the

surface. 52 In the Navy's two big-ticket items-aircraft and shipbuildingthe new money requested amounted to only a fraction of the planned

spending in FY 1955 and beyond. For aircraft, the almost $2 billionrequested would be added to at least $6.2 billion of unexpended funds, to

finance production through December 1956. By that time the level of

modernization (the proportion of first-line aircraft to the total) would have

risen from its current 45 percent to 87 percent. 53 For shipbuilding and

conversion, the Navy expected to end FY 1954 with an unexpended

balance of $1.8 billion, mostly unliquidated obligations. For FY 1955 the

committee went along with the service's request for just over $1 billion

for shipbuilding. The Navy expected to have by the end of the year an

unexpended balance of $2 billion to help finance the later stages of its

expansion. 54 The Marine Corps, with four small appropriation requests

totaling $951 million, took a cut of about $24 million, most of it resulting

from discovery of errors in calculation or overstatements of costS. 55

The committee paid tribute to the recent spectacular reduction of

Air Force military manpower goals, and the dramatic actual drop in

strength from 977,600 on 30 June 1953 to 912,500 six months later.
252 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Strength levels were now rising again toward a planned total of 955,000

on 30 June 1954. During this banner fiscal year the Air Force expected

to activate 9 combat wings, 10 air transport squadrons, and several other

support units; increase the annual pilot training rate from 7,200 to 7,800;

expand the North American air defense net by activating 10 new sites and

re-equipping 19 old ones; increase support of NATO; establish 20 new

operating bases; and maintain its forces at combat-ready status. 56

The committee rewarded these achievements by making only a small

cut ($43 million) in the $3.4 billion request for Air Force military personnel. It also left untouched the big aircraft fund of $2.7 billion and was

forbearing in its treatment of the remainder of the Air Force budget. Its

entire reduction, including the preliminary excisions already noted,

amounted to only 3.4 percent of the original budget, leaving the Air Force

with a final total of $10.819 billion. 57

Following the gentle scrutiny and general acceptance of the administration's DoD budget by its appropriations committee, the House opened

floor debate on 28-29 April, with only flashes of parochial-interest oratory, 58 including a proposed but ruled-out-of-order amendment to increase

the daily milk ration in the armed forces, an idea enthusiastically supported by dairy-state delegations. Little criticism of the committee's report

emerged, and no amendments were offered. But Representative Sikes

denounced the deep cuts inflicted on the Army budget before it reached

the committee, and charged that they seriously weakened the service at

a time when the country faced growing threats from abroad. Minutes

before, Rep. George Mahon had raised the possibility of a "new look at

the New Look."59

In the Senate, the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, after hearing a few top DoD officials on 15-16 March, awaited conclusion of House

action on the budget. The most successful of several efforts6o during this

hiatus to focus the senatorial mind on the New Look was a speech by

Senator Symington who rose on 30 March "to protest certain aspects of

the so-called New Look," which, he complained, neither he, nor the public, nor many of his colleagues, fully understood. One of his aims, it

soon became apparent, was to inject the Armed Services Committee, of

which he was a member, into the upcoming debate on the New Look.

He believed that the Appropriations Committee, which handled most

questions of military strategy and policy at budget time, was preoccupied

with money almost to the exclusion of policy. He recalled the shameful

treatment given General Vandenberg, who during the FY 1954 budget

debate had "stressed to the Congress the importance of security as
FY 1955 253

against money," thereby incurring the wrath of the "new inexperienced

Pentagon civilian chiefs."61

Symington repeated the familiar charge that the $5 billion cut in the

original FY 1954 Air Force budget had dangerously slowed the buildup of

U.S. airpower by stretching out the 143-wing objective an additional two

years, disrupting its momentum by an interposed 120-wing program

fraudulently labeled as "interim," and finally reducing the end goal to 137

wings. He now introduced a new argument, challenging the administration's claim of heavy budgetary emphasis on airpower based on

comparative FY 1955 expenditure projections ($10 billion plus, each, for

the Army and Navy, against $16 billion plus for the Air Force). Almost all

of the $16 billion the Air Force expected to spend, he pointed out, was

money appropriated by the Democrats as far back as 1951 and represented delayed fulfillment of the Truman administration's programs. The

Eisenhower administration's program for building up airpower, on the

other hand, included a meager request for only $11.2 billion of new

money, little more than for the other two services and less than in FY

1954. Even allowing for some trimming down for a 137-wing force

and for recent advances in weaponry, "the gap between [$16 billion] and

the $11.2 figure in the budget request is far too great for anyone to feel

comfortable."62

The Senate committee soon had before it, along with the House

committee report and the House appropriations bill, Wilson's formal

reclama seeking restoration of $371 million of the cuts as well as some of

the rescissions from earlier appropriations. 63 In its report, submitted to

the Senate on 11 June, the committee proposed no substantial changes in

either the original budget or the House recommendations; it restored

less than half, $177 million, of the House's proposed cut and a few smaller

items. DoD officials, evidently pleased, gave assurance that the remaining reductions could be absorbed without damage to the defense effort.64

The full Senate took up the report on 15 June in an atmosphere dramatically different from that of the House floor debate six weeks earlier.

In Vietnam Dien Bien Phu had fallen on 7 May, French forces had begun

to withdraw into. the Mekong Delta, and two days later at the Geneva Conference France had proposed an armistice with the Communists in

Indochina. As the crisis deepened, Washington alarm increased. At his

news conference on 10 June the president talked worriedly about combating the worldwide resurgence of communism and the impossibility of

being strong everywhere while the enemy held the initiative. Still, he had

no plans to change the budget; "merely to go wage a battle somewhere is

perfectly useless, costly and useless."65
254 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The Senate floor debate on the budget began on 16 June. Before

Senator Ferguson, the Defense subcommittee chairman and administration

floor manager, could finish his preliminary review, a group of mostly

junior Democratic senators-Gore of Tennessee, Kennedy of Massachusetts, Monroney of Oklahoma, Lehman of New York, Mansfield of

Montana, Humphrey of Minnesota, and Douglas of Illinois-launched an

evidently coordinated attack. They used the argument of the radically

changed world situation, the weakening of American defenses, and the

administration's public misrepresentations. Humphrey best articulated

their position, pointing to the uncertainties of a world situation that was

changing day by day in both Europe and Asia. 66

Kennedy finally brought the debate into focus by introducing two

amendments intended to restore $350 million to enable the Army to keep

the two divisions scheduled for elimination. He listed six co-sponsors,

including Symington. The resulting debate on the amendments dominated the following day's (17 June) proceedings, but the vote was 50 to 38

against. 67 Although a clear administration victory, it was no walkover.

Later in the day, the Senate moved swiftly to pass the appropriation bill

as recommended by the committee. 68 In conference with the House, on

23 June the resulting compromise gave the Senate a little better than the

usual split-the-difference outcome. 69 Overall, the numbers seemed to add

up to an administration victory: a little over a billion lopped off a $29.9

billion budget, including voluntary and purely bookkeeping cuts of more

than half that amount. Even had the Kennedy amendments passed in the

Senate, the conference with the House would surely have drastically

reduced the amount finally restored to the Army. On 30 June the president signed the bill into law. 70

TABLE 6

The FY 1955 Defense Budget in Congress

($ million)

OSD & 1nterservice

Army

Navy/Marine Corps

Air Force

Total

President's Passed by Passed by

Budget House Senate

561.0 540.0 540.5

8,211.0 7,619.1 7,890.1

9,915.0 9,705.8 9,725.6

11,200.0 10,819.3 11,060.9

29,887.0 28,684.2 29,217.1

Passed by

Congress

540.3

7,619.1

9,712.8

10,927.9

28,800.1

Source: Table in Cong Rec, 83 Cong, 2 sess, 1954, 100, pt 12:15493.
FY 1955 255

The administration had won a victory, but so had Ridgway, whose

name had been repeatedly invoked during the debate. For prying from

Congress the relatively austere budget they had asked for, the administration and the DoD leadership could thank, at opposite ends of a wide

range of influences, the legislative skills of Senator Ferguson in successfully thwarting an opposition counterattack on his side of the Capitol,

and an inchoate craving among the general public for an end to threats

of war. Finely tuned ears on Capitol Hill were acutely sensitive to this

craving. They were equally sensitive, however, to persisting signs that the

public also loved a military hero, particularly one perceived to be a victim

of service and bureaucratic politics. Practically every speaker in either

House who rose to comment pro or con on the New Look or the budget

made ritual obeisance, by suitable quotations, to Ridgway, who since

December had become the most controversial figure in the ongoing New

Look drama. Ridgway now knew that he and the Army had a strong following on the Hill and that, at least for the present, the administration's

treatment of the Army was the weakest spot in the New Look's armor.

So Ridgway, too, was preparing for the FY 1956 budget battle.
CHAPTER XII

Basic Strategy and the FY 1956 Budget:

Pressures to Expand

When planning for the FY 1956 Defense budget got under way early

in 1954, the country was in the depths of the longest (13 months) recession of the first post-World War II decade. l The gross national product

fell steadily through the middle of 1954, while unemployment rose from

under three percent to almost six percent. As in other post-World War II

downturns, industrial production declined, inventories became excessive,

and farm prices plunged. Sharp cutbacks in defense spending were the

most readily identifiable cause of the "slight contraction of business," as

the president referred to the recession in his economic report to the

Congress in January. Eisenhower had pledged to use the full resources

of the federal government to prevent "another 1929," and his economic

report described in detail the arsenal of anti-recession measures available.

During the winter and spring, pressures on the administration multiplied

to bring them to bear. Labor leaders called for action by the federal government and in Congress leading Democrats charged the president with

"a persistent policy of glossing over the economic facts of life." Former

President Truman coined a more quotable label-"creeping McKinleyism."z

Reactions to Recession and the Indochina Crisis

The president evidently remained determined, at least for the present,

to permit market forces to do their work. Regarding taxes as a necessary

evil, he had allowed the wartime excess profits tax and increased personal

income tax to lapse at the end of 1953, thus "turning back" to the people,

256
The FY 1956 Budget: Pressures to Expand 257

as he put it, about $5 billion in potential federal revenue. A comprehensive

tax reform program enacted in August 1953 reduced taxes by almost $1.5

billion and a new omnibus excise tax bill enacted on 31 March 1954 shaved

another billion. Other features of the administration's 1954 legislative program (e.g., housing, social security, highway construction, and agriculture)

were designed to benefit the economy; Congress eventually passed most

of them. "But at this time," Eisenhower told the nation in a 15 March

broadcast, "economic conditions do not call for an emergency program

that would justify larger Federal deficits and further inflation through

large additional tax reductions."3

Eisenhower believed, on the other hand, that the government should

be ready to apply more drastic remedies if necessary to head off a

depression. He directed that departments and agencies "provide sufficient

flexibility in their respective programs so that Federal expenditures can

be appropriately and promptly directed toward preventing or countering

adverse trends in the u.s. economy." The order caused a flurry of alarm

in DoD. Given the current emphasis on economy, some officials feared

the effects of even discussing the president'S order to direct spending

into anti-recession measures. Fortunately, the recession soon showed signs

of winding down, and the president's package of remedies remained untouched. Briefing the NSC on 20 May on the fiscal outlook, Budget Director

Rowland Hughes (the New York banker who had succeeded Dodge in

March) said that budget planning was proceeding under the assumptions

that the economy would continue to grow through FY 1957, while prices

would stabilize at present levels and unemployment at about 2.5 million.

He also postulated no significant increase in international tensions. 4 As

it turned out, 1954' was to be one of the most prosperous years of the

Eisenhower administration, although persisting unemployment would

help the Democrats regain control of Congress in the fall.

In the spring of that year, however, with GNP (in constant dollars) four

percent lower than it had been a year earlier and March unemployment at

a peak of four million, the recession was real enough. 5 For budget planners

it posed the danger that it might reverse the steady march toward a balanced budget, one of the president's most abiding goals, by squeezing the

inflow of tax receipts and piling the costs of anti-recession measures on

already budgeted outlays. The March tax cuts had already added perhaps another billion to the $2.9 billion deficit predicted in January for

FY 1955, although declining expenditures provided some offset. For FY

1954, when the books were balanced in July it turned out that the actual

deficit was slightly lower than predicted in January, and considerably less

than earlier predictions. For FY 1955, on the other hand, deficit forecasts were climbing as high as $4.7 billion. 6
258 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The looming FY 1955 deficit could thus be blamed largely on the 1953-

54 recession. Looking beyond, Hughes warned the NSC on 20 May that to

balance the budget in either FY 1956 or FY 1957 would require reductions in national security spending again by amounts at least equal to

the reductions made in the FY 1955 budget. If additional tax cuts already

contemplated by the Treasury occurred, the FY 1956 deficit could rise to

$9.7 billion and the FY 1957 deficit to $12 billion. 7

The council was confronted with these disturbing numbers at a

time when it had other pressing matters engaging its attention. Within

the past few weeks the long Indochina "crisis" had abruptly climaxed.

The fall of Dien Bien Phu in early May now looked like a disaster of major

proportions for the West. The French had asked for a cease-fire. At the

Geneva Conference, called to negotiate a settlement for Southeast Asia, the

Western powers found themselves without military leverage against the

victorious Viet Minh. In the classic manner of allies in· adversity, they were

more than ever in disarray.

It was against this troublesome backdrop that the NSC took up its

budget discussion on 20 May. Treasury Secretary Humphrey, attempting

to hold to the long-haul focus of Hughes's briefing, expounded his

familiar thesis of the perils of deficit financing and the need for balance

between the demands of national defense and a sound economy. We could

not undertake, he argued, to prepare for two or three or more different

kinds of wars at once; we should concentrate on only one. Dulles immediately objected. An all-nuclear war might seem to be the cheapest of all

possible wars, but if the United States prepared only for nuclear war it

would have to fight without allies and to escalate every small war into

a big one. International tensions were mounting, not diminishing; it was

not a time to allow either allies or enemies to conclude that the United

States was sacrificing security for economy. 8

Both men pulled punches. Humphrey stopped short of asserting that

the country could not afford to prepare for any kind of war except a

nuclear one, or that the logical way to avoid deficit financing, after

defense spending had been cut to the bone, was to raise taxes. Dulles,

warning against sacrificing security for economy, refrained from overtly

endorsing deficit financing. Through it all the president had little to say,

but what he did say was revealing. As usual, he emphatically agreed with

his secretary of state. Under no circumstances should we ever decide that

"we cannot afford to defend our country." Still, much could be done to

save money in defense. But after defense costs had been pared down to

an "irreducible minimum," efforts to cut more must be resisted uncompromisingly, and if the irreducible minimum for defense required new taxes,

then "we must be prepared to fight for them."9
The FY 1956 Budget: Pressures to Expand 259

The FY 1956 Defense budget would represent the second year's

financing of a three-year (1955-57) program, drawn up in outline by the

Joint Chiefs and approved by the president in December 1953, that

was intended to reshape American forces for the long haul in a relatively

stable post-Korea world. It set forth terminal personnel strengths and

force goals for FY 1957, the end point of the three-year contraction begun

with the big personnel cuts for FY 1955 directed by Secretary Wilson

about the same time. It thus remained only to determine strengths and

force objectives for FY 1956 on the downward slope toward the terminal

objectives of FY 1957. When determined, they would constitute basic

guidance for developing the dollar dimensions of the FY 1956 budget. 10

In March 1954 the service planners, replying to a mid-December

directive from the Joint Chiefs, submitted proposed FY 1956 programs

and budget estimates for reaching the approved FY 1957 levels. It became

apparent the Army was rebelling against the directed New Look program

of strength and force reductions. Ridgway proposed instead what

amounted to a level-off at the approved strength by the end of FY 1955-

152,000 personnel and three divisions more than the FY 1957 level-off

that the chiefs had recommended and the president had approved in

December. The justification for this stand was simply that the assumed

conditions on which the prescribed manpower levels had been based had

not yet materialized. "The Army should not be forced to program itself,"

Army planners argued, "into a position of inability to meet national

commitments on the basis of 'arbitrary assumptions' ... that these

commitments will be reduced."ll The other military chiefs generally went

along with the guidelines, but all served notice that if the Army was not

held to the December guidelines, they too intended to seek revisions. 12

Ridgway'S opinion of the treatment meted out to the Army under

the New Look was no secret. With the basic aims of the New Look he

had no quarrel, but he saw the Army as an equal, not a junior partner, in

the undertaking, with indispensable missions that it alone could perform.

He recognized the eventual necessity of deflating the swollen Army built

up to fight in Korea and to man the ramparts in Europe, but he could

not accept the New Look rationale of replacing ground forces by nuclear

firepower, whether airborne in strategic bombers or in tactical weapons

used by ground forces. Large ground armies would still be needed to do

the many jobs that the big bombers could not do, and tactical "nukes"

would vastly raise the casualty toll on both sides. Heavier reliance on allied

manpower, particularly in Japan, Korea, and Germany, had been explicit

conditions for Army agreement in the Everest committee in November

1953 to a 14-division Army for 1957. In Ridgway's mind these were among

the "assumptions" underlying the Joint Chiefs' allegedly "unanimous"

approval of JCS 2101/113, their December recommendationsP
260 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

TABLE 7

Personnel and Forces

FY 1957 Program

Approved Service Goals for FY 1957 (Dec 53)

Army

Navy

Marine Corps

Air Force

Total

Personnel

1,000,000

650,000

190,000

975,000

2,815,000

Forces

14 divs

1030 active ships

3 divs/3 tac wings

137 wings

Service Proposals (Mar 54)

Army

Navy

Marine Corps

Air Force

Total

FY 1956

Personnel Forces

1,164,000 17 divs

666,435 1034 active ships

205,000 3 divs/3 tac wings

975,000 127 wings

3,010,435

FY 1957

Personnel Forces

1,152,000 17 divs

650,000 1032 active ships

190,000 3 divs/3 tac wings

975,000 137 wings

2,967,000

Source:Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,30,70.

By February 1954, when Ridgway gave his House testimony, the outlook was even more alarming, especially in Indochina, and the prospects

for Japanese and German army buildups were not encouraging. Ridgway

now had serious misgivings over the New Look concept of a wholesale

pullback of Army forces from abroad. The crucial question posed by

the rapidly intensifying Indochina crisis was whether it would be safe

to begin to withdraw American forces from the Far East. Planning for

withdrawal, under way since the summer of 1953, looked toward its

initiation in late 1954 following a political settlement in Korea, and aimed

at an ultimate reduction of U.S. forces to two divisions in a three-division

United Nations corps. Ridgway favored early withdrawal from Korea but

wanted to keep the bulk of the forces in or near the Western Pacific, available for either renewed hostilities in the Far East or redeployment

elsewhere. Early in December 1953 the president short-circuited the

leisurely pace of this planning by deciding, partly for budgetary reasons,

to bring two divisions back from Korea and disband them before the

middle of 1954. Later in the same month he made the decision publicand thus virtually irrevocable. 14

On 1 April 1954 the JCS sent Secretary Wilson a plan for redeployment of American forces from the Far East that would leave only two
The FY 1956 Budget: Pressures to Expand 261

American divisions (one Army, one Marine Corps) in Korea. The plan had,

however, already been overtaken by the desperate situation in Indochina.

On 6 April Secretary Wilson, presumably with the president's approval,

informed the NSC that all major redeployments from the Far East, except

the movement of the two National Guard divisions already ordered home

by the president, would be suspended until 1 June. When that date came,

and the JCS reviewed the situation, it looked even worse: Dien Bien Phu

had fallen and Viet Minh forces were advancing, while diplomats in

Geneva wrangled over cease-fire terms. In Washington the NSC was about

to discuss an offer by President Rhee to send South Korean troops to

Indochina, and a new crisis began to take shape as the president authorized the Seventh Fleet to make "friendly" visits to the Nationalist-held

Tachen Islands near the China coast in hopes of deterring an apparently

impending Chinese Communist attack. The chiefs recommended

suspension of all further redeployments from the Far East "for an indeterminate time." 15 In late spring of 1954, American forces were still

dangerously overextended.

In addressing manpower problems, the Joint Chiefs' 17 December

1953 directive had looked far beyond, to the final New Look strength and

force reductions scheduled for FY 1956 and FY 1957, assuming as given

the already approved goals for FY 1955, but these later reductions could

not be divorced from the earlier ones. For Army planners the problem

presented by the three-and-one-half-year program of cutbacks was its

heavy front-loading. The FY 1955 goals reflected not merely the 176,000

cut ordered by Secretary Wilson on 4 December, but also the additional

143,000 ordered on the 11th (two days after Ridgway had urged Secretary

Stevens to try to hold the line at the former figure). As matters now stood,

the Army would shrink by almost 320,000 during the next 18 months

(from December 1953), and by only another 162,000 during the two

years following.

While the service manpower proposals worked their way slowly

through the JCS system during March and April, rumors abounded that

Ridgway was on the brink of resignation and that Radford, and even the

Joint Chiefs as a body, appeared ready to demand a slowdown of the pace

of restructuring and reductions. 16 On 26 April 1954 Wilson himself provided apparent confirmation of the thrust of these rumors. "The next few

months are obviously critical ones in world affairs, and what happens in

Europe and Asia during this period may force a soul-searching review of

our specific policies, plans, objectives and expenditures."17

At a news conference three days later the president was noncommittaLlS But the chiefs on 21 May vented their concern. They saw manpower,

especially ground forces, as a critical area of weakness, stemming from
262 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

dimming prospects for the formation of a strong mobile central reserve in

the United States and for an early effective contribution by the Germans

and the Japanese to their own regional defense. Echoing Wilson's comment a month earlier, the chiefs warned that the deteriorating situation

in Southeast Asia, uncertainty over the outcome of the Geneva negotiations,

and a prolonged delay in the organization of the central reserve would probably dictate revision of planned military programs and budget estimates

and re-examination of personnel and force ceilings for FY 1956 and FY

1957. 19 In June what looked like the opening of a concerted assault on

the approved strength and force goals for FY 1955 got under way as first

Carney and then Ridgway proposed major increases: for the Navy and

Marine Corps, strengths of 733,916 and 225,021, respectively; for the

Army, 1,282,000. 20

With Wilson and the chiefs now seeing more or less eye to eye, they

reached agreement in June that personnel strengths would level off in

FY 1956 at the figures projected for the end of FY 1955 (except for a

small increase for the Air Force): i.e., Army 1,173,000, Navy 682,000,

Marine Corps 215,000, and Air Force 975,000, for a total of 3,045,000.

Wilson disapproved the requested FY 1955 increases for the Army and

Navy/Marine Corps, and strength goals for FY 1957 were held in abeyance, pending another JCS review in December 1954. On 15 July Wilson,

and on the 28th the president, formally approved the new FY 1956

strength goals for budget planning purposes. In essence the Army was

to proceed with the FY 1955 personnel reductions as originally directed,

while suspending for the present the projected tapering off in FY 1956

and FY 1957. For FY 1956 this came very close to what the services had

proposed in March. 21

The services had priced their proposed FY 1956 programs in March

at about $37.4 billion. 22 Not surprisingly, this approximated the predicted defense spending level shown in the president's FY 1955 budget

and seemed to foreshadow a substantial deficit in the FY 1956 federal

budget. During the summer, signs indicated that the DoD spending estimate would prove to be, if anything, too low. The decision to go ahead

with the FY 1955 personnel cuts decreed in December was accompanied

by strong pressure on the services to find ways (undermanning, reduction of support elements, etc.) to retain some of the major combat units

that would normally be eliminated as a consequence of the reduction.

This would of course wipe out some of the savings achieved by reductions in personnel,23 After prolonged discussions during the summer,

Wilson approved on 26 August the JCS recommendation-again, for

budget-planning purposes only-that the services maintain the following

major forces at the end of FY 1956: 24
The FY 1956 Budget: Pressures to Expand 263

Army

Divisions

Regts/RCTs

AAA Bns

Marine Corps

Divisions

Tac wings

Navy

Warships

Other combat ships

Other ships

Total active

Air Force (wings)

Strategic

Air Defense

Tactical

Troop carrier

Total

19

12

136

3

3

408

442

281

1,131

52

32

35

11

130

Two days later OSD directed the services to submit detailed budget estimates by 4 October. 25

It was time. On 23 July Budget Director Hughes had issued the annual

letter to all departments and agencies setting forth approved assumptions and policies for use in preparation of the FY 1956 federal budget.

To DoD officials who had kept abreast of the rising curve of informal estimates and indicators of FY 1956 defense spending, Hughes's letter must

have come as a jolt. Noting the prospect of another deficit inFY 1955,

Hughes called on all departments and agencies to hold requests for new

appropriations and expenditures in FY 1956 below FY 1955 levels. The

proposed DoD budget was to be submitted to BoB by 15 September.

The letter contained no explicit statement that total expenditures must

be reduced. 26

When the Joint Secretaries* met with Acting Defense Secretary

Anderson on 23 August to discuss the proposed FY 1956 personnel and

force levels, the 15 September deadline was already down the drain. Of

more concern to the secretaries,since March no updated price tag had

been put on the Defense program as a whole. They thought that as soon

as possible one should be submitted to the president along with personnel and force levels for his tentative approval. Although the service

budget staffs and adVisory committees had been working on estimates

for months, the only totals they could come up with at this point were

* The name for the three service secretaries after Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson had

them meet regularly as a body beginning in July 1950. They became the Joint Secretaries

Group when Secretary of Defense Lovett in September 1952 included in their membership

the secretary and the deputy secretary of defense. See Condit, Test afWar, 31, 524.
264 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

partial updates of those submitted in March-about $37.5 billion in new

obligational authority and almost $38 billion in expenditures. The gap

between these figures and their lower counterparts in the FY 1955

budget (respectively, $28.8 billion and $37.5 billion) was perhaps sufficient reason for not bringing them to the president's attention immediately. When Anderson forwarded the Joint Secretaries' request to the

services, their budget staffs objected strenuously to this short-circuiting

of the normal budgetary process; until they had firm budget estimates

ready for submission to OSD they wanted no circulation of preliminary

estimates outside the department. 27

There was reason to expect that the rough estimates being bandied

about would prove to be inflated. Since their original formulation in

March, Congress had completed action on the FY 1955 budget, reducing

the president's request by almost $1.1 billion and by another $400 million in the supplemental public works bill. Moreover, the carryover of

unobligated funds into FY 1955 was almost twice as large as the amount

($8.5 billion) assumed in framing the FY 1955 budget; the Army, for

example, would now have more than $5.5 billion available for obligation

in FY 1955 against earlier expectations of only half that amount. Requests

for FY 1956 new obligational authority were likely, therefore, to be lower

than predicted in March, and the cuts in requested appropriations for

FY 1955 would likely result in lower-than-predicted expenditure rates in

FY 1956. To forestall action to reduce proposed forces, a quick but realistic

price tag was needed for the force levels Wilson had recently approved. 28

The Guidelines Debate:A New Look at NSC 162/2?

The intensifying Southeast Asia crisis helped shape the emerging

structural framework (forces, strength, dollars) of the FY 1956 budget and

forced serious reconsideration of its policy foundations. Since late winter

1954 anxiety had been growing over what many perceived as a fundamental threat revealed by the crisis-the crumbling of Western solidarity

in the face of Communist aggression and growing Soviet military power.

To some, these developments seemed to undermine the premises and

assumptions underlying the basic national security policies spelled out

only a few months before in NSC 16212-the inherent strengths of the

Western alliance, a possible alleviation of tensions with the Soviet Union

through negotiation, and the normal gradualness of change in the power

relationships among great nations. Discussion of these issues in the

NSC Planning Board and elsewhere came to a head in March 1954 over

whether NSC 162/2 as it stood could be used as a basis for detailed
The FY 1956 Budget: Pressures to Expand 265

guidelines, or did it already require fundamental revision? Some updating, remarked the chairman of the Planning Board's special coordinating

committee, "might be found desirable." To start the process the Planning

Board requested feeder studies on the outlook for the period 1956-59; all

this input was to be completed by 1 May, aiming at submission of the

board's recommended guidelines to the NSC about the beginning ofJune. 29

The requested studies flowed in during May.30 One of the tardier submissions, a 21 May JCSpaper forecasting the free world's military posture,

reached OSD too late for careful review. Consequently it did not reflect

an integrated Defense position. Deputy Secretary Anderson forwarded it

to the Planning Board without delay.

The Joint Chiefs predicted that any further deterioration of the

international situation and a continued suspension of redeployments

from the Far East would probably necessitate changes in planned forces

and programs. They urged stronger efforts to ensure early German and

Japanese contributions to the free world's defense, which they regarded as

essential to the formation of a mobile strategic reserve in the United States.

On the whole, however, their assessment of the national military posture

was not pessimistic. They expected the United States to retain significant

superiority in offensive retaliatory power and in atomic tactical support.

While less confident of the continental defense system in the face of expected Soviet offensive" improvements, they rated as generally adequate

the program already in place, except for intelligence, which needed

"greatly increased emphasis," specifically pre-hostilities reconnaissance of

enemy territory.31 The chiefs foresaw no serious threat to sea and air

communications except in areas close to the Soviet bloc and counted

on American atomic tactical weapons to offset the Communists' huge

advantage in manpower and quantitative superiority in tactical aviation.

On the other hand, they saw both a looming manpower problem and

the perennial and growing demands of a modernizing military machine

for advanced technical and combat skills. More worrisome, the continued

decline in military spending would narrow the nation's mobilization base.

The chiefs proposed a reinvigoration of industrial preparedness for the

most important categories of military hard goods, renewed building of

war reserves, and new modernized tanker construction. The deterioration

of the mobilization base, they warned, appeared particularly ominous in

the light of the Soviet Union's superior capacity to expand its own military

production base rapidly at the beginning of a general war.

A substantial part of the JCS paper presented a somber analysis of

anticipated military capabilities elsewhere in the free world. America's

allies were expected to contribute to the common defense most of the

ground forces along with base sites and certain other facilities. The
266 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

American contribution would be the atomic capability, selective military

assistance, certain D-day forces deployed in strategic areas, an industrial

base sufficient to provide the major support for a general war, and a

ready mobile strategic reserve. Only American and British forces could be

expected to have significant strategic mobility, but NATO Europe collectively, with German forces, could mount a formidable defense. Elsewhere,

except for South Korea and Formosa, defensive capabilities ranged from

poor to negligible. But the most pervasive weakness of the free world

remained the inability of any nation except the United States, Britain,

and Canada to sustain major combat operations for more than a month

or two. If allied nations could not or would not build up their own

mobilization bases, the United States, would have to take the shortage into

account in its planning. For the present and the foreseeable future the free

world's military forces would depend on a continuing flow of American

military assistance. NSC 162/2 recognized this need insofar as it concerned essential allies, but stipulated a declining flow and emphasized

the importance of economic and trade policies designed to enhance selfhelp capabilities in allied countries.

The JCS found most worrisome a phenomenon that the Indochina

crisis had thrust to center stage: the apparent inability of the United

States and its principal allies to act in concert when faced with a threat

to their common security. "Fundamental to the attainment of an effective

Free World military posture," the chiefs declared," ... is the development

and maintenance of solidarity on the part of our Allies to the point

where they will not only unite in the determination of measures vital to

the common security, but will support those measures when the need

arises. Recent developments indicate that the firm foundation requisite

to prompt and effective action ... has not yet been fully achieved."32

In concluding, the chiefs (like NSC 162/2) judged that "the Soviets

might well elect to pursue their ultimate objective of world domination

through a succession of local aggressions, either overt or covert, all of

which could not be successfully opposed by the Allies through localized

counteraction, without unacceptable commitment of resources. The Free

World would then be confronted with a situation in which the only

alternative to acquiescence ... would be a deliberate decision to react

with military force against the real source of the aggression."33 Was this

then-to strike directly at the "real source of the aggression"-the chiefs'

preferred course of action? Not necessarily. They danced around the

question, emphasizing the importance of a mobile strategic reserve for

reacting quickly to local aggressions, and even suggesting that partial

mobilization might be desirable "commensurate with the increased risk

of general war."34 In general, the JCS betrayed an evident reluctance to
The FY 1956 Budget: Pressures to Expand 267

propose radical remedies for problems that had emerged since the

approval of NSC 162/2.35

The JCS paper stirred some ripples as it passed through OSD on its

way to the NSC Planning Board. ISA found it "generally sound."36 McNeil's

deputy, Lyle Garlock, criticized it harshly. Generally, he read the chiefs'

analysis as an overreaction to the Southeast Asia crisis, blurred in its conclusions and recommendations. One recommendation, he pointed out,

might be interpreted to mean that "we must be prepared to fight a war

either with or without atomic weapons," a notion that had appalling cost

implications and incidentally conflicted with the policy of integration

of nuclear weapons. Garlock noted that the JCS seemed to feel that the

existing plan of "orderly" expansion of the continental defense system

should be replaced by a crash effort, contrary to recent assurances to the

Congress by the president and the secretary of defense that the system

as currently planned would provide a "reasonable" defense. Finally, Garlock

unleashed a counter-barrage of figures. In the past four years, the United

States had spent some $60 billion for major equipment, spares and spare

parts, organizational equipment, and supplies, and expected to spend

another $28.5 billion in the coming two years-a total of more than $88

billion by mid-1956. By mid-1957 the full buildup of American airpower

would be complete, with extensive conventional and nuclear weapon

capabilities. In addition, substantial numbers of tactical guided missiles,

ballistic missiles, and atomic guns would be deployed. Added firepower

would be realized in the 1957-59 period from new medium-range strategic guided missiles. Garlock concluded: "We cannot afford to shift our

course with every change in the wind. We will seriously weaken the U.S.

economy if we increase and decrease the degree of mobilization each

time the Soviets provoke a new crisis or appear to relax world tensions."37

While the Planning Board was assembling and analyzing data for

the guidelines paper, evidence emerged of disturbing growth in Soviet

military capabilities. Perhaps the most spectacular was the display in

formation flight, visible to thousands of spectators at the Moscow Air

Show on May Day 1954, of nine twin-engine jet medium bombers (Type

39) seemingly comparable to the American B-47, and one four-engine

jet heavy bomber (Type 37). Assuming that the medium bomber was

already in series production, intelligence predicted a total of about 120

by mid-1955 and 600 by mid-1959, advancing by a year previous estimates

of the appearance of Soviet jet medium bombers. Appraisals of the Type

37 bomber, more cautious, left unchanged previous estimates that a

few might be in operational units by mid-1957 and about 100 by mid1959-possibly earlier. 38
268 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

On 3 June the Joint Advanced Study Committee of the JCS briefed

the NSC on new Soviet nuclear weapons. Avowedly conservative forecasts

suggested that in 1954 the Soviets were expected to test thermonuclear weapons "with yields well in excess of one million tons of TNT,"

increasing the total energy yield obtainable from the Soviet stockpile (estimated in 1953 at 150 to 200 million tons of TNT) by a factor of 5 to 25. By

1957, although the United States would still lead the Soviets in nuclear

weapons, the latter would achieve "comparable" capabilities, including

that of mounting a surprise attack on the United States and inflicting

massive damage, largely by virtue of reduced accuracy requirements for

thermonuclear weapons. Radford was more specific: By 1958, he warned,

the United States might have to face the threat of Soviet intercontinental

missiles armed with thermonuclear warheads. It was clear, however, that

he referred to relatively slow long-range pilotless vehicles; no predictions

were yet being made on Soviet acquisition of an ICBM.39

The president complimented the briefers but seemed unimpressed.

He remarked that his World War II experience made him skeptical of the

"completeness and accuracy" of the destruction predicted in the briefing. 40

The Joint Chiefs evidently saw nothing in the new intelligence that warranted changes in their 21 May military posture paper, the conclusion of

which appeared intact as one of the annexes of the Planning Board's

guidelines paper (NSC 5422) circulated on 14 June. The introductory

section of the 21 May paper summarized the chiefs' relatively bland projection of the East-West military balance and the widening fissures in the

Western alliance. The summary of Soviet capabilities that accompanied

it, on the other hand, showing some of the more dramatic comparisons between 1953 and current predictions of improved Soviet capabilities in key

categories of weaponry in 1957 and 1959, carried less reassurance. *41

Those capabilities, the JCS special assistant for NSC affairs had asserted

earlier, "will increase the Soviet air threat to a point extremely difficult

to counter ... [and] may, beginning in 1958, allow the USSR to force the

Free World into a series of political retreats designed to isolate the United

* For example, 1953 estimates of Soviet development of surface-to-surface guided missiles

had been largely theoretical, without substantiating evidence as to the priority or pace of

effort; the mid-1954 estimates predicted as "likely" a V-2-type missile of 450-500-mile range

by 1956, and by 1959 series production of a pilotless aircraft of intercontinental range. 1953

estimates of the Soviets' 1957 stockpile of nuclear weapons projected 25 megatons (500

weapons averaging 50 kilotons); mid-1954 estimates projected 172 MT in 1959, including

weapons as large as 10,000 KT, more than 10 times the yield of those earlier estimated for

1957. See NSC 5422, Tentative Guidelines Under NSC 162/2 for FY 1956, 14 Jun 54, FRUS

1952-54,11, pt 1:651-52; Annex 4, CIA study, "Soviet Capabilities and Main Lines of Policy

Through Mid-1959," ibid, 677.
The FY 1956 Budget: Pressures to Expand 269

States from the Free World. On the other hand, Soviet possession of such

strength may force the Free World to take preemptive action to insure its

survival." The CIA adviser to the Planning Board took an even more alarmist line, pronouncing the increasing Soviet power a "basic change in the

world situation" that, under NSC 162/2, should dictate immediate subordination of the administration's balanced-budget goal to the requirements

of national security. 42

When the draft guidelines paper emerged from the Planning Board,

it stimulated a weed-like growth of informal staff writing on the more contentious issues. Several papers conjectured that the Soviets were likely to

be tempted to follow the safer route of aggrandizement through local

aggression and more covert methods-subversion, infiltration, coups,

proxy wars, and instigation or exploitation of civil wars in free world

countries such as Indochina. 43 Few disputed the reality of the Soviet threat.

Some board members were unhappy, however, with the tendency of the

Joint Chiefs to view it as a budding problem that must never be allowed

to divert resources from the overriding necessity of being prepared to

fight and win a general war. Reflecting the Army point of view, the board's

Defense member, Brig. Gen. Charles H. Bonesteel, saw the "creeping expansion" strategy of the Soviet Union as a here-and-now peril in such places

as Indochina, and one likely to grow. The Soviets, he asserted, already

sensitive to the risks of general war, which would endanger the base of

the global Soviet revolution, were pursuing a new strategy calculated to

"recapture their pre-atomic security and yet not forego the continued

expansion of Communist control." Over a period of time the process of

piecemeal conquest and nibbling erosion "could bring such a preponderance of over-all power to the Kremlin as to make the Free World

fear that it would be suicidal to oppose later stages of expansion by

military means." Bonesteel concluded that the United States henceforth

must reserve its freedom to act in defense of its perceived security

interests regardless of the sensibilities of its allies, even with respect to

use of nuclear weapons. NSC 162/2, after all, had declared them to be

"as available for use as other weapons.,,44

This damn-the-torpedoes approach, one ISA analyst pointed out,

ignored numerous ambiguities in the many areas around the world where

the United States had no explicit commitments-precisely the areas

where the threat was most likely to be posed, and where any major military

response might be least appropriate or feasible. The most likely image of

the future was probably not a series of large Korea- and Indochina-type

conflagrations, and it was hard to imagine any small country asking to be

rescued by American atomic bombs from threatened Communist invasion

or revolution-or an American president contemplating such action.
270 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Would it not be more prudent to "adopt a middle course, on a case-bycase basis, never foreclosing (the nuclear option)?"45

Maj. Gen. John K. Gerhart, USAF, the JCS adviser on the Planning

Board, shared with Bonesteel and ISA Assistant Secretary Hensel an urgent,

"immediate danger" view of the Communist creeping expansion threat,

which Gerhart's bosses had dismissed as unlikely to materialize for several years. Like his fellow Air Force generals, he believed that an all-out

war, now or later, remained a far greater peril that the United States must

at any cost be prepared to deal with, and he worried that preoccupation

with the emerging Communist strategy of creeping expansion might divert

American policy from its sharp focus on massive retaliation and normalized use of nuclear weapons. Bold response to Communist aggressions

carried the risk of precipitating a general war, but the risk had to be faced. 46

What worried Gerhart most was the paralyZing effect of the prevailing fear of general war throughout the free world, including the United

States. The Soviets were already exploiting this fear, and would do so in

increasing measure as their own nuclear capability grew. "When the

nuclear equation approaches a balance, the clear advantage will rest with

the power bloc least reluctant to assume the risk of general war"-that

is, given the nature of their political system, with the Soviets. Unfortunately, an "aura of uncertainty" clouded all U.S. planning for use of nuclear

weapons-largely owing to official fears that "our Allies will desert US.,,47

The NSC Planning Board draft guidelines paper NSC 5422, circulated

on 14 June, analyzed, with numerous "splits,"* the various issues under

three headings: nuclear trends (Le., the growth of Soviet nuclear

capabilities and of the power of nuclear weapons themselves), free

world cohesion, and mobilization for general war. 48 The drafters of NSC

5422 generally followed the line embodied in the chiefs' 21 May military

posture paper, not General Gerhart's recent proposed amendment. That

is, "creeping expansion" could be expected to come fully into play only

with the approach to nuclear balance between the superpowers, when

Soviet leaders would likely see declining risks in limited and indirect

aggression. Until then the American retaliatory capability could be relied

on to deter both general war and more limited but overt aggressions; the

latter should be dealt with, if possible, by less than massive responses.

If these failed, stronger medicine would be called for: "The Communists

• The "split," by now standard in NSC draft papers and of long standing in JCS staff

procedure, compressed all differing views on an issue into two contrasting or opposing

statements, one or the other of which all proponents could be persuaded to endorse.

Scholars may debate whether this device reflected the basic dualism of Western thought or

the aim of squeezing opposing views into two parallel columns permitting comparative

reading on a sheet of paper eight inches wide (standard in the Pentagon in this period).
The FY 1956 Budget: Pressures to Expand 271

must be convinced of U.S. determination to take ... whatever action its

security position requires, even to the extent of general war." The covert

forms of Communist aggression would require more complex responses

involving many nations and "determined" American leadership: economic

and military aid, special counter-guerrilla training, covert operations,

even direct military intervention in cases of Communist-exploited civil

war. NSC 5422 reserved general war (including strategic retaliation) as the

last-resort response to overt aggressions only.49

Noting the threat to allied unity, NSC 5422 stressed the continuing dependence of the United States on its major partners to help prevent

gradual isolation as a result of Communist "creeping expansion" and

listed confidence-building behavior and policies that would tend to

strengthen the cohesion of the alliance-ample retaliatory capacity, concern for the security problems of allied countries, and special attention to

Western Europe as a principal source of free world power. Opinion divided

on the issue of unilateral U.S. responses to aggression. The board agreed

on a general statement that the United States should not be inhibited by

allied opposition from resorting to nuclear weapons "to prevent signific

cant Communist territorial gains when such action is clearly necessary to

U.S. security," but split on the types of circumstances that would warrant

unilateral action of any kind. 50

Under the premise that the free world could not afford to allow communism to engulf the material resources, manpower, and strategic

positions of underdeveloped countries in Asia and the Middle East, NSC

5422 proposed that Communist powers be warned that overt aggression

against these countries would bring U.S. military responses. It also suggested a new multilateral initiative to strengthen the will and ability of

these countries to defend themselves, through economic development

aid and cooperation, encouragement of regional groupings to promote

economic growth, promotion of freer trade and payments, and selective

increases in end-item military assistance and economic aid to support

indigenous military forces. On the thorny issue of support for Third

World nationalism and anti-colonialism, the paper offered a carefully

hedged warning against actions that "needlessly" antagonized those

forces and urged greater U.S. independence of European allies on Third

World issues. Despite all the foregoing, NSC 5422 still reflected an overwhelming concern with general war. Indeed, it rejected Bonesteel's

proposed statement subordinating the general war threat to the "more

pronounced" one of "creeping expansion," and presented a closely reasoned

analysis of the former threat, besides an entire additional section on the

issues of mobilization. 51
272 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The NSC 5422 analysis opened with a warning that strategic use by

both sides of nuclear weapons could inflict such devastation as to

threaten the survival of civilization itself. Fear of this eventuality had

become a significant influence on thinking. If equally shared by both

sides as the superpowers approached nuclear parity, it could lead ultimately to a condition of mutual deterrence. Unfortunately, earlier and

grimmer outcomes were also possible, particularly a Soviet attempt to

wipe out the U.S. retaliatory capacity by a surprise nuclear attack. For

the United States, therefore, it was of critical importance not only to

maintain and protect its retaliatory striking forces but to build an effective continental defense system capable of reducing "to manageable

proportions" the damage and casualties likely to be inflicted by a surprise

attack. Even if a rough nuclear balance were attained, the arms race would

go on and technology continue to advance. Therefore the United States

must make a sustained effort "to invent and develop capabilities which

will provide decisive preponderance to U.S. power." In a general war,

the United States must also be prepared to see some of its overseas bases,

essential for retaliatory operations, either destroyed by enemy attack or

neutralized by fearful host governments. Along with continued efforts to

strengthen collective defense arrangements for use of these bases, NSC

5422 urged more emphasis on making effective strategic retaliation less

dependent on them. 52

Concerning disarmament negotiations with the Soviets, NSC 5422

stated that they should be explored, arguing that a "practicable" arrangement for limiting armaments "would be a more certain and economical

method of meeting the threat posed by growing Soviet nuclear capabilities than any other course of action discussed in this paper." The merits

of the case, however, were confused because current U.S. policy opposed

nuclear disarmament in the absence of conventional arms reduction. The

USSR, for its part, had first rejected proposals for total nuclear disarmament and later for balanced reduction of conventional and unconventional arms. NSC 5422 held that the United States should re-examine its

position, along with the knottier matter of verification, on the premise

that even imperfect safeguards might involve less risk to national security than no limitations at all. 53 In OSD, this proposal ran into a stone wall.

Assistant Secretary Hensel thought the issue irrelevant to NSC 5422 and

that security programs could not prudently be based on the assumed

possibility of disarmament. 54

The strongest dissent came from the Joint Chiefs, who on 23 June submitted a nine-page screed to Secretary Wilson opposing any negotiations

with the Soviets on any issue whatsoever. Arguing that the Soviets had

"evaded and perverted" all their treaties and commitments with the West
The FY 1956 Budget: Pressures to Expand 273

"in unbroken sequence from Yalta to Korea," the chiefs saw no grounds

for hope that, "barring a basic change in the attitude of the Soviet regime,"

it would honor any future agreements. The chiefs asked for discussion of

their paper by the NSC in connection with NSC 5422. Their purpose went

beyond a restatement in that forum of their well-known views on negotiations with the Soviets, although this was the main burden of the paper.

Evidently, more than any other participant in the national security policy

debate, especially the State Department, they felt a real sense of time

running out in the East-West conflict. The greatest dangers, in the ]CS

view, lurked in those negotiations to which America's principal allies

were a party. They voiced a familiar complaint that was frequently echoed

thereafter: "Our principal Allies, possibly impelled by a mounting fear of

Soviet atomic capability, have shown an increasing disposition to seek

agreements at whatever cost, apparently without adequate realization of

the vital Western security interests at stake, or in disregard of those

interests." The chiefs felt strongly "a pressing necessity that our Allies be

brought to view the world situation in the same light and with the same

urgency as does the United States." Otherwise, "on occasion," the United

States might find it necessary to take measures "which not all of our Allies

would endorse or be willing to join."55

Another major issue had to do with the nuclear balance and mutual

deterrence. State suggested that the New Look strategy of reliance on

strategic nuclear weaponry for general war might be undermined by a

decline in credibility and public acceptance. By 1956-59 both the USSR

and America's allies might doubt the U.S. readiness and the American

public might not "be as ready then to risk devastation of u.S. cities as

it is now to risk scattered attacks upon them. Under such conditions, we

could probably continue to attract the support of the U.S. public and our

allies for our present foreign policy, and continue to deter the USSR

from more aggressive actions only by making clear that the United States

was able to wage general war without initiating the use of nuclear

weapons for strategic purposes." Accordingly, as NSC 5422 put the proposal, the United States should maintain maximum strategic nuclear

capabilities and increase its capability and that of its allies "to wage war

effectively without strategic use of nuclear weapons." The opposition to

this view, following the ]CS line, simply rejected State's proposal as

riskier than the existing strategy, arguing that deterrence of general war

depended on maintaining a qualitative edge over the Soviets and making clear American determination to meet an attack with all available

weapons. If deterrence failed, general war would almost certainly involve

unrestricted use of nuclear weapons. McNeil's office pointed out the

cost implications of State's proposal, which NSC 5422 ignored. The
274 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

additional resources required to build up the needed conventional force

capability would involve total government control of the economy leading eventually to a garrison state. 56

A third major issue over general war concerned the additional

measures and costs entailed in addressing the threat. One side held

that greater efforts than planned would be required to accumulate war

reserves and broaden the mobilization base sufficiently to support allied

and U.S. forces in a general war. Facing an expected decline in mobilization potential through FY 1956 under current procurement and

production policies, NSC 5422 listed a formidable array of measures

needed to prepare and strengthen the mobilization base for its wartime

mission, including relocation of key industrial plants to safe areas,

amassing larger reserves of critical items, prewar procurement of longlead-time tools and certain materials, sustaining or increasing mobilization

capacity, etc. The initiative for this "do something" push came from the

Office of Defense Management (ODM). In OSD Bonesteel, with strong

support from Hensel, was the point man against the ODM view. Garlock,

speaking for McNeil, was more noncommittal, noting that logistic support

of allied forces in wartime was still an unresolved issue, and that current

military aid programs called for a 90-day reserve of ammunition and spare

parts. The "stand-patters" on this issue of preparation for general war, and

indeed in the overall guidelines debate, were the Joint Chiefs, who took

the position that the "present and planned implementation of programs"

directed under NSC 162/2 would adequately solve all problems. 57

With the FY 1956 budget still in embryo, Budget Director Hughes's

"fiscal and budgetary" section in NSC 5422 merely repeated his late May

projection of receipts and expenditures for FY 1956 and FY 1957 and the

indicated deficits for those years, assuming national security spending

continued at FY 1955 levels. DoD officials did not appear to anticipate a

need, in dealing with the twin threat of Communist creeping expansion

and growing Soviet nuclear capabilities, for major additional expenditures

in FY 1956. Indeed, Bonesteel's briefing paper for Wilson noted, as one of

the issues for the forthcoming NSC meeting, the question whether the

threat as portrayed would justify any increase in spending. For a document that breathed doom and disaster on almost every page, NSC 5422

showed a remarkable absence of the American tendency to throw money

at the problem. Other remedies seemed to be called for. 58

Even in contemplating the enormous destructiveness of general

nuclear war, planners seemed at a loss on how to prepare for it, beyond

the taken-for-granted budgeting for massive retaliation. The only available

calculated requirements for a general war derived from a 1950 war plan,

and no systematic effort had been made to estimate the damage that
The FY 1956 Budget: Pressures to Expand 275

might be inflicted on the mobilization base by a Soviet nuclear attack.

"It seems to be generally agreed," stated the ODM feeder study, "that damage

of more than a substantial character can now be counted on throughout

the entire period under consideration. Present intelligence would seem to

justify provisions in the mobilization base ... for adding to the protection

and for reducing the vulnerability and increasing the capacity of the

mobilization base to recuperate."59

To a startling degree, contributors to NSC 5422 differed in their

assumptions regarding the use of nuclear and conventional forces in a

general war. ODM assumed that the use of strategic nuclear weapons

would be "crippling, but not decisive, so that the recuperative power of

the economy and tenacity of spirit [of the population] will determine the

outcome." The United States and its allies would have sufficient conventional forces, including land armies, to deal with peripheral aggression

without resorting to nuclear weapons and, in the major theater, to hold

Soviet and satellite armies in check until reserves could be brought to

bear in decisive strength. State bucked the tide by seriously examining the

implications of fighting a general war either without nuclear weapons

altogether or with only tactical nuclear weapons, while still holding in

reserve the full panoply of strategic nuclear capabilities. OSD analysts

pointed out that the economic effort needed to build and maintain such

a posture would transform the United States into a totally regimented

society. The Joint Chiefs, while assuming a Soviet nuclear attack followed

by massive American retaliation, alluded only in passing to the damage and

casualties that would result, and otherwise seemed to envisage a large-scale

clash of conventional forces with some use of tactical nuclear weapons

on the Eurasian land mass. Whether this would be the Defense view remained to be seen. OSD staff comment did not challenge the JCS image

.of general war, but McNeil's office noted the possibility that "in a general

war involving the use of nuclear weapons our post D-Day requirements

for conventional weapons may be quite limited.,,60 Budget and Treasury,

by contrast, shared with ODM the image of a "crippling but not decisive"

exchange of nuclear attacks between the two homelands, with ultimate

victory going to the side having more staying and recuperative power. On

the budgetary implications of all this NSC 5422 kept silent.6l

After 10 days of dissection both in the Planning Board and in the

home offices of its members, NSC 5422 received its first working over by

the NSC on 24 June, the day before the opening of formal talks in Washington between the president and Prime Minister Churchill. The council's

discussion left most issues unresolved, and further examination was postponed until 1 July.62 Cutler hoped to wrap up the discussion of NSC 5422

at that time, leaving almost a month to revise the paper for a final
276 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

decision meeting late in July. To precede NSC 5422 on the 1 July agenda,

Cutler had deliberately .scheduled the DoD and other agency progress

reports called for by NSC 5408, the continental defense policy paper

approved in February.63 These reports, discussed by the Planning Board

during the last two weeks of June, made it clear that continental defense

could no longer be viewed as the "back burner" problem that NSC 5408

and the president had suggested it would be. It had to be examined as

an important, perhaps indispensable, element of the larger national security design.
CHAPTER XIII

Continental Defense:

Ambivalence Compounded

Almost from the beginning of the Eisenhower years the New Look

had to take account of continental defense as a major factor in the overall DoD equation. Its importance as an issue in the strategy and budget

debates of 1954-56 waxed and waned in response to analyses of changing circumstances, especially the Soviet nuclear strategic threat, U.S.

technological progress, and budgetary pressures. An unchanging circumstance was the unwillingness of the Joint Chiefs and the military

services in the forums afforded them in DoD and NSC to accord continental defense a priority that would allow it to compete effectively with

other programs that the chiefs valued more highly.

For more than three months after the approval of NSC 5408 in

February 1954 continental defense had not been high on the DoD worry

list. In April and May the chiefs, supported by OSD, engaged in a lively

dispute with the CIA, supported by State, over a CIA proposal to establish a subcommittee of the NSC to assess the net capabilities of the

Soviets "to inflict direct injury" on the United States and its key installations

abroad. The JCS insisted that the proposed subcommittee would encroach

on their exclusive war-planning jurisdiction. After Admiral Radford and

CIA Director Allen Dulles failed to reach agreement, the president early

in June ruled against the JCS, but with stipulations that met some of

the chiefs' objections. The Net Capabilities Evaluation Subcommittee

(NESC), headed by Radford, was promptly established in time to play a

role in the unfolding continental defense crisis. *1

* This original NESC consisted of Radford and CIA Director Dulles. In February 1955, NSC

55 II changed the name to Net Evaluation Subcommittee and added four members.

277
278 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Views ofContinental Defense

That continental defense had, for the moment at least, achieved a

watchful waiting status became evident in the blessing bestowed on

the approved plans and programs by Robert C. Sprague, special consultant

to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Possessing special clearances

and apparently endowed with a sponge-like capacity to soak up and digest

information, he had rapidly achieved recognition as the government's

reigning expert on continental defense. On 25 March Sprague gave the

Senate committee, behind closed doors, a long and reassuring report. He

ran down the list of planned improvements: a technically more advanced

radar net, more fighter-interceptors and more antiaircraft batteries,

eventual conversion from protection of single cities and other targets to

area protection, detection and deterrence of covert introduction of atomic

bombs, more effective civil defense, a surer and better protected industrial base, and assurance of continuity in government. 2 Sprague presented

an especially optimistic analysis of probable "kills" by fighter-interceptors

and antiaircraft guns against attacking bombers. Early in World War II,

he pointed out, the Luftwaffe had broken off its strategic bombing campaign against Britain when its attrition rate reached 10 percent. Now the

immense destructiveness of nuclear weapons made such a rate "entirely

inadequate and unacceptable." Happily, Sprague noted, DoD was already

phasing in a new generation of weapons with very high "single pass

'kill'" capabilities. In the contest between attacking bombers and ground

and air defense, moreover, the high cost of weapons and planes on both

sides had made most small cities and towns not "worth" attacking or

defending. This "privileging" of large urban areas tended to make effective

air defense both possible and affordable. 3

Sprague's report circulated under extraordinary security wraps to a

limited circle of officials under special safeguards. 4 The mostly concrete and

technical recommendations reflected the prosaic character of the report.

The Joint Chiefs found little to disagree with. Of 21 recommendations,

they pronounced almost all either valid or valid with qualifications; they

rejected only two as invalid. 5

By the latter part of May, however, concern over continental defense

was again on the rise. On the 13th the NSC was briefed on two Soviet jet

bombers displayed in the recent May Day air parade. The Joint Chiefs, in

their military posture paper on the 21 st, expressed some doubt as to

the adequacy of current programs for defense against air attack. At its

13 May meeting the NSC decided to invite Sprague to help the Planning

Board review the reports. 6
Continental Defense 279

The picture of continental defense presented in the DoD progress

report in June was strikingly less reassuring than the one Sprague had

given to the Senate committee. Since approval of NSC 5408 in February,

the Joint Chiefs admitted, "progress made to date ... is insufficient either

to prevent, neutralize, or deter the military attacks which the USSR is

capable of launching." By about 1956, the aggregate of these measures

would add up to a "reasonable defense effort" but one still insufficient to

"eliminate the possibility of attacks, which could gravely damage our warmaking capacity." Even this limited capability through the 1956-59 period

would depend on vigorous implementation, vigilant and continuous

modernization, and quantitative increases in weaponry "consistent with

any significant increase in the size or performance of the Soviet longrange air force."7

Looking at the existing state of the system as of 1 June 1954, it appeared from the DoD report that most of its elements were in what

might be called a medium state of readiness. Only 25 out of 63 antiaircraft batteries and 5 out of 64 fighter-interceptor squadrons, for

example, received a "high" rating. Sprague ascertained that as of 11 March

only 68 fighter-interceptors could be airborne in the first five minutes

and only 457 in three hours, somewhat more than a third of the whole current force of 1,219 aircraft. According to the report, the existing system

would give a maximum warning time of only 30 minutes against subsonic

aircraft attacking many of the critical targets, and "tests have shown that

many raids could penetrate the system undetected, particularly at very

low and very high altitudes."8

Prospects for improving warning time depended on several measures.

The existing heavy continental ground radar complex would be supplemented by large numbers of unattended small gap-filler radars for lowaltitude surveillance (down to 500 feet) that eventually would replace the

ground observer corps. The two seacoast radar nets were to be extended

about 300 miles outward, with six naval picket-ship stations off each

coast. Plans also called for seven squadrons of USAF land-based airborne

early warning and control aircraft (AEW&C) and "Texas Towers," heavy

radar stations on platforms built in shoal waters about 100 miles off the

northern Atlantic coast south of Nova Scotia to augment the Air Defense

Command's existing 75 permanent on-shore heavy radar stations. The preceding November the U.S. and Canadian governments had agreed to the

building of a mid-Canadian early warning line roughly along the 55th

parallel and extending northwest into Alaska. U.S.-controlled seaward

extensions of this line ultimately to the Azores and Hawaii would employ

converted destroyer escorts as radar picket ships (DERs)-eventually 36-
280 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

and naval airborne early warning aircraft (AEWs)-eventually 12 squadrons. Still farther over the horizon was a distant early warning line (DEW)

to run from the southern coast of Greenland across northern Canada to

the northern coast of Alaska. 9

Combing through the DoD progress report, presidential assistant

Robert Cutler felt uneasy about the stretched-out character of the whole

program. A listing of projected operational readiness dates of the key elements showed scarcely any before 1957, with some reaching to 1962

and beyond. The two most promising, the mid-Canada and far northern

radar lines, were as yet hardly more than proposals. The seaward radar

extensions from the mid-Canada line were projected to mid-1958 (Atlantic)

and mid-1959 (Pacific). In the all-important aircraft control system, the

report admitted that until the semiautomatic control centers were fully

operational (1960-62), the existing manual system would be unable to

"fully utilize" aircraft currently programmed-such as the F-I02 and the

F-86D. 1

0

On the brighter side, over the next several years improved radars

promised a revolution in the coordination of defense operations during

an attack. The new advanced single-seater F-I02 jet fighter was scheduled

to become operational in 1955-56. Antiaircraft defense made a strong

advance with the Army's surface-to-air Nike I against aircraft flying at

middle and high altitudes (5,000 to 60,000 feet) within ranges of 25 nautical miles; nine of the 150 antiaircraft battalions already had the weapon.

The longer-range NB under development would have an atomic warhead,

as would two new surface-to-air missiles, Talos and Bomarc, all to be

operational by 1959,u Meanwhile, the Air Force GAR-l Falcon air-to-air

guided missile system was coming along on schedule, with 28 operational

squadrons of F-102s and F-89s scheduled to have it by June 1957,12

All this was impressive. But there were, and would continue to be,

gaping holes. Below 5,000 feet attacking aircraft, even if spotted by radar,

were virtually invulnerable. At levels under 1,000 feet no defense was in

sight. Antisubmarine defense, at the moment, seemed reasonably effective;

the weapons under development or being installed could probably destroy existing Soviet submarines before they could get into position to

launch missiles or mine U.S. harbors and coastal waters. The Navy was

putting much money and effort into a pilot network of shore-based,

deep-water Low-Frequency Acquisition and Ranging (LOFAR) stations that

could detect diesel-powered snorkeling subs from 150 to 300 nautical

miles out. But the old problem of locating, neutralizing, or sweeping

mines, conventional or atomic, remained unsolved and no one expected it

to be solved for 10 years or more. No one had found a way other than
Continental Defense 281

by physical search to detect atomic weapons hidden on merchant ships.

And "no defense can yet be foreseen against air or surface launched

supersonic guided missiles."13 The report prompted second thoughts

on Sprague's optimistic remarks about the promise of new "high kill"

weapons in the face of the quantum leap in explosive and damage

power represented by thermonuclear weapons. Here, Cutler said, lay

the major challenge. 14

Sprague's Alarms and Reactions

Even before the DoD report was submitted in June, a new intelligence development caused greatly increased concern about continental

defense. Sometime before the middle of the month Sprague learned that

the Soviets had recently detonated a one-megaton thermonuclear device

containing materials that atmospheric tests identified as capable of producing detonations up to 10 megatons. The recent u.S. Castle tests had

shown that weapons of such yield would greatly increase radioactive fallout. This intelligence, into which Sprague read more serious implications

than most other analysts, wrought a 180-degree turnaround in his perception of the Soviet threat. 15

On 22 June Sprague expounded his views in a meeting with Admiral

Radford and Senators LeverettSaltonstall, Harry F. Byrd, and Styles

Bridges. On 1 July he briefed the NSC. By about mid-1957, and "certainly

before 1959," he predicted, the Soviets would have a "significant stockpile" of 5-to-1O-MT bombs and bombers capable, with in-flight refueling,

of delivering them on the North American continent. The effectiveness of

the massive retaliation strategy would dwindle as both powers entered

the era of nuclear plenty. Time would work against the United States and

for the USSR, because of our greater vulnerability to attack, Soviet possession of the initiative, and the moral insensitivity of the Soviet rulers to

the horrors of nuclear war. Sprague believed the United States had only

three options: (1) to build a defense system "capable of nullifying any

USSR attack," (2) if that was not possible to launch a preemptive attack,

or (3) to "live with the USSR in a state of equilibrium brought about

by mutual fear of atomic attack." He believed continental defense would

have to be restudied, probably resulting in a dramatic speedup of production of more and better defensive weapons. 16

Sprague recommended that the council direct the NESC to estimate

the maximum acceptable damage from an assumed bombing attack

about 1 July 1957. This in turn could be translated into required "kill"
282 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

percentages to be achieved by defending forces, needed force levels and

weapons, and order-of-magnitude cost estimates. Candidly assuming that

the required percentages could be attained only by use of nuclear-tipped

air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles, Sprague suggested that DoD be

directed also to accelerate development of these weapons sufficiently to

assure that they would be operational by the target date. As a stopgap

until these measures were completed, Sprague proposed immediate

acceleration of the early warning, fighter-interceptor, and antiaircraft programs (particularly Nike battalions).17

Could guided missiles be developed and perfected to the required

"kill" capability within the stipulated time? When he came to the NSC

1 July meeting Sprague had no reason to believe that they could; the

DoD progress report had not even suggested the possibility. But during

the meeting the Air Force briefer mentioned that an atomic-tipped airto-air rocket then under development was expected to be operational by

1958, and would have a "kill" probability of two-that is, two kills for a

single "shot" or "pass." For Sprague, this revelation transformed the whole

picture. With that capability, he told the co~ncil, a 95 percent "kill"

probability could be achieved with only half the fighter-interceptors now

programmed in NSC 5408. 18

Sprague recommended to Cutler "in the strongest terms" that development and production of the atomic air-to-air rocket be given the highest

priority, and that a "high percentage" of all fighter-interceptors assigned

to continental air defense be armed with it by 1 January 1957 at the latest.

He urged also a major effort to increase combat readiness to the point

where no less than 75 percent of the fighter-interceptor force could be airborne with two or three hours' warning. These measures, plus accelerated

development of the early warning system and completion of the Navy's

LOFAR system for detecting enemy submarines, would provide by

1 January 1957 "a very high order of defense against assumed Russian

capabilities as of that date."19

As Radford had told the three senators after Sprague's 22 June presentation, the consultant had "painted the picture as black as it could be

painted at this time," knowing that some of his information was "subject

to later and more precise evaluation" and might turn out to be wrong or

exaggerated. Radford also recited the familiar JCS doctrine that national

security was a seamless web in which continental defense was only a

part. As for accelerating continental defense, money was not a bottleneck;

rather progress in many areas depended on the pace of technological

developments and provision of trained manpower. Sprague apparently

now believed a seriously damaging attack on the continental United

States during 1957-59 might come early rather than late in the period.
Continental Defense 283

What it all meant, Radford held, was precisely the kind of question the

new NESC had been set up to examine. Its first report was due in November. Even accelerating all the programs would not resolve the problem

of devising adequate defenses against any nuclear bombing attack. 20

At the 1 July meeting of the council Sprague delivered a brief but

grim presentation. He was quizzed about the relative effects of groundlevel and air bursts and the fallout from them. Vice President Nixon asked

whether the Soviets were expected to have ICBMs by 1960. Assistant

Secretary of Defense for Research and Development Donald Quarles stated

that the CIA was studying the question and hoped to have an answer

by autumn but there was no known defense against them. The president

said little, remarking that Sprague's report on the spread of fallout after

a 10-megaton ground-level burst-3,200 square miles-would appear to

invalidate major reliance on evacuation and dispersal, favored by the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) because of the high cost and

doubtful efficacy of shelters. 21

Forewarned of Sprague's strong advocacy for accelerating the major

continental defense programs, Wilson lined up solidly with Secretary

Humphrey in opposition. Not even another $5 billion would buy the 95

percent "kill" rate needed against Soviet bombers. Dulles retorted that it

was plain that it was not possible to "meet this mounting peril and at

the same time balance the budget"; spending for a big, conventional

arms buildup would not be cheap either. The president listened and said

nothing. The council approved Sprague's recommendation for a study

by the NESC on "maximum damage," to be incorporated in its report due

on 1 November. It referred all other recommendations to DoD for early

study and comment by 19 July.22

Two weeks later it became apparent that the Air Force briefer at the

council meeting had promised too much too soon. Quarles, directed to collaborate with the Joint Chiefs in preparing DoD comments on Sprague's

recommendations, reported separately on 16 July on the status of the

atomic-tipped air-to"air rocket. Work on the atomic warhead was proceeding satisfactorily, but the all-important date of operational availability of

the rocket was still unpredictable. 23

The JCS reported on the same day. Their cautious comments on

Sprague's recommendations reflected a judicious balance between normal

avoidance of criticism of an individual known to enjoy favor in high places

and their longstanding fear of being stampeded into a crash continental

defense effort. They pronounced Sprague's recommendations "generally

valid and with certain qualifications feasible"; many of the programs

could be accelerated but would probably require more money, manpower,

and production capacity. A detailed feasibility study would be delayed
284 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

but could be included in the next progress report in December. They

tried hard to show that acceleration of some of the programs, notably the

five that had been slated for implementation "with all practicable speed,"

would "not necessarily" run counter to existing policy. The five programs

mentioned were the mid-Canada early warning line, the two sets of seaward extensions, fighter-interceptors, and antiaircraft forces. The first

DoD progress report in June showed mixed results in the progress of

programs. The chiefs recommended that Sprague's favored proposals

"should be accelerated whenever such acceleration is determined to be

feasible and operationally desirable by the Department of Defense." They

had no trouble with Sprague's recommended incremental readiness speedup of fighter-interceptors and approved in principle his recommendation concerning the air-to-air rocket, agreeing that it should be given a

high priority-but not the "highest."24

When the JCS paper carrying Wilson's seal of approval reached the

Planning Board on 19 July, it provoked an outraged reaction from the

ODM member, William Y. Elliott. While the chiefs professed to agree with

Sprague's recommendations, he charged they were clearly "not prepared

at this time to anticipate additional expenditures" for continental defense.

Elliott believed that the two early warning lines should be made operational

much earlier than now planned-by 1 January 1956 for the mid-Canada

line, by the end of summer 1956 for the northern Canada (DEW) line. In

Planning Board discussions late in July, members from the State Department and the Civil Defense Administration supported Sprague's acceleration recommendations while military members Bonesteel and Gerhart

went along with the Joint Chiefs' proposals. 25

At the NSC meeting on 29 July Quarles summarized DoD views. Continental defense programs were already moving along at "all practicable

speed," but Defense expected that its December progress report would

include reconsideration of the estimated operational readiness dates

Sprague wanted speeded up. Accelerated construction of the early-warning

lines would, of course, depend on Canadian cooperation. He repeated the

gist of his recent report on the air-to-air rocket, including the uncertain

prospects of meeting a 1957 readiness date. Sprague did not appear unduly

disappointed. Most of the continental defense projects, he pointed out,

would likely be operational by then anyway, and he believed that the

most important ones-particularly the far-north DEW line, the Hawaiian

end of the Pacific seaward extension, and the gap-filler radars-could

with a reasonable effort be brought up to that level without injury to

other military work. He said nothing about earlier operational dates.

During the discussion the president raised the question no one was

prepared to answer: how much would Sprague's accelerations cost?
Continental Defense 285

Quarles said he could only guess-maybe a billion, probably not more,

possibly less. The real difficulty would arise in using additional money

effectively. The president wondered whether, as a practical matter, more

money would really help at this time. Foreign Operations Director Harold

Stassen, risking the president's annoyance, asked why the air-to-air rocket

development should not be put immediately on a crash basis. Because,

Eisenhower retorted, research and development programs moved at their

own pace and could not be pushed. Over the next several months the

question must be intensively studied. He was prepared, he said, to go to

Congress for a supplemental appropriation in January if it could be

demonstrated that the need existed and that this would really improve the

nation's defenses. Meanwhile, he told Wilson, DoD should seek an answer

to the question: is acceleration necessary and would it be effective?26

When the Planning Board's revised gUidelines paper (5422/1) appeared

on 26 July it contained only two paragraphs pertinent to continental

defense, one on maintenance and protection of retaliatory forces and the

other on acceleration of continental defense projects. The former was no

longer an issue, the president having decided on 24 June in favor of the

words "take all practicable measures" instead of "take whatever measures

are necessary." The second provision was, however, stronger than the

original, which had said nothing about acceleration. The revised statement supported acceleration but with a qualification suggested by the

chiefs: "The U.S. should accelerate its military and non-military programs

for continental defense set forth in NSC 5408 to the fullest extent deemed

feasible and operationally desirable." ODM and FCDA members wanted

more emphatic, less qualified statements, opposed by Defense and JCS.

When the revised paper tardily came up for discussion on 5 August, the

Planning Board, responding to Sprague's recommendation, also proposed

inserting the phrase "including the air-to-air rocket program."27

The discussion of the disputed paragraph on 5 August probably

reflected a realization that the substantive decision on continental

defense-no acceleration of the "acceleration" already under way pending further development and more study, particularly of costs-had

been made on 29 July. On the other hand, no one, including the president, objected to the assertion, in a guidance paper for budget planners,

that "the U.S. should accelerate" continental defense programs. The president wanted the statement as broad and noncommittal as possible without draining it of all meaning. But again he stressed, as he had a week

earlier, the gravity of the threat-he took Sprague's recommendations

"very seriously," believed the air-to-air rocket should have a very high

priority, and conceded that the continental defense guidance paragraph

might appropriately mention the estimated "time of greatest danger." The
286 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

president thought it unfortunate that the air-to-air rocket had not been

mentioned in NSC 5408, and said it would be appropriate for the council

to recommend, in a separate paper, that it be given a top priority. He also

suggested brief quarterly progress reports to the council on important

continental defense activities. 28

The President's Dilemma

In the final version of the guidelines paper, issued on 7 August as

NSC 5422/2, the paragraph on continental defense contained the basic

statement favored by the Joint Chiefs but qualified by compromise wording proposed by Stassen: "The U.S. should accelerate its military programs

and non-military programs for continental defense as set forth in NSC

5408 to the fullest extent deemed feasible and operationally desirable,

and give to these programs very high priority, having in mind that it is

estimated the Soviets will reach a high capability for strategic nuclear

attacks by July 1957."29 Although it added little to the original, the

president seemed to consider the revised statement a useful formulation. While still undecided and wary as always of "crash" responses, the

president may have been sufficiently alarmed by the accumulating signs

of mounting danger to fear that the measures he now shunned might

later prove unavoidable. To the chiefs, offensive capabilities seemed more

important than continental defense, and they wanted no budgetary competition for them. For the president the problem was more complex.

Accountable to a larger constituency than Defense and JCS, the president,

even if he shared their offensive weapons bias, could not afford to indulge

it beyond a certain point. 30

Continental defense did not fit comfortably into the New Look

scheme of things, with its assumption of a stable postwar world where

change was manageable, the threat of aggression was neutralized by the

counterthreat of nuclear retaliation, and the historic superiority of

American technology guaranteed adequate modernization of American

forces at modest cost. The two nasty Soviet surprises of the past 12

months-detonation of thermonuclear devices and development of two

advanced bombers of intercontinental range-had evoked the specter of

a massive, city-razing surprise attack on the American homeland. For all

his conviction that the New Look offered a sound approach to postwar

national security and that nuclear deterrence offered a useful, perhaps

essential, adjunct to continental defense, Eisenhower never assumed that

the threat of surprise attack could be dealt with solely within the ordered,

economy-oriented framework of the New Look. All his instincts, on the
Continental Defense 287

other hand, warned him that neither could it be buried beneath an

avalanche of budget dollars.

Some months previously, in early 1954, the president apparently

decided on a new approach. At a meeting on 27 March with a selected

group of scientists to discuss the problem of surprise attack, he told

them about recent intelligence findings concerning the new Soviet jet

bombers and directly solicited their advice. As a result, a special task

force headed by James R. Killian, Jr., president of the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, was formed to undertake a comprehensive study

in three main areas: offensive capabilities,continental defense, and intelligence, with supporting studies in communications and technical manpower. Eisenhower gave the undertaking his blessing on 26 July, three

days before the NSC meeting at which the equivocal decision to accelerate continental defense programs was reached. The Killian panel had a

broad mandate to study the country's technological capabilities "to meet

some of its current problems" and report by February 1955.31

The November 1954 Progress Reports and Effects

With Sprague again in the role of analyst and interpreter, the NSC

met on 24 November to consider agency progress reports on continental

defense, detailing developments during the previous five monthsY Both

Sprague and Cutler expressed high praise for the DoD report. According

to Sprague, it appeared that complete contiguous radar coverage would be

provided on the Atlantic coast by July 1956 and on the West Coast a year

later; that the Hawaiian end of the Pacific seaward extensions would

probably be in place by June 1958, a year earlier than previously scheduled; that three more LOFAR stations had been added to the Atlantic

system and a similar line was planned for the Pacific by March 1958; and

that the number of Nike batteries that could engage attacking aircraft

with one hour of warning had increased from 1 to 42 (out of 67 now on

site). In addition, the United States and Canada had reached agreement on

the mid-Canada early warning line and the need for the Distant Early

Warning line, which had a good chance of being operational by June

1957. The new joint Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), establishedeffective 1 September 1954, with the Air Force as designated

executive agent, would exercise operational control over all forces from

all services assigned or available in the event of an air attack. 33

The report that aircraft armed with high-kill atomic air-to-air rockets

might begin to be phased into the interceptor force during 1957 excited

great interest. Warhead development by AEC was not expected to be a
288 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

hindering problem. The F-I02A interceptor had been earmarked as the

carrier, with a capacity for three rockets, thus giving it a multi-pass

capability. 34

The bad news, disturbing and extensive, was that the outlook for an

integrated defense system capable of fending off a massive surprise

nuclear attack in 1957 promised only marginal improvement. This finding

by Sprague grew out of his correlation of the continental defense reports

and related information from other sources with the presentation by

the NESC to the NSC on 4 November concerning Soviet ability to inflict

damage on the United States. In war-gaming a mid-1957 attack, the subcommittee had made certain assumptions as to the state of continental

defenses at the time, specifically that the radars would have sufficient

reach to track enemy bombers above 50,000 feet and that available interceptors would be able to "fight effectively" to altitudes of 60,000 feet.

Such capabilities, Sprague asserted, were not in sight as early as mid1957. B-47s were "regularly overflying our entire radar net without'

detection at altitudes above 40,000 feet." Measures to remedy the deficiency, Sprague noted, were merely under study. As for interceptor

capabilities, the experts did not agree. Against high-altitude attacks the

capabilities were improving, but Sprague remained skeptical, complaining

of "important differences of opinion." Finally, the subcommittee assumed,

and the progress report confirmed, that against low-altitude attack the

system's deficiencies were not correctable by mid-1957. 35 Apparently

the subcommittee's report drove the point further home to Sprague by

making vivid the enormous devastation that would be inflicted by a few

10-megaton bombs. 36

ODM's Elliott, who heard the subcommittee's briefing, also voiced

concern about the impact of a thermonuclear attack on the nation's

mobilization base. What he feared, he informed Arthur Flemming, his

chief, was the crippling of the industrial complex producing key weapons

and materials-guided missiles, bombers, nuclear warheads-needed for

continuing and "finishing off" the war. To anticipate this threat, he proposed the immediate establishment in a heavily protected "citadel" area,

probably in the southwest, of a highly organized and integrated industrial

complex for the production of such weapons, equipped to operate as

much as possible independently of the rest of the industrial baseY

Sprague's presentation on 24 November apparently included a comparative time chart offered as a possible basis for determining national

policy. Some time during 1956 the United States would accumulate sufficient megaton bombs to give it a knockout capability before the Soviets

had built up their home defense adequately to blunt a surprise attack.

This comfortable state of affairs, unhappily, would last only two or three
Continental Defense 289

years, and possibly as early as mid-1957 the Soviets would learn how to

build megaton bombs, thus acquiring their own knockout capability. This

development might be limited, or delayed, if the United States, at the

same time, accelerated the buildup of its continental defenses, providing

assured early warning and the capability of inflicting unacceptable losses

on attacking bombers at all altitudes. Eventually, perhaps within a decade,

both powers would acquire abundant nuclear stockpiles and sophisticated delivery vehicles, ushering in the era of nuclear plenty and what

would later be called "mutual assured destruction."38

The NSC responded with restraint to Sprague's presentation on

24 November, duly noting his analysis, the several progress reports, and

the report of the NESC three weeks earlier. It passed on his first seven

recommendations without comment to DoD for "consideration." Wilson

farmed them out for comment about two-and-a-half weeks later; the

responses trickled in early in February 1955. 39 Sprague's recommendations concerned various measures, some of which he had proposed

earlier and now asked to be reconsidered, i.e., improvement of detection,

interception, and kill capabilities, especially at very high and very low

altitudes, by mid-1957. 40

The service bureaucracies did not fully accept the asserted overriding urgency of the mid-1957 deadline, particularly where the effort to

meet it by crash accelerations of ongoing programs would risk disruptions and technical failures that might delay progress even more. The

Air Force affirmed the need for new fighter-interceptors rather than

expensively-modified existing aircraft. Bureaucrats may well have seen in

Sprague a meddlesome outside "expert" who either had not done his

homework or was not himself fully convinced of the feasibility of his

proposals. Moreover, some sectors of the defense system, most notably the

SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) system, apparently defied

acceleration at this particular junctureY .

The Wedemeyer Committee

But if the service bureaucracies remained resistant to disruptive

accelerations of continental defense work, Sprague's November report and

the NESC's war game had produced a mounting sense of urgency in OSD. 42

The idea that even a blunted thermonuclear attack might be only degrees

less catastrophic than a successful one was not new. Yet the notion that

what had happened to Bikini could also happen to Kansas City or Chicago

seemed not to have sunk deeply into public consciousness. In the

Pentagon, since civil defense-i.e., passive protection and evacuation of
290 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the civil population and maintenance of civil order in wartime-was

not a DoD responsibility, the planning and discussion focused mainly

on defense of military installations (except for the as yet very limited

anti-aircraft defenses provided around a few major cities), above all the

precious SAC and continental defense bases. Widespread devastation of

cities was assumed as an unavoidable consequence of the Soviet capability to penetrate U.S. defenses but was not much discussed in staff papers.

The imperative of halting a Soviet air attack before it reached U.S.

borders may have come from a report submitted to the president late in

January by the Continental Defense Panel of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy. The Wedemeyer Committee, as the panel was

called after its chairman, General Albert C. Wedemeyer (Ret.),* had been

asked to report on "how atomic weapons can best be utilized in the

defense of the Continental United States in the event of an attack," but on

its own initiative had decided to extend the inquiry to the question of

how such an attack could be completely avoided. The opening paragraphs, with their litany of perils, set the tone: disappearance of the U.S.

atomic monopoly and its declining superiority in nuclear weapons; rapid

growth of the Soviet stockpile; improvement "by orders of magnitude" in

bomb yields and efficiency; wide diversification of atomic weapons and

declining dollar cost of inflicting destruction; and emergence of the

threat of radioactive fallout. Very high attrition on an invading air armada

no longer sufficed; a single 10-megaton bomb detonated low over Washington would destroy all structures in an area of over 100 square miles,

damage residences over an area of about 800 square miles, and start fires

in a 300-square-mile area. Radioactive fallout, assuming southwesterly

upper winds, could spread northeast over Baltimore, Philadelphia, and

Trenton in a cigar-shaped pall with maximum width of 30 miles. Personnel

continuously in the open would suffer lethal dosages in an area of 3,000 to

6,000 square miles. Since even the most simple cover during the period of

most intense fallout could dramatically reduce dosage, a major evacuation

of population in this period might actually serve to increase casualties.

The panel expressed the conviction that the people of the United States

were "inadequately informed" and urged an intensive nationwide effort to

remedy this defect. It regarded the continental defense system, existing

and planned, as incapable of stopping a crippling thermonuclear attack.

The overriding national security objective, the panel declared, "must be to

prevent an atomic attack on the United States." The inevitability of such

an attack must not be assumed, and ways must be explored to make it

* The panel consisted of General Wedemeyer, Bernard Brodie, Gordon Dean, William W.

Havens, Frederic DeHoffman, Charles A. Lindbergh, Elwood R. Quesada, and Herbert York.
Continental Defense 291

less likely, including international control of atomic weapons. Ruling out

preventive war as an option that American public opinion would never

sanction, the panel decided that the most promising approach was to make

more credible the threat of retaliation. Retaliation and defense were part

of a seamless web. Sole reliance on air defense would be foolhardy, but

an efficient air defense would also enhance the deterrent and thus help

prevent an attack. Completion of the early warning lines should be accelerated and further extensions studied, even "out to the very political

boundaries of the Soviet orbit."

Mindful of its congressional sponsors, the panel devoted several

paragraphs, laced with "hang the expense" exhortations, to proposals for

weapon-oriented nuclear research. New research avenues should be vigorously explored even if they did not promise instant military dividends.

Such work as nuclear propulsion for aircraft, the Navy's submarine and

large ship reactors, and rocket propulsion systems (non-nuclear) also received endorsement, since they might ultimately serve to increase the size

and flexibility of strategic retaliatory forces. The panel also urged much

more effort on the problem of detecting creeping submarines, which could

pose a major threat to U.S. coastal populations. Further, atomic warheads

should be considered for all missile categories. The panel complained that

it had been denied access to important data on stockpiling and production

of fissionable material that might have enabled it to develop more specific

proposals and to evaluate more intelligently the degree to which atomic

energy could contribute to defense. Another area proposed for study was

suggested by the risk that armed nuclear bombs might explode when

enemy bombers were shot down over American territory-the challenge of

destroying the bombs as well as the bomber. Conversely, should not bombs

carried by U.S. aircraft be armed whenever over enemy territory, so that if

attacked and destroyed they could still do some damage to the enemy?43

The Joint Chiefs read the panel's report with a lack of enthusiasm that

their typically bland and opaque written comments to Secretary Wilson

did little to conceal. They simply ignored the panel's key recommendation,

that prevention of an atomic attack be made an "overriding objective,"

and dismissed most of the others with brief comments to the effect that

they had already been done or would be. The chiefs also expressed mild

annoyance that the panel had failed to note progress already made and had

indiscriminately urged "highest" priority for this or that project without

regard to possible effects on other projects or on the defense budget. They

agreed that the American people needed to be educated about nuclear

weapon effects and the threat of a Soviet attack. But they objected

strongly to the implication that war plans concentrated only on general

war initiated by thermonuclear weapons; it was also imperative to make
292 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

adequate provision for a strong mobilization base to support subsequent

operations as well as for limited war capabilities over the long haul.

Recognizing the imprudence of counting on winning a general war by

an initial knockout blow, the best course would be "to assure that the

damage suffered by the enemy will be greater than our own."

Concerning the risk of confusion in the communication of key decisions in a surprise attack, the chiefs noted the distinction between

authority to intercept and authority to retaliate: the former was delegated

to commanders in the field, the latter was reserved to the president. They

expressed some reservations on extending early warning lines all the way

to Soviet political boundaries. They cautioned that the atomic warhead

was not suited for all missiles. Although automatically arming bombs

when carried over enemy territory was technically feasible, they preferred

the existing procedure aimed at "assuring that the bomb will not be

detonated except as intended by the airplane commander.,,44

Wilson forwarded the ]CS comments on the Wedemeyer report, with

his concurrence and a few minor additions, to the White House on 28 March.

In effect, the Department of Defense affirmed the chiefs' standpat position against greater acceleration or improvement in continental defense. 45

The No-Hurry Approach

For a while in 1955 it seemed that there might indeed be a strong inclination to beef up continental defense despite the notable lack of support

from the ]CS. This was largely the effect of the Killian Panel report submitted to the president in February, a month after the Wedemeyer report.*

The product of a group of prestigious national scientific leaders, its

recommendations on continental defense evidently made an impression

on Cutler and Flemming when they learned its contents shortly after its

submission. Although it succeeded in focusing high-level attention on

continental defense weaknesses, the report's impact was diminished by

its failure to specify target dates for most of its recommendations on

accelerated improvements.

Thus, DoD and other responsible agencies could endorse all but a

few of the Killian report's recommendations with varying shades of

enthusiasm (e.g., as "valid, feasible and desirable"), assure the NSC that

they were already working on the matters, and seize the opportunity to

state further funding needs. The impact of the Killian report on continental defense proved to be short-lived. By the end of 1955 the general

* For the Killian report, see Chapter XIX.
Continental Defense 293

sense of urgency it had aroused had already waned perceptibly; most of

what remained had come to focus on a few salient areas such as the

long-range ballistic missile programs and the vulnerability of SAC. Attention turned to more routine tasks, notably the long-deferred revision of

NSC 5408, the continental defense policy paper, pending which the president cancelled the scheduled mid-December 1955 agency progress

reports on continental defense. 46

The administration's response to the threat of growing Soviet airnuclear power in 1955 had stopped well short of the call to arms that many

true believers in airpower felt it warranted. Acceleration and expansion of

long-range ballistic missile programs, the most dramatic and far-reaching

measure undertaken, seemed the action most appropriate to the dimensions of the threat. To deal with the more immediate menace of the new

Soviet intercontinental bombers and advanced interceptors the Pentagon,

after insistent congressional prodding, offered only modest and grudging increases in production of corresponding types of U.S. aircraft and

implementation of continental defense measures still on the "accelerated"

schedule adopted the preceding autumn. The thrust of the response overall

was to expand the retaliatory element of U.S. airpower-bombers and

ballistic missiles-the one consistently favored by the Air Force and most

of the Joint Chiefs. Defensive systems had to take second place. Continental defense, then, still remained at the bottom of the combat airpower

totem pole. Like other airpower programs, its projected costs were rising

dramatically-from $3.7 billion in FY 1956 to $4.9 billion in FY 1957-

an even greater increase than in the year beforeY

A symptom of the "no hurry" thinking in continental defense matters

became evident in the Air Force decision in January 1956 to abandon the

accelerated delivery of computers for SAGE, the semiautomatic system of

electronic coordination and control intended to tie together all elements

of the continental defense system, enabling it to function as an integrated whole. This, one of OSD Comptroller McNeil's aides reported, would

delay the SAGE operational date almost three years (from November 1960

to about August 1963). Meanwhile, with the elements of continental

defense (warning, detection, and interception) dependent on manual coordination, the whole system could be overwhelmed by a saturation attack.

Nevertheless, Secretary Wilson decided to let this issue ride and include

it in the next progress report to the NSC, scheduled for June 1956. 48

Seaward extension of the recently approved DEW line across northern Canada fared better in the "no-hurry" environment than did the SAGE

system. These extensions into the Atlantic and Pacific were of particular

concern because flank attacks from the south could be lethal to vulnerable SAC bases. By the spring of 1956 the JCS had made significant decisions
294 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

to create means to counter this threat; both Atlantic and Pacific extensions

had gained fresh urgency from the Killian panel's recommendations. 49

From the beginning, the Navy and Air Force had disagreed on the location of the extensions in the Atlantic (the Army joined the controversy

only later in 1955, generally siding with the Air Force). The Navy proposed

a line in the far northern Atlantic from Greenland to the United Kingdom,

where it could link with European defense systems. The Air Force wanted

a longer, admittedly more expensive one extending to the Azores, but in

January 1956 General Twining in essence accepted the Navy's version of

the DEW line's Atlantic extension, with a supplementary "action line" to

cover the long Greenland-Azores span. As finally approved by the JCS on

31 January and the Canadian Joint Chiefs on 17 April, the Atlantic extensions would consist of five radar sites across Greenland, one more on

Iceland, and another in the Faroes. Radar picket ships and AEW aircraft

would provide supplementary coverage of the water gaps between

Greenland and Scotland. For the Pacific, in March 1956 Wilson approved

the extension of the DEW line along the Adak-Midway axis. 50

Little Progress

Meanwhile, the Planning Board, pursuant to the NSC's approval on

4 August 1955 of the Killian recommendations, had begun revision of

NSC 5408. At the end of October a subcommittee of the board undertook

the taskY The Armed Forces Policy Council believed that the revised

paper should concentrate on "basic policy and priorities" without going

into the detailed military aspects of continental defense, which might

rather be incorporated in the basic national security paper. The subcommittee quickly churned out eight fat policy drafts. The eighth, submitted

to the Planning Board on 17 February 1956 and circulated for comment,

promptly ran into trouble. The drafters had indeed confined themselves

to policy, and the DoD contingent had no problem with this approach,

but the other agencies, especially ODM, evidently found the resulting

policy statements too upbeat to be reconciled with the dangerous threat

and U.S. capabilities for dealing with it. 52

The most recent indication of the growing capability of the USSR to

attack the United States by air, the draft stated, was a successful test in

late November 1955 of a "high-yield thermonuclear weapon of advanced

design." Evidently the Soviets could now produce nuclear weapons with

yields ranging from a few kilotons to more than a megaton. Moreover, in

at least two other recent tests, they had used thermonuclear boosting

principles to achieve high yields. This demonstrated capability made it
Continental Defense 295

possible for them to obtain a total yield from fissionable material of

more than 10 times that obtainable theretofore. By mid-1956 they would

probably have nuclear warheads for missiles also. 53

Soviet missile development, according to current intelligence, was

moving briskly ahead, faster than estimated a year before, with surfaceto-air missiles being incorporated into the defenses· of Moscow and other

vital points, and air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles expected to be available within two years. The 5,500"n.m. ICBM was still projected for 1960-61

("probably one operational unit") and it was believed that by then all

Soviet guided missiles could probably be equipped with nuclear warheads. Soviet airpower-numbering perhaps 20,000 aircraft-was expected, if current trends continued, to be able to challenge U.S. and allied

air-nuclear superiority in 1960. The rapidly growing Soviet submarine

force would have more than 350 mostly new undersea craft beginning in

1956, about three-quarters with long-range capability. 54

The draft paper repeated a previous conclusion, that by 1958 the

USSR "almost certainly" would be able to strike a "crippling" blow at the

United States, but that the latter would have an equal or greater capability than the USSR, proVided, of course, that its effective retaliatory power

were maintained and protected.* In January a presentation by the NESC

assessed mutual damage in a hypothetical Soviet surprise attack on the

United States in mid-1958, involving no warning until the attackers reached

the DEW line. In this scenario, the United States "experienced practically

total economic collapse" precluding recovery "to any kind of operative

conditions" in less than 6 to 12 months, complete disintegration of the

federal government requiring regression to local government, and 65

percent casualties requiring medical care with "in most instances no

opportunity whatsoever to get it." U.S. defenses were less of a limitation

on the attackers than the capacity of the Soviet nuclear stockpile. The

assumed U.S. retaliatory strike would inflict about three times as much

damage on the Soviet Union-in effect, total obliteration of its war-making

capacity. A second scenario, assuming a month of strategic warning, involved primary targeting of U.S. air bases rather than population areasbut with no significant difference in the resulting damage. Warning time

had little effect on the outcome: very little could be done to limit damage,

and a preemptive strike was considered infeasible. Over the next five years

the most likely mode of attack would be primarily by manned aircraft.

* "Crippling" was defined as less disabling than "decisive" (resulting in total inability to

continue fighting); it would involve "destruction, disruption and loss of life that ... would

raise serious question as to the ability ... of the U.s. to recover and regain its status as a

great industrial nation for a considerable period of years."
296 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Medium-range missiles might be available by 1958-59 for attacks on outlying areas such as Alaska. From 1960-61 on, the probable advent of the

ICBM "would substantially alter the nature of the Soviet threat."55

Against this imposing threat, the report continued, the United States

could array impressive and constantly improving continental defenses.

Unfortunately, "increasing Soviet nuclear and delivery capabilities have

made any relative gain questionable." The early warning system currently

projected would become operational in 1960. In the air defense system, the

vast medium-altitude spectrum (2,000 to 50,000 feet) was now reasonably

well covered, but capabilities for detection and defense against aircraft

above and below it were very limited. As for the not-too-distant menace

of long-range ballistic missiles, detection within minutes was technically

feasible, and defensive weapons were believed to be possible, but none

yet existed or were in prospect.

Against submarine-launched missiles in the Atlantic the Navy looked

to completion in 1957 of its LOFAR system for offshore detection, tracking,

and (possibly) identification of waterborne targets. A similar system was

scheduled for the Pacific in 1958. But the country remained generally

vulnerable to clandestine nuclear attack, biological warfare, and conventional sabotage by a variety of me'ans-use of diplomatic immunity, lowflying light aircraft, merchant ships and small craft. Measures to reduce the

vulnerability of SAC's nuclear retaliatory forces were still under study and

long-term action to disperse its bases was under way. Except for establishment of emergency relocation sites away from Washington, little had

been done to assure continuity of essential government operations or to

protect facilities against nuclear attack.

The real capabilities of the civil defense system, clearly very weak in

most respects, were hard to appraise. Accomplishments over the past

few years included an operational air warning system still deficient in

many respects; planning for evacuation or shelter in many large cities, with

increasing federal support; and a $30 million stockpile of medical supplies

distributed to dispersed storage sites and now being relocated in the light

of the fallout problem and the threat of larger weapons. Despite wide and

urgent publicity, "the average citizen is still not fully aware of the dangers

that he faces or not convinced of the necessity for his participation in

defense measures." Overall, the system appeared "capable of reducing

casualties and damage to a limited but indeterminate degree."

Equally or more depressing was the picture of industrial unreadiness

for a nuclear attack. All manufacturing industry and 54 percent of the

manufacturing work force inhabited 50 large population centers, with

70 percent of the total production capacity for each of several principal

weapon components concentrated in a single target area. A nuclear attack
Continental Defense 297

might destroy so much production capacity that little or no output could

be expected for 6 to 12 months. Much of the nation's transportation

system would be wrecked; many ports would be unusable. Limited steps

had been taken to disperse industry, and active defenses had been concentrated to protect some industrial areas. 56

The Air Staff recommended that this gloomy portrayal be suppressed

for the time being. 57 ODM, perhaps hoping to bypass this argument,

preferred a greatly compressed but trenchant statement of salient weaknesses in terms of current and prospective unreadiness. It also wanted

more emphasis on the lack of planned improvements in key areas, stressing civilian population evacuation and shelter programs, regional civil

defense organizations and regional and local continuity-of-government

command posts, overconcentration of production facilities in several

categories, defenses against clandestine nuclear attack, and the Communist technological threat in generaI.58

New Alarms

The leisurely pace of continental defense planning was disrupted

early in March 1956 by the latest report from Robert Sprague, the NSC

defense consultant. Recent intelligence, he asserted, revealed a new

Soviet capability to deliver a decisive, not merely crippling, surprise air

attack on the United States during 1958. This threat, Sprague believed,

called for a redirection of effort from the cities-and-industry thrust of

continental defense to defense of SAC bases and bombers against obliteration in a saturation attack. The most recent intelligence on the Soviet

nuclear stockpile left "little doubt," he declared, that by 1958 the Russians

could have much more than the 2,OOO-megaton stockpile that the NESC

believed might permit a "decisive" Soviet surprise attack. Sprague proposed

accelerated measures not to strengthen the system as a whole but to preserve SAC's capability to retaliate massively in response to a surprise air

attack in mid-1958. 59

Sprague's bombshell, within the restricted circle aware of it, upset a

lot of people. The president's special assistant, Dillon Anderson (replacing Cutler), promptly sought comments from OSD and the Joint Chiefs. 60

Through their Planning Board adviser, Maj. Gen. Thomas F. Farrell, the

chiefs declared that there was no agreed estimate, particularly for any

future given date, on the extent of the Soviet capability and that Sprague

had "no firm foundation on which to develop conclusions." Farrell stated

that no crash action was justified until all estimates could be checked for

accuracy and appropriate cost and feasibility studies carried out. 61
298 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The president evidently intended to deal with Sprague's report constructively and without delay. His point men were Dillon Anderson in the

White House and ISA Assistant Secretary Gordon Gray in the Pentagon.

On 15 March Gray presented a detailed analysis of Sprague's proposals to

the Planning Board, implying that while awaiting authoritative rulings on

Sprague's interpretation of recent intelligence DoD would proceed with

implementation of his proposals. Relocation of the Pacific early warning

line westward, he reported, was now approved, with a new sea barrier

from Adak in the western Aleutians to Midway in operation by mid-1958,

and a land-based radar line from Adak eastward along the Aleutians and

then north to the western terminus of the continental DEW line at Cape

Lisbourne in northwestern Alaska. In the Atlantic the planned seaward

extension to the Azores was expected to be operational by mid-1957. The

60,OOO-foot altitude detection objective for land-based portions of the

DEW line seemed definitely attainable by mid-1958. For the sea barriers

it seemed technically feasible, although the timing might be affected by the

withdrawal of picket ships for modification. For the radars of the control

system the 60,OOO-foot altitude detection capability also appeared technically feasible, but a number of problems remained to be worked out

relative to the mid-1958 deadline. The big question mark in Gray's briefing concerned Sprague's third proposal-reduction of SAC's reaction time.

Gray stated he had been unable to develop useful comments on it in the

short time available. 62

About two weeks later Dillon Anderson suggested to Gray that the

latter arrange a straight-from-the shoulder Air Force briefing for the Planning Board on SAC's plans for reducing vulnerability. When Gray

subsequently pursued the matter, the Air Force replied that it would be

difficult and inadvisable for SAC to brief the Planning Board on reaction

time alone ahead of a larger Air Force presentation intended for DoD on

1 June. A full-scale briefing could be offered to the Planning Board after

Defense had heard it-say, in July. Gray yielded, and so informed Anderson,

pointing out that it was better if the Planning Board briefing reflected a

fully coordinated and approved DoD point of view rather than the unilateral views of SAC. 63

The Growing Nuclear Threat

On 24 April 1956 the Intelligence Advisory Committee (lAC) handed

down its long-delayed intelligence ruling on the Soviet U-235 stockpile.

Cumulative production for 1956 through 1959 was now possibly larger by

a factor of four than earlier estimates. The report must have disappointed
Continental Defense 299

those who had been hoping for, and to some degree counting on, a

much lower estimate.64 Aware that the intelligence committee had confirmed his assessment of Soviet nuclear capabilities, on 10 May Sprague

presented his latest views to the Planning Board on the three recommendations he had made some months before. Evidently some members

wanted further confirmation. DoD stood pat on its plans for the seaward

extensions of the early warning system and joined BoB in reserving

positions on a majority proposal to assure an operational capability for

the aircraft control and warning network up to 60,000 feet by mid-1958.

Sprague's views were noted and the discussion was carried over to the

next meeting. 65 On 15 May Wilson asked the Joint Chiefs to give him, by

15 June, their analysis of the effect of the new information on DoD

programs, pointing out that "if correct, this new intelligence will invalidate the Timetable set forth in the [Killian report)." The next day the

president directed that the NESC submit a written statement on how

the latest estimates affected its 1955 conclusions regarding Soviet capabilities to damage the United States.*66

The NESC's reply on 31 May came from Admiral Radford, doubling

in brass as chairman of both the Joint Chiefs and the subcommittee.

Recalling the 1955 net evaluation that in essence the Soviets' 1958 nuclear

stockpile and delivery capability would not suffice to knock out the

United States, even though it could inflict damage "on a scale unprecedented in human experience," Radford compared the estimated Soviet

weapons stockpile and available supply of nuclear materials on which

that conclusion was based with the corresponding figures for 1958 in

the new estimate:

Weapons (bombs)

Large-yield

Medium-yield

Small-yield

Materials

U-235

Plutonium

NIE 11-2-55

230

440

570

7,200 kg

4,600 kg

NESC Evaluation

May 56

800

333

412

37,700 kg

In short, with the 37,700 kilograms of U-235 estimated to be available

in 1958, the Soviets could produce about three-and-one-half times as

many large-yield weapons as in the 1955 estimate. Still, Radford was not

yet ready to concede the immediate need for a crash continental defense

buildup competitive with strategic retaliatory power. He did not consider

* See Chapter XIX.
300 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

"the size of the Soviet nuclear stockpile ... the sole criterion of Soviet net

capability." He recommended "that no final conclusions be drawn from

the revised estimate of the size of the Soviet nuclear stockpile pending

the completion of the 1956 Net Evaluation."67

A few days later CIA Director Allen Dulles, also a member of the

NESC, chimed agreement with Radford-incidentally noting that two

members of the Intelligence Advisory Committee had dissented (downward) from the latest U-235 figure for the Soviet stockpile. The Radford

and Dulles reports went to the NSC with other papers for discussion at

the council meeting on 15 June. 68

These two high-level pronouncements, Radford's particularly, set off

alarm bells for aDM's Elliott. Although the council was not likely to reach

final decisions on continental defense at the June meeting, pending the

Air Force's crucial briefing in July on reducing SAC vulnerability, the discussion, Elliott felt, might well amount to a showdown for Sprague's view

of the crisis and the measures he proposed for dealing with it. Elliott

accordingly fired off three lengthy memos to his boss, Arthur Flemming,

detailing the arguments he hoped the latter would use at the meeting.

Elliott made the central point that the growth in offensive capabilities

now authoritatively attributed to the Soviets, when matched against the

most probable readiness dates projected for the various sectors of U.S.

defenses, gave the Soviets a highly probable net capability to execute a

decisive surprise attack before 1958-perhaps late in 1957. In the Planning Board, the JCS and OSD members, unwilling to accept the view of

the intelligence community as definitive, had forced compromise language that had the effect of watering down Soviet nuclear capabilities.

They added a sentence saying that the Soviets might be able to strike a

"crippling" blow at the United States; this was in contrast to "decisive."

Elliott's opposition to the change had little effect, but he urged

Flemming to pursue the issue in the council discussion. He feared that

adoption of Radford's view, expressed in the NESC report of 31 May,

would postpone any response to the new threat until November. Even if

no final conclusions need be drawn at this time, Elliott urged, "working

conclusions must be drawn as to Soviet capabilities for the year 1957 as

well as subsequent years, if we are to accelerate programs authoritatively

and effectively in time to meet the acknowledged change in Soviet capabilities." By the end of 1957 the Soviets were expected to have at least 500

high-ceiling jet bombers in addition to almost as many of their Tu-4

piston bombers for use in second-wave attacks-a potential total of 1,000

usable bombers for delivering nuclear weapons. Moreover, the Soviets

had developed an aerial refueling capability that would allow them by

1958 to end-run the early warning lines, even if extended to the Azores
Continental Defense 301

and Midway, and they had the capability to launch short-range missiles

offshore from their growing fleet of submarines. 69 Elliott concluded that

the peril point to which all vital defense programs should be geared was

early 1958 at a minimum-and at a maximum, six months to a year

earlier. Particularly scornful of budgetary objections, Elliott argued that

acceleration would merely consume funds-an estimated additional $500

million through 1960-earlier than planned. 70

As Elliott had feared, the NSC meeting on 15 June brought a showdown on continental defense. Radford tried hard to play down the

significance of the new intelligence estimate, set forth by Allen Dulles in

his opening "significant world developments" briefing. Radford warned

that council members "should not get the erroneous impression that they

had been listening to undoubted facts." Moreover, it was really old news,

for all planning to date had "assumed that the Soviet Union would have

a multimegaton nuclear capability at some future date." Dulles agreed,

but replied affirmatively when Humphrey asked him whether the new

estimate was more reliable than previous ones; it was supported, he said,

by "much more evidence." Both Vice President Nixon (who presided*) and

Lewis Strauss of the Atomic Energy Commission considered the estimate

to be of "enormous significance," whether the increase proved to be fourfold or only twofold.

Forearmed by Elliott's briefing memos, Flemming forcefully argued

the case for acceleration of continental defense efforts, even though the

issue was not on the day's council agenda. It was pointless, he declared,

to debate whether an attack would be "crippling" or "decisive" when the

lesser of the two could involve casualties of 24 million. The Killian panel

had predicted this threat might materialize as early as 1958; now it seemed

likely to come even earlier, "and might even now be imminent." Soon the

council would have to face the issue of accelerating continental defense

measures; it might turn out that the cost problem was one of timing

rather than of cumulative totals over several years,71

More precisely and in starker terms, Sprague put it that "there was

little that we could do ... to prevent the killing of millions of our people

if the Soviet Union chose to launch an attack. We could, however ...

destroy the USSR if the latter should undertake to attack the United

States." By mid-1958, and possibly sooner, the Soviets would be able to

launch a decisive, rather than merely crippling attack-unless "certain of

our continental defense programs" were promptly accelerated. "The ability

of SAC to retaliate," Sprague insisted (making clear what he had in mind),

* The president had been hospitalized on 7 June by an attack of ileitis, with subsequent surgery.
302 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

"must, above all other things, be made secure," and he urged that this

"vitally important" fact be explicitly enshrined in bothNSC 5606 and

NSC 5602/1, the basic national security policy paper. 72

The Humphrey Factor

Sprague's was not the last word on this subject. Unhappily for him, it

was not Allen Dulles, or Flemming, or even Vice President Nixon who

called the tune, but Secretary Humphrey. Less interested in intelligence

estimates, whose interpretation he was content to leave to the experts,

than in the federal budget and the economy, on which he deferred to no

one except the preSident, Humphrey spoke with the assurance of one

who knew he had the president's ear. He simply rejected as unreal, since

the experts themselves disagreed, the threat to national survival posed by

an all-out Soviet air attack. The real threat, in his view, was national bankruptcy resulting from rising defense costs. The draft policy paper on continental defense, NSC 5606, now before the council, projected estimated

costs starting with $2.9 billion in FY 1955 and rising steeply to $11.5

billion in FY 1960, for an aggregate of just under $40 billion. These

figures Humphrey found "incredible." Piling new or expanded old programs on the budget, said Humphrey, must cease. Consideration of NSC

5606 should await the submission of the annual status reports ordered

by the president. Told that this might not happen until some time in the

fall, Humphrey demanded, why not earlier?73

Every speaker during the discussion of NSC 5606, including Flemming

and Acting Defense Secretary Reuben Robertson, began with a symbolic

bow to Humphrey. Flemming's and Sprague's brief remarks encountered

an audience plainly hostile to their "spend more" implications, and indisposed to debate the issue. Humphrey qUickly turned the discussion back

to the status report question. The council finally agreed to defer action

on NSC 5606 until July, when the preSident could preside and three-year

cost projections might be available.74

Unmentioned in the 15 June discussions was the Air Force's still pending SAC vulnerability study, expected to be the key feature of any response

to the Soviet threat. In point of fact, the RAND Corporation had completed

the study in May and briefed components of OSD in June. Formal presentations to the Armed Forces Policy Council and the NSC awaited Air Force

decisions. RAND's principal finding held that short of gargantuan expenditures there was "no simple solution" to SAC's "many major vulnerabilities." It would not do merely to multiply the numbers of bombers or bases

or interceptors; some 50 specific measures were proposed.75
Continental Defense 303

On 9 August the NSC heard the long-postponed vulnerability report,

which, as the Air Force briefer, Maj. Gen. Richard C. Lindsay, explained,

actually addressed more positively and broadly the goal of increasing

SAC's deterrent capability and strike potential. The core requirement

called for dispersal of SAC's total force by construction of a large number

of additional bases in the interior of the country. To implement a new

war-fighting concept the Air Force also examined a more basic structural

change. Since overseas bases were increasingly vulnerable, instead of

immediate deployment in wartime of all medium-bomber wings overseas

all SAC bomber wings would operate from continental bases, refueling as

necessary. To this end the Air Force was looking into possible development of forward tanker bases in northern Canada and use of additional

civilian airports in the United States and abroad.

Against the ballistic missile threat from offshore submarines the Air

Force was evaluating, not very hopefully, the feasibility of putting a significant portion of the total force on 15-minute alert; the minimum onethird needed to ensure effective retaliation did not appear attainable. For

protection against ballistic missiles, the Air Force now leaned toward use

of shelters. Little had been done, on the other hand, to protect or disperse

SAC's vulnerable weapons stockpile. As of January 1957 over half of the

nuclear weapons would be concentrated on only 13 sites, and 38 of the

45 sites used for weapons storage would be located at SAC bases, ripe

for "bonus" hits on those primary targets. Lindsay concluded his exposition with minimum cost estimates, which, he noted, were not a part of

current budgetary considerations. 76

A supplementary Air Force-Navy briefing showed no effort to meet

the indicated increase in Soviet offensive capabilities-projected readiness dates for key elements of the continental defense system were still

in mid-1958 and later. It seemed that the threat of a Soviet surprise attack

late in 1957 or early 1958, based on the intelligence assessment made in

April, had been swept under the rug. NSC 5606, still an unapproved

draft, remained in the limbo where the council had consigned it in a mood

of revulsion against rising defense costs-and would remain so awaiting

completion of a new integrated continental defense plan by CONAD.77

Nowhere was the mood of pessimism, irritability, and lethargy that

pervaded discussions of continental defense in the summer of 1956 more

evident than in the reaction of the NSC to the unwelcome intruSion of the

almost invisible subject of civil defense. During the council's 15 June discussion of NSC 5606 Flemming made a strong argument for this program

(not an ODM responsibility), declaring it to be "the single most important

proposal in this new policy statement." Yet the administration "had never

come to grips with the problem of civil defense" and less than $100
304 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

million of federal money had been spent on it. The NSC 5606 draft called

for an "improved and strengthened civil defense program," over the dissent of Treasury and BoB. 78

For the centerpiece of its new civil defense program, an ambitious

shelter undertaking beginning in FY 1958, the Federal Civil Defense

Administration projected expenditures through FY 1960 of $2.8 billion,

with total civil defense expenditures for FY 1957 through FY 1960 amounting to $3.7 billion. Facing the prospect of long-range ballistic missile

attacks with only a few minutes of warning, shelters seemed to be the

answer. FCDA, unable up to now to get appropriations for a shelter effort

of any size, felt that while council approval of NSC 5606 in itself would

not guarantee needed funding, it would give a green light for development

of a plan that could then go through the normal budgetary process. Lacking information on which a realistic estimate could be based, FCDA

estimated that the total cost might ultimately reach $20 billion. The

anti-spending mood of the council that Humphrey sustained augured ill

for future consideration of civil defense. As Vice President Nixon grimly

noted, civil defense's only rival for rapidly rising projected costs in the

continental defense category was the whole group of programs concerned

with defense against aircraft and missiles. 79

Civil defense underwent its final NSC scrutiny of the summer in

August, when the whole national security package, and its cost projections,

was reviewed. After Val Peterson, the FCDA administrator, had concluded

his presentation, the president wryly asked whether anyone wanted to

comment, "or whether everyone was scared to death." He went on to call

the shelter problem virtually unsolvable. 80

Looking ahead to the end of FY 1960 the United States would still

have no effective defense against the ICBM: some research and development on detection and tracking, and perhaps an antiballistic missile,· but,

as yet, no operational units. SAC's alert system might have started, but

the goal of getting one-third of the force airborne would still be years

away-perhaps by 1964 or 1965. Overall, except for the SAC aircraft alert

plan and research and development on defense against ballistic missiles,

continental defense efforts through FY 1960 still aimed at defense against

manned aircraft, a necessary focus. Defense against ballistic missiles still

remained little more than a hope. The Air Force and the Army had ongoing research, begun the preceding year, for detection, tracking, and

development of a countermissile, on which thus far (through FY 1956)

they had spent about $13.3 million. To this they planned to add, through

FY 1960, $265.3 million more. 81 But a committee appointed in March,

at Wilson's direction, by ASD(R&D) Clifford C. Furnas and headed by
Continental Defense 305

Hector R. Skifter to study the feasibility of an anti-ICBM missile, submitted

a report on 13 June stating that development of a system to detect

incoming missiles with up to 25 minutes of warning was feasible and

worth attempting, particularly in order to predict the area of impact. Far

more difficult would be the development of an active defensive weapon

that could deactivate or detonate an incoming ICBM or limit significantly

the damage it could cause. The committee concluded, "firmly" but cautiously, that an active defense "short of 100 percent" could be developed,

perhaps within 10 years, and that any crash effort to shorten this time

would almost certainly fail. The group also cast doubt on the economic

viability of the project, and urged careful evaluation of the advisability of

doing it at all. 82

As for manned bombers, the need for effective defenses would remain

for years to come, while the race intensified to deploy long-range missiles

and to develop an effective defense against them. Facing this grim prospect, and an administration more than ever resistant to increased defense

spending, it was understandable, if certainly open to criticism, that the Air

Force and OSD should reject crash diversionary projects and choose to

put their money on strengthening and protecting the retaliatory forces

for the long haul, counting on the unlikelihood that the Soviets, under

the threat of annihilating retaliation, would launch an attack as early as

late 1957 or early 1958 that might or might not prove decisive. Sprague

and Elliott agreed with DoD on the imperative need to strengthen and

protect the retaliatory power-but they wanted an accelerated schedule

that would make the gamble less dangerous. Evidently DoD leaders preferred to gamble rather than confront the president with a "take-it-orleave-it" demand for the additional funds that acceleration would cost.

McNeil, less disturbed by the immediate than by the more distant

prospect, noted that through 1960 about three-quarters of the cost of

continental defense would have gone for weapon systems and their control. Warning systems accounted for less than 15 percent of the total,

reduction of SAC vulnerability and reaction time only about 8 percent.

The disproportion, McNeil thought, suggested the possibility of misplaced

emphasis. If, no matter how much was spent on air defense weapons,

a sufficient number of attacking enemy aircraft could get through to

severely damage the United States, it might be better to develop a truly

effective tactical warning system and to reduce the vulnerability and

reaction time of SAC to a point where it had an assured capability to retaliate. As a corollary, the size of the SAC bomber force might be reduced as

its vulnerability decreased and its readiness increased-for example, by

reducing the size of bomber wings from 45 to 30 aircraft (their original
306 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

size). If one-halfof the reduced force were put on alert, the equivalent of

a one-third alert status in the present force would be achieved. 83

Only somewhat more fanciful than this line of speculation would

have been the effect of injecting the FCDA's $13 billion shelter proposal

into the equation. Civil defense would then account for almost one-third

of the cumulative continental defense cost through FY 1960, instead of

only 1 percent by McNeil's calculation. Warning systems would drop to

11 percent, reduction of SAC vulnerability to 3.5 percent, weapons and

weapons control to 46 percent. McNeil might well have stuck to his proposed shift of emphasis to improve warning systems, which could

conceivably save several million civilian lives, thus permitting more

modest shelter construction as well as some cutbacks in defensive

weaponry. More than a year later, in the wake of the Gaither report,* and

with Humphrey having departed from office, such ideas would command

serious attention.

Overall, continental defense represented a strategy of reaction, based

on technologies whose successful completion in this period seemed

distant and uncertain. Even were their prospects more clear, they faced

strong competition, both strategic and fiscal, from those who favored

strengthening atomic retaliatory forces on the theory that the best defense

was a good offense. Fiscal restraint, as practiced and preached by Eisenhower and Humphrey, ensured that when hard choices on distribution

of funds had to be made, millions would not be poured into continental defense.

The New Look meant massive retaliation, fiscal responsibility, and

more bang for the buck. That left little for continental defense. Such a

cautious approach seemed sensible also in light of the uncertainty of

the threat. Continental defense policy had a stop-and-go nature about it,

as reactions to the threat of new Russian bombers, the dangers laid out

in the Killian report, and the prospect of greatly increased Soviet nuclear

capability periodically alarmed the president and his cabinet. In the final

event, however, U.S. leaders hesitated over the costs, particularly in light

of the future threat of a nuclear missile attack for which there was no

defense at all in 1956.

* See Watson, Into the Missile Age, 136-41.
CHAPTER XIV

Basic Strategy and the FY 1956

Budget: Decision to Retrench

By the end of July 1954 the draft guidelines paper (NSC 5422) for

carrying out national security policy had gone through two inconclusive

NSC discussions (on 24 June and 1 July)- along with continuing debate

within the agencies concerned. Following its 1 July meeting the NSC

directed the Planning Board to prepare a revised version for final discussion by the council late in the month, taking into account conclusions

reached thus far and impending reviews of continental defense progress

reports submitted in June. The new version, NSC 5422/1, submitted to the

NSC on 26 July, still remained a document riddled with disagreement

marginalia.! Acting Navy Secretary Thomas S. Gates, Jr., thought it lacked

focus, merely noting worsening situations without providing intelligible

guidelines that could be acted upon. Acting Army Secretary John Slezak

charged that it failed to deal adequately with the Soviet "creeping expansion"

threat, which he saw as calling for much larger ground forces than indicated in the paper. 2

The Joint Chiefs shared Gates's low opinion of the paper; they now

perceived the problem as not residing in the guidelines paper itself but

in NSC 162/2, in which, as recently as 22 June, Admiral Radford had found

"nothing basically wrong." It was time, the chiefs thought, for "a complete

revision of NSC 162/2, including a clarification of our world-wide commitments of which NATO and the Far East are of most immediate concern."

Wilson forwarded the JCS comments, with his concurrence, to the NSC. 3

* The 1 July meeting was concerned with continental defense. See Chapter XIII.

307
308 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Wrapping up the Guidelines: The Budgetary Impact

Cutler led the council on 4 August through a methodical discussion of

NSC 5422/1, noting at the outset the Planning Board's recommendation

that it be approved as guidelines under NSC 162/2, Le., without challenging that document's status as the policy bible for national security.

He explained the new paper's most basic guidelines:

protection of nuclear retaliatory forces and acceleration of

continental defense programs;

coping with "brush fire" aggressions: main reliance on

American-supported indigenous forces aided as necessary by

mobile u.s. forces;

countering Communist "creeping expansion" and subversion:

cooperative economic growth programs, especially in Asia and

parts of Latin America; political support, covert operations, military assistance; military support for friendly governments against

local Communists, in concert with other nations;

willingness to act unilaterally in strengthening free world

cohesion against Communist expansion, and to be less influenced

by European allies in increasing efforts to check Communist

expansion in Asia, while continuing to build strength and cohesion of Western Europe as major power source;

readiness to increase certain military and mobilization programs,

regardless of NSC 162/2, if necessary to meet anticipated increases in Soviet capabilities.

A proposed State Department statement on the desirability of exploring

the admittedly remote possibility of making safe and enforceable arms

limitation arrangements with the Soviet Union was also included. 4

Several splits reflected the Planning Board's continuing difficulty in

reaching consensus on prickly issues, including acceleration of the continental defense program. On the use of nuclear weapons in general war,

the revised paper stated that the United States would employ "all available weapons and [an addition favored by OSD and the JCS] should

continue to make clear its determination to do so." Make clear to whom?

asked the president. Secretary Dulles suggested omission of the last part

of the statement. Then Wilson reported the Army's advocacy of a dual capability to wage general war with either or both nuclear and conventional

weapons. Humphrey asked whether the United States was in fact seeking
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 309

such a capability. This triggered an exasperated outburst from the president, who expressed astonishment that no one seemed to take seriously

his repeated statements over the past 18 months that atomic weapons

would be used in a general war from the opening day. The council agreed

to omit the offending clause, leaving only "planning should be on the

assumption that, if general war should occur, the United States will wage

it with all available weapons."5

The paragraphs on local aggression also drew some dissent. Dulles

and Wilson both objected to the implication that American as well as indigenous forces might have to be committed. Wilson wanted to eliminate

the whole paragraph since local aggressions would have to be dealt with

on their individual merits anyway. The president agreed in part with the

paragraph, but he saw this as a limited obligation; the United States could

not afford to become an armed camp or tie down divisions around the

world. The pertinent sentence was amended to read: "For this purpose the

U.S. should be prepared to assist, with U.S. logistical support and if necessary with mobile U.S. forces, indigenous forces supplemented by available

support from other nations acting under UN or regional commitments.,,6

A long revised paragraph on Communist expansion through non-overt

means such as subversion and indirect aggression characterized the threat

as "immediate and most serious," and proposed specific measures that

placed new emphasis on non-military solutions. The council approved

these provisions with little discussion. 7

In the section on free world cohesion, NSC 5422/1 strengthened

earlier language, stating that the United States "should ... act independently of its major allies when the advantage of achieving U.S. objectives

by such action clearly outweighs the danger of lasting damage to its

alliances." The paragraph concluded with a warning that the United

States should not be inhibited from taking action, including use of nuclear

weapons, when clearly necessary to its security or to prevent Communist

territorial gains. Dulles, who had opposed DoD and the Joint Chiefs on this

issue in June, acquiesced in this new formulation, but he declared firmly

that the allies would not resort to general war to stop indirect aggression. 8

Another paragraph in the same section, urging a major effort to

block Communist expansion in Asia, contained a provision sponsored by

DoD: " ... and eventually to contract Communist-controlled areas and

power." This evocation of the ghost of "liberation," little heard of since

being laid to rest by the Solarium study more than a year earlier, prompted Stassen to point out that it was the only such provision in the paper.

Dulles thought the provision should be deleted, but the president suggested instead a new version that appeared as paragraph 20 in the paper:
310 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

"Although the time for a significant rollback of Soviet power may appear

to be in the future, the U.S. should be prepared, by feasible current actions

or future planning, to take advantage of any earlier opportunity to contract Communist-controlled areas and power."9

Foreign aid, the paper stated, might be provided selectively where it

could be used effectively-possibly even on a larger scale than existing

programs in the particular country targeted, but, at the same time, the

total level of economic aid worldwide must be progressively reduced.

Finally, the paper favored continued military assistance, including defense

(budgetary) support, in the light of increasing U.S. dependence on foreign forces. 10

Back in June 1954, uncertainties regarding federal tax receipts, the

economic outlook, and levels of defense and non-defense spending had

rendered the fiscal and budgetary section of NSC 5422 virtually irrelevant

to the paper's other content. The uncertainties remained. BoB projected

expenditures for non-defense programs slightly higher than before,

especially in FY 1957. For the NSC programs, however, instead of projecting expenditures at FY 1955 levels, Budget Director Hughes had assumed

continued reductions at rates indicated by current expenditure trends.

This assumption resulted in much lower security spending estimates for

FY 1956 and FY 1957, bringing the earlier estimated deficit for FY 1956

down to $2.2 billion, and the $5.9 billion deficit for FY 1957 down to $700

million. Taking note of the pressures to further reduce individual income

and corporate taxes, Hughes more realistically projected deficits of $5.1

billion and $5.4 billion, respectively, for FY 1956 and FY 1957.0

Concerned about the possibility of deficit spending, Hughes, through

his representative on the Planning Board, had secured the insertion of the

phrase "through revision of priorities" in a paragraph stating that increased expenditures might be required to meet anticipated increases in

Soviet capabilities. Wilson wanted the whole paragraph deleted: "Defense

should not always be asked to knock out something old in order to get

something new." Hughes's proposed phrase was deleted, and at Cutler's

suggestion the paragraph was revised by adding a statement that "final

determination on all budget requests will be made by the President after

normal budgetary review," which, of course, added nothing to established

procedure. 12

Even more strongly than Humphrey, apparently, Hughes felt that the

overreaction of the defense community to disturbing world developments

was threatening to upset the delicate balance between security and

solvency that he and Humphrey regarded as the supreme goal of the administration. Late in June he had vented his feelings in a long, emotional
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 311

memorandum to the president castigating the Planning Board's initial

draft of NSC 5422 for its "extreme" proposals, which, he warned, would

"require an abrupt reversal of our present fiscal and budgetary policies."

The board, he complained, had overreacted to threats and ignored the

vast defense expenditures and steady growth in military strength over

the past four years. 13

Some particulars in Hughes's memorandum caught the president's

eye and gave him pause. Recalling his own forecast in May of a FY 1956

deficit of $6.8 billion-"the second largest peacetime deficit in our

history" -if security expenditures were projected at their FY 1955 level,

Hughes dwelt on the horrendous effects of piling atop it the "untold

additional billions" now contemplated by the guidelines paper. All hope

of balancing the budget in the administration's first four years would

go glimmering, and the country would be saddled in FY 1956 and FY 1957

with the largest peacetime deficits in its history. 14

The president's general response to this and similar warnings in June

and July could be read in his approval of Hughes's 23 July broadside to

departments and agencies directing a downward turn in the FY 1956

budget from FY 1955 appropriation requests and spending levels, and a

head start on spending and obligation reductions during the latter part of

FY 1955. 15 But it was a qualified response. Eisenhower's most conspicuous

exception, made late in July, suspended for budget planning purposes the

big cuts in uniformed personnel planned for FY 1956 and FY 1957. About

the same time he exempted production of atomic weapons, civil defense,

and measures to maintain the mobilization base. 16 Finally, he decided on

29 July to accelerate the principal continental defense programs.

The revised NSC 5422/1-approved on 7 August as NSC 5422/2-offered

hardly a clue as to prospects for spending and saving, since none of its

forecasts and admonitions carried a price tag. Outwardly the paper was

hardly recognizable as the offspring of NSC 5422. But the original policy

lines and emphases remained, along with the uncorrected anomaly of a

guidance paper that purported to provide guidance for implementation

of basic policy while detailing the changed circumstances that had already

made the paper largely obsolete. Still, it was generally assumed to be only

a stopgap pending a complete rewrite of NSC 162/2-a task that would,

in fact, be undertaken within two months. 17

The Mobilization Base: Wilson's About-Face

Meanwhile, NSC 5422/2 itself still needed work, since the entire

section on mobilization had to be redone by ODM, in collaboration with
312 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Defense, FOA, and BoB. The first draft submitted to the Planning Board

on 10 September reflected ODM's concern over the weakening of the

country's mobilization potential under the policy of allowing the industrial base to shrink as defense production dropped to peacetime levels.

Conceding that mobilization potential continued stronger than ever before

in peacetime, the paper argued that declining production of military hard

goods, as projected, would not (except for nuclear components) leave adequate expansible capacity, particularly to produce the newer weapons

that would be needed after D-day to replace obsolete ones. ODM's now

updated estimates indicated that by mid-1957 the shrinking mobilization

base would have an annual delivery capacity of only $15 billion of military

hard goods (compared with actual deliveries of $24 billion in FY 1954), and

an estimated mobilizable capacity in the first year, assuming no damage

from enemy bombing, of only $41 billion (compared with a current firstyear estimate, based on an immediate M-day, of about $55 billion).18

ODM lacked agreed joint estimates of general war requirements to

make its case fully persuasive. The absence of joint estimates resulted

from the inability of the Joint Chiefs, owing to internal differences over

war strategy, to produce a Joint Strategic Operations Plan aSOP) providing

guidance for mobilization and strategy in a general war beginning in mid1957. The draft mobilization paper for NSC 5422/2 skirted this problem

and trailed off inconclusively without recommendations. 19

From this unpromising beginning the Planning Board succeeded by

5 October in producing a revised version clearly split between a DefenseBoB and an ODM position. Using the same array of projections and

estimates, the Defense and BoB members took a "half-full" and the ODM

member a "half-empty" view. ODM held that NSC 5422/2 should recognize

explicitly the probable need for increased expenditures in adjusting to

increases in Soviet net capabilities. Defense and BoB proposed only that

the implementation of NSC 162/2 should be "related" to increases in

Soviet capabilities. Both sides agreed, however, that until requirements of

logistic support for U.S. allies could be determined and then combined

with U.S. joint estimates, it could not be known whether the U.S. mobilization base was adequate in the event of war. 20

DoD's position in this dispute reflected Wilson's familiar preference

for a concentrated mobilization base over a broad one. A few months after

coming to the Pentagon he had told a congressional committee that he

planned no major changes in his predecessors' policy of spreading procurement contracts among numerous firms in order to develop a production

base that could be qUickly expanded in an emergency. On the other hand,

he had made it clear that he intended to rely heavily on large, experienced
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 313

firms (like his own alma mater, General Motors), capable of diversification and therefore of shifting from military to civilian production-e.g.,

from tanks to autos-without wholesale layoffs of workers after completing a defense contract-the so-called "dual purpose" plant. The new

administration, eager to reduce defense spending and anticipating the

approaching end of hostilities in Korea, was beginning to narrow the

mobilization base by squeezing out secondary suppliers converted from

civilian to military production during the Korean War, concentrating output of particular weapon systems in single, efficient producers rather

than several firms, and building up reserve stocks of end items and

critical materials to tide over the early stages of an emergency.21

Immersed for some time in the problems of reorganization and planning, by October 1953 ODM had obtained a commitment from DoD to

provide a list of requirements for the thousand most critical defense

production items needed in an all-out mobilization-an important step

toward development of a comprehensive industrial mobilization plan.

This would inevitably bring to the surface the incompatibility between

Wilson's approach and the broad-base concept.22

Meanwhile, growing concern over the vulnerability of the nation's

population and industrial centers to air attack was forcing mobilization

planners to take heed of the necessity for systematic geographic dispersal.

At the same time, Wilson's economy-oriented policy of concentrating

defense orders in a few large firms was increasingly making the prime

targets of air attack more inviting, while reducing their number. Production

of tanks, trucks, self-propelled guns, jet engines, and other key weapons

and components was cut back and concentrated in single plants, while

alternate producers were closed down and their machinery laid away. In

one such case, Ford's tank plant at Livonia, Michigan, converted to production of automobile transmissions. Army ordnance officers testified that

it would take about a year to retrieve the government-owned tools from

the adjacent warehouse where they were stored, reinstall them, and get

the plant back into production of tanks. 23

In September 1954, as the off-year congressional election campaign

neared its climax, Democratic Sen. Henry M. Jackson of Washington

attacked the concentrated procurement policy for allegedly favoring

General Motors over other auto makers, thus inflicting hardship on the

smaller producers while General Motors enjoyed huge profits and peak

employment. Wilson dismissed the attack as politically motivated, pointing out that most of the contracts in question were initiated by the

Truman administration. As it happened, about this time DoD switched its

tank sole-source procurement from General Motors back to Chrysler on
314 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the basis of a low bid. Jackson, applauding General Motors' fall from

grace, promptly shifted his attack to "the Wilson policy of concentrating

production in the single plant," which, he said, "will not make tank production less vulnerable to enemy attack."24

The apparent standoff between Defense-BoB and ODM over the

Planning Board's 5 October draft was broken when on the 21st the Joint

Chiefs sent Wilson a rewrite of the board's draft, unanimously supporting

the ODM position on all points with unwonted forthrightness. Owing to

deficits, imbalance, obsolescence in end-item reserves, and declining production capacity, U.S. mobilization potential would be weaker in FY 1956.

Until wartime requirements of the allies for American logistic support

could be determined and U.S. requirements updated by early completion

of joint mobilization plans, it could not be accurately known "in what

type and by what quantity of materiel the U.S. mobilization base will [not

"may"] fall short of providing necessary logistic support in the event of

war." Finally, the chiefs agreed that specific measures should be taken to

improve the mobilization base. 25

In OSD the arrival of the JCS response on the 22d caused a stir.

Wilson forwarded the chiefs' views to the NSC on the 25th with a covering note: "This is a very complicated problem and I am not in complete

agreement with the assumptions that were made nor the conclusions

that were drawn from them. A great deal more work will have to be done

on this problem."26

For Wilson, the NSC meeting that discussed the mobilization draft on

the 26th became an ordeal. In his opening briefing Cutler remarked that

the chiefs' position "must have caused some pain to Secretary Wilson, in

view of the fact that in at least three significant instances their views

were closer to those of the ODM than they were to those of the Secretary of Defense." On the defensive, Wilson declared that much more

work needed to be done, "especially within the Joint Chiefs of Staff

organization," to produce a "reasonable" policy; moreover the chiefs disagreed among themselves. Finally the proposed policy was based on

"incorrect military assumptions." His remarks did not sit well with the

president, who retorted that "after all of our bitter experience in two

world wars, he had supposed that we could have reached agreement on

the basic structure of our mobilization policy." But now Wilson was proposing a restudy of the fundamentals. Nevertheless, Wilson "again insisted

that the council should start all over again on its study of mobilization

policy," pointing to the lack of agreement on the requirements (civilian as

well as military), duration, and probable course of a future war. Cost factors, he said, had been insufficiently studied. The president demanded to
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 315

know why it was necessary to "keep recomputing [mobilization] requirements year after year." Wilson, with Flemming's support, insisted they

changed continually and had to be updated.

Most of the discussion centered, at Flemming's suggestion, on specific

measures needed to improve mobilization potential. Flemming made it

clear, answering a query by the president, that acceleration of steps to

disperse important facilities to safer areas or provide more safely located

alternative production sources meant offering tax amortization advantages

not only to businessmen who would build new defense plants in safe areas,

which was the current policy, but also to induce manufacturers to move

existing plants to safer areas. Despite an approving rejoinder from the

president, Humphrey immediately expressed alarm over the revenue loss

this policy might involve. Was Flemming proposing, he demanded, that

we abandon all the defense plants in Detroit and saddle the government

with half the costs of rebuilding them somewhere in West Virginia? Surely,

Flemming argued, this was preferable to having the government itself

build the plants. The president was dubious; perhaps Humphrey's objection could be met by offering tax amortization on a competitive basis.

Wilson noted the special problems posed by the aircraft industry's immobility and the looming problem of the missile industry. It might be wise

to approach the dispersal problem "by pieces" instead of as a whole.

Flemming agreed to this and also to the president's suggestion.

After summarizing the discussion Cutler proposed that the council

adopt the Joint Chiefs' rewrite as the approved input to NSC 5422/2 and

re-examine it on 3 December. Wilson and the president agreed, but

Hughes questioned the opening paragraph of the JCS paper, hitherto

ignored, that contained a no-competition-for-funds proviso. Unqualified

as it was, Hughes thought it a "dangerous invitation to spend money."

The president quickly settled the matter by adding at the end of the paragraph the phrase, "subject to decisions on the budget," and the council

then tentatively adopted the JCS-proposed versionY

Subsequently, Wilson complained that the new mobilization guidelines

needed more work to make them "fully meaningful" in implementation. But

on 23 November ODM took the first step toward implementation with

a mobilization order directing government agencies to harmonize their

current procurement activities with their long-range production requirements in an all-out mobilization. It sanctioned the waiving of economy

considerations in current procurement in the interests of maintaining a

sound mobilization base. This, along with the focus on dispersion in the

new guidelines, pointed directly at the Wilson single-source concentrated

procurement policy. Wilson responded on 7 December with a directive to
316 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the military departments to review current procurement plans for a restricted list of about 1,000 key articles of military hardware comprising

about three-quarters of the dollar procurement of weapon systems-the

so-called DoD Preferential Planning List-in order to integrate them more

closely with mobilization plans. "The implementation of these policies,"

OSD explained, "should keep a maximum number of plants in military production, thereby providing facilities that can be rapidly accelerated to full

capacity on relatively short notice."28 Opportunities for small businesses

would not be affected. Despite the restated emphasis (which he insisted

was nothing new) on geographical dispersal of facilities and multiple

sourcing, Wilson clearly still considered dollar economy the driving criterion in defense procurement, and he did not seem much worried by

the state of the mobilization base. 29 About two weeks later McNeil, in a

published by-line article, reasserted on his boss's behalf the continuityof-policy thesis. 30

As deliveries declined, some defense plants were shutting down or

going on standby, but more were slowing their military output and switching over to civilian goods. This gave increased importance to economic

maintenance of an effective mobilization base over the long haul. Puzzled

reporters, refusing to buy the "no change" party line sounded by DoD

spokesmen, could only surmise that the policy was intended to deny congressional Democrats "a target on which their guns had been trained for

the last several months."31

Cuts and Reclamas: 'L1djusting" the Service Budgets

On 4 October 1954 the services forwarded their proposed FY 1956

budgets to OSD where a team from McNeil's office and BoB, scalpels in

hand, awaited them. 32 Apparently Hughes's exhortations had fallen on

deaf ears. The services were now asking for a whopping $36.6 billion

in new obligational authority, which (even without allowing for OSD's

expenses and other extras) amounted to some $8.3 billion more than

Congress had recently granted for FY 1955. The Air Force claimed the

bulk of the increase, $6 billion more than the $10.9 billion it had received in the final FY 1955 budget. Aggregate projected spending levels

also rose, only the Army registering a slight decline. A BoB staff paper of

15 October, recalling December projections of DoD spending leveling

off in FY 1957 at $33 billion, predicted that if military planning continued on course, expenditure rates $3-to-4 billion higher than that could
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 317

TABLE 8

Service Budget Submissions for FY 1956,4 October 1954

($ million)

Projected Expenditures

FY 1955 FY 1956

Army

Navy

Air Force

Total

Total Defense

New Obligational Authority

FY 1955 FY 1956

7,619.1 8,876.6

9,712.8 10,741.2

10,927.9 16,972.4

28,259.8 36,590.2

28,800.1 37,396.8

10,200

10,500

15,500

36,200

36,769

9,900

10,500

16,300

36,700

37,426

Source: Table in Cong Rec, 83 Cong, 2 sess, 1954, pt 12:15493; DoD FY 1956 Budget

Est, 30 Nov 54,ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Rist.

be expected. The service secretaries made no apologies for these increases;

indeed, all three avowed that the constraints and assumptions imposed

on them had forced them to budget well below the limits of prudence. 33

For seven weeks during October and November the OSD-BoB review

team labored over the service budgets, the main effort going into the

bloated Air Force budget. Despite a 55 percent increase over its FY 1955

NOA, the Air Force described its budget as a "sincere and conscientious

effort" to comply with announced objectives. Aircraft and related procurement called for $6.8 billion (40 percent of the entire requested funding),

more than $6 billion of it for purchase of aircraft. The OSD-BoB review

staff noticed that even after the proposed large funding increase, the Air

Force still anticipated significant shortages in a long list of important

types of aircraft by mid-1957, when the full 137-wing force was supposed

to be in place, and some even larger shortages thereafter. The staff recommended an early review of aircraft requirements for the entire 137-wing

force and a reduction of $882 million in the aircraft and related procurement account, achieved mainly by stretching out procurement programs

into FY 1957 and later. Funding for electronic and communication

equipment proved especially vulnerable to scrutiny owing to its high

content of developmental items optimistically forecast for early production. Overall, the reviewers reduced the Air Force's $17 billion budget

request by 15 percent, to $14.4 billion. 34

McNeil sent the staff analysis to the Air Force on 23 November. Six

days later Secretary of the Air Force Talbott's one-inch-thick reclama, as

bulky as the analysis to which it responded, arrived on his desk. The

original request had been "revised" downward, the secretary reported, to
318 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

$16.8 billion-a trifling $130 million less. The Air Force had, in fact,

yielded nothing of consequence, and in some categories wanted more

than before. Conceding guided missile developmental difficulties and

the probability that Atlas would eventually nudge out its two rivals in

the intercontinental class, the reclama contended that any reductions or

cancellations at this time would be premature. It objected most vehemently to a proposed $800 million cut in the $1.2 billion for military

construction; facilities construction was the Air Force's most serious

problem. The deep cut proposed could wreck the 137-wing program. 35

For the Navy the OSD-BoB review staff proposed a cut proportionately

deeper than for the Air Force-$1.9 billion or 18 percent of the requested

$10.7 billion in NOA-and mostly from procurement and production,

maintenance and operations, and military public works. The deepest procurement cuts occurred in aircraft, support vehicles, ammunition, and

production equipment and facilities. For one program-aircraft procurement-the review staff expressed high praise for its realistic production schedules. The initial $1.6 billion aircraft procurement request wound

up sustaining a two-thirds cut of $1.067 billion. 36

The Marine Corps, less forthcoming, requested $306 million for ammunition, more than double that of the preceding year, reflecting a radical

increase in prescribed combat rates of fire: from 10 to 20 rounds per

weapon per day, for example, for the 30-cal. rifle. The Army, by contrast,

had recently lowered its rate for the same weapon from 6 to 3 rounds.

For other ammunition types, the Marines' rate of fire averaged two to three

times that of the Army. These rates, the review staff quickly determined,

derived from a crude statistical analysis of certain amphibious assault

operations in World War II (mostly Okinawa) and short periods of high

activity in Korea. The staff recommended a modest allowance for training

and provision of newer types of ammunition, while deferring to FY 1957

the funding of reserves over and above the ample stocks already on hand. 37

Less defiant than the Air Force, the Navy Department proposed to

split the difference between the Navy/Marine Corps total estimate and

the proposed cut, asking for restoration of $914 million, thus providing a

total of $9.8 billion. For most budget accounts, however, the Navy's reclama

sought full or almost full restoration, and for R&D a sizeable increase. 38

The Army was the only service with a legitimate claim to have adhered

to the official guidelines by proposing budget totals below the FY 1955

levels. This did not deter the review staff from trimming them by $1.1

billion, more than 12 percent, a smaller cut both absolutely and

percentage-wise than those of the other services. Like theirs, the Army's

military construction request was drastically reduced (by one-half); unlike'
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 319

theirs, the R&D request was also deeply slashed (30 percent). In the main,

however, the review staff dealt gently with the Army's budget, especially

with military personnel funding, cut less than three percent. Ironically,

the estimates of obligation for procurement and production, for which

the Army proposed to rely wholly on unobligated prior-year funds, fared

worst. The $2.25 billion estimate was reduced by $1.3 billion, almost 60

percent, in effect raising the 12 percent cut in requested NOA to a 21.5

percent cut in total NOA.* To the Army it seemed that its capacity to fulfill its mission would be diminished.

Stevens submitted a detailed reclama on 24 November asking for

restoration of all but a few hundred million of his original $8.9 billion

request. Wilson countered by urging him to try to trim another $600

million. Stevens respectfully refused. From FY 1953 through FY 1956, he

pointed out, the Army had reduced its expenditures (actual and planned)

by $6.8 billion, nearly all of the $7.6 billion total reduction in DoD spending for that period. "There comes," he said, "a point in Army retrenchment

beyond which ... we should not gO."39

Thus, by the beginning of December the OSD-BoB team had slashed

service requests for $36.6 billion by more than $5.5 billion, over 15 percent. This was not, of course, the end of the line. All of the services had

promptly struck back with counterproposals. But with only a few days

remaining before the decision deadline it looked as though the final

figures might in fact fall within the $30-32 billion range predicted by

McNeil's staff back in mid-September. The system seemed to be working.

BoB Sounds the Alarm: The Add-on Threat

Budget Director Hughes, kept informed about the budget review,

was not reassured by what he heard. It seemed to the BoB ~taff that the

services were riding high, ignoring guidelines and recklessly expanding

budgets. Ominously; all seemed to anticipate rising, not falling, levels of

spending. 40 In mid-November Hughes informed the president that the

current budgetary projections, assuming continuation of taxes at current

levels, a modest five percent reduction in defense spending, and a world

still tense but without a major war, pointed to a moderate deficit in

FY 1956 of $2.2 billion and, in the year following, only $700 millionin short, what might be called an approach to a balanced budget, perhaps

* This is computed from a total NOA of $11.126 billion, comprised of the $8.876 billion

Army request for NOA and the $2.25 billion from unobligated prior-year funds.
320 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

attainable in the year following. More ominously, however, a variety of

new legislative and military proposals now under discussion, together

with the armed services' unreduced budgetary estimates, could swell

the 1956 and 1957 deficits, respectively, to $9.7 and $13.3 billionY

Hughes's "add-on" estimates were deliberately astronomical, intended

to capture the president's attention and focus it on the dangers of a runaway budget. He concentrated on the merits and reasonableness of an

austere FY 1956 budget continuing the downward trends since 1953

of appropriations, unexpended carryover balances; and expenditures in

order to approach balance in FY 1957. If all possible "add-ons" materialized, the federal expenditure trend would of course soar skyward, from

$64.2 billion in FY 1955 to $75.3 billion in FY 1957. 42

All but a small fraction of Hughes's dreaded "add-ons" related to

national security, including three major programs already under NSC

consideration for possible increase. For these-continental defense, the

defense mobilization base, and military manpower reserves-Hughes

projected possible total costs of $2.7 billion and $4.9 billion, respectively,

in FY 1956 and FY 1957. 43

Developments in October and November 1954 seemed to be moving

in the direction that Hughes feared. The three major programs of

immediate concern to the NSC in this period all reached stages that focused

attention on their probable budgetary impact. In the reserve program, prospectively the largest of the three, ostensibly the question at issue centered

on the kind and size of organization needed to meet military manpower

mobilization demands in a major war, especially during the first six months.

The practical problem, however, was to devise a peacetime reserve system that the country would support as fair and affordable. These might

be irreconcilable aims. On 29 July 1954 the NSC approved a Defense-ODM

"statement of objectives and requirements" for the reserve program (NSC

5420/1). The two agencies proceeded to develop a program that, despite

continued misgivings by the JCS, the president approved on 17 November

as a basis for proposed legislation to be submitted to Congress. 44

The prospective cost of the program had been a disputed point ever

since McNeil's office, in March 1954, had hurriedly priced one recently

submitted study at $7.6 billion in NOA in FY 1955, leveling off at $6

billion after FY 1959. The estimate provoked a prompt challenge from

Assistant Secretary for Manpower Hannah for its inclusion of such large

costs as planes and other heavy equipment that ought properly to be

charged to the mobilization base. 45 The plan was rushed to completion

early in November without detailed costing by the JCS or the services,

and McNeil again had to produce an "order of magnitude" cost estimate.
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 321

Following Hannah's original line of reasoning, he wrote that the plan

"should be concerned largely with the training of personnel" rather than

the equipping of forces, and on 9 November the Armed Forces Policy

Council confirmed this approach. 46 The final cost version included the following refined figures (in billions):

NOA

Expenditures

1956

1.7

1.6

1957

1.8

1.7

1958 1959

1.8 1.9

1.7 1.8

These numbers were smaller than those used by Hughes in his "add-on"

warning to the president on the same day, but the difference probably

mattered little to the president since he was already worried about "addons" and what the Democratic Congress would do to his proposed national

reserve planY

Hughes's fears of a big "add-on" to the budget stemmed most recently

from the decisions reached at the NSC meeting of 26 October 1954 when

a JCS rewrite of the draft mobilization section of NSC 5422/2 received

tentative approval. At the meeting he had protested the proviso the chiefs

had inserted to ensure that any funding for mobilization would not be at

the expense of funding for forces in being. The draft mobilization paper

raised, without answering, two disturbing questions that service planners,

for the most part, had resolutely refused to come to grips with-should

the United States provide the post-D-day materiel needs of its major allies

and should planning for post-D-day industrial mobilization take into

account the damage likely to be inflicted, particularly in the opening

nuclear exchanges? The Joint Chiefs had been asked to examine the first

question, and the upcoming report of the Net Evaluation Subcommittee

(NESC), scheduled for 4 November, was expected to illuminate, if not

answer, the second. 48

Meanwhile, there appeared for the first time to be a prospect of

removing the basic obstacle to coherent mobilization planning-lack of

agreed joint estimates of materiel requirements for general war. On

25 October the Joint Chiefs, unable to resolve the differences that had

held up completion of the Joint Mid-Range War Plan, passed the problem

up to Secretary Wilson. They disagreed, in essence, over the question

whether planning for a general war should assume (in the Army-NavyMarine Corps view) an extended, all-out wartime mobilization of the

nation's resources, human and material, to support massive and prolonged operations by land, sea, and air forces abroad-a replay of World

War II with nuclear weapons added-or (in the Air Force view) either a

"quick and clean" American victory won by strategic airpower or a more

prolonged "broken-backed" conflict following an initial exchange of
322 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

destructive air strikes. The Army-Navy-Marine Corps scenario visualized

the opening nuclear exchange as only a preliminary to major offensive

and defensive operations worldwide. The Air Force expected that the initial

strikes would be so destructive to one side or both as to preclude either

mobilization or military operations comparable to those of World War II.

The paramount aim of prewar planning and preparation, it argued, was

to develop strong combat-ready forces-in-being to meet and counter the

enemy's initial onslaught and to build a mobilization base adequate to

sustain these forces and those that could be quickly mustered in the

early months of the war. To prepare in peacetime for the mobilization

and support of larger forces thereafter (e.g., by stockpiling and broadening the defense production base) would dangerously detract from the

primary effort. 49

Between these two positions Radford took what purported to be a

mediating stance, but for all practical purposes he supported the Air Force

view. The primary aim, he held, should be to develop a mobilization base

capable of supporting the forces that could be generated in the first six

months of a war and their sustained operations thereafter: those needed

"to absorb the initial shock, to deliver our own atomic offensive, and to

form the nucleus for such expanded offensives as may then be plainly

necessary." It could not be assumed, of course, that all-out mobilization

might not subsequently be required, and the services should continue to

plan for this contingency. But they should limit their peacetime requests

for funds to develop forces and the mobilization base to their estimated

needs during the first six months of a war, except for specified exemptions of critical long lead-time items granted by the secretary of defense.

Along with this "D-plus-six" concept, Radford also had recommendations

on the two principal points in contention. He suggested allowance of a

suitable margin of capacity to cover estimated enemy damage to the

production base. He opposed any determination of definitive requirements for aid to allies until after hostilities began, when both the need

and the remaining productive capacity could be assessed. 50

What Radford presented to the secretary on behalf of the chiefs

amounted to both something less and something more than a choice

between two objectively stated opposing positions. The Army-Navy-Marine .

Corps position received short shrift: a single 23-line paragraph, the Air

Force position ran about 60 lines and Radford's views made up the rest

of the five-page memorandum. The three members of the "losing" majority could have had few doubts as to the outcomeY As expected, Wilson

promptly approved Radford's "compromise" on 2 November, noting its

congruence with the Air Force position but calling it "the best foreseeable
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 323

resolution of this problem" and agreeing with Radford's belief that it

would "best satisfy all points of view without prejudice to any." Assuming

a 1 July 1957 identical D-day and M-day, he prescribed as guidance for

service mobilization planning the forces and manpower totals that the

services had stated they could muster from all sources (active and reserve

forces plus new draftees and recruits) during the first six months: 52

Army

Navy

Marine Corps

Air Force

Coast Guard

Total

3,700,000

2,100,000

470,000

1,400,000

170,000

7,840,000

This included a tentative total of 2,900,000 for the Service Callable Reserve.

Evidently Wilson felt uneasy about manpower mobilization on this

scale and at this speed; the manpower total, he remarked, might prove to

be more than the national economy could or would support, along with

the added burden of aid to allies and after allowing for enemy-inflicted

damage. He also noted that DoD would have to make appropriate recommendations to include in the U.S. mobilization base factors concerning

expected damage to the United States and aid to U.S. allies during a general war. 53

Mobilization manpower was not, however, the principal issue. Air

Force planners criticized the mobilization plans developed by the other

services for projecting huge force mobilizations that portended equally

huge deficits of materiel when requirements were matched against

shrunken production capacities. Mobilization on such a scale would dictate prompt and costly peacetime measures to reverse the shrinkage

and begin expanding the production base, while building up stocks of

materials and end-items to sustain the mobiliZing forces until expanding

production could take up the slack. On the other hand, the D+6 month

plan, although cheaper in requirements, would bring new questions of

timing in a stopcand-go mobilization, particularly for the Army. Limiting

the Army's capability to fight a war of survival by holding it to a mobilization base tailored to its D+6 month forces, Secretary Stevens protested

to Wilson, would jeopardize the Army's current active and standby industrial mobilization base. The new plan, he feared, would halt the Army's

force buildup at 22 divisions by D+6 months while full deployment would

require another 12 months and leave no backup forces at home to reinforce units overseas or replace battle losses. Barring a liberal policy by

OSD in granting exceptions for long lead-time equipment for additional
324 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

forces, the Army, Stevens warned, "would be forced to curtail mobilization after D+6 months or modify its deployment schedule," either of which

would threaten the survival of forces engaged with the enemy overseas. 54

The Army apparently could not bring itself to believe that Wilson

had adopted the Air Force concept of a short, cataclysmic war, leaning

heavily on the probability of American victory (even after heavy damage

from a Soviet first strike). Wilson also seemed oblivious to his own planners' unwillingness to face up to the problem of a massive transatlantic

movement of American ground forces a la World War II under enemy air

and submarine attack. The D+6 plan, Stevens told Wilson, "would result in

a series of measures suited neither to a short war nor a long war." He

urged that the Army be allowed to plan for maximum mobilization; in

addition, he requested early guidance on the questions of wartime aid to

allies and provisions in mobilization planning to compensate for damage

from enemy action. 55

For Wilson, any risks inherent in the D+6 plan evidently yielded to

the overriding current advantage of neutraliZing the threat that defense

mobilization planning posed to the FY 1956 budget. This was not, indeed,

immediately apparent. On 5 November 1954 McNeil promptly passed on

to the budget review staff Wilson's recently announced guidance as

pertinent to their current endeavors, and Hughes's "add-on" paper later

that month projected an additional FY 1956 cost of $500 million for

development of the mobilization base, twice that amount in FY 1957, and

an eventual full annual cost of $5 billion. 56

By the end of the month, however, when OSD began to prepare

further guidance to supplement Wilson's 2 November directive, it became

clear that the services could not develop detailed mobilization requirements until completion of the Joint Mid-Range War Plan, which in turn

was awaiting the results of current discussions of NATO strategy. On

1 December, following a presentation to the NSC by Defense and ODM

on the status of the mobilization base through FY 1957, the president

directed preparation of a revised presentation to be based on the new

war plan, when approved, with allowance for estimated bomb damage

and post-D-day aid to allies. On 9 December Wilson directed that the

services compute their mobilization requirements on the basis of the

new war plan, when approved, by 1 August 1955, in time for inclusion

in FY 1957 budget preparations. The president, McNeil told the secretary,

was not likely to get his revised presentation on the mobilization base

before the following October or November. 57 For the FY 1956 budget, at

least, the prewar presentation of a mobilization base had become a backburner matter.
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 325

Hughes's third possible big "add-on" to the mushrooming FY 1956

budget-continental defense-had been advancing during the summer

and fall of 1954 "with all practicable speed." NSC 5422/2, the guidelines

paper approved early in August, stipulated, as guidance for the FY 1956

budget, that continental defense programs should be accelerated under

a very high priority-instead of merely the "increased emphasis" prescribed in NSC 5408, the basic policy document-in light of the seeming

probability that by mid-1957 the Soviets could have a highly developed

capability for strategic nuclear attack. There was no mistaking the rising

temperature of concern resulting from the late spring intelligence on

growing Soviet air and nuclear power and Robert Sprague's presentations

to the NSC in June and July 1954.* The president had left no room for

doubt that he was worried and by approving the new guidance had

served notice that he considered acceleration, even if it meant greatly

increased funding, a serious option. But he was not yet convinced that

this would be necessary or prudent.

Budget builders thus had to decide for themselves what the situation demanded and what the president was likely to approve. Starting

with their usual predisposition to ask for more, not less, the services

interpreted the new guidance to mean that the president had, in effect,

approved a "semi-crash" program, as a disapproving OSD official put it,

"with emphasis upon achieving the maximum degree of readiness by

July 1957." The huge overruns in the budgets submitted by the services

on 4 October were clearly responsive to the pervasive sense of rising peril

evident in the prolonged discussion of new budget guidelines in the late

spring and summer. 58

How much money the services proposed for continental defense

could not be determined since no budgetary continental defense program

as such existed; the various operations involved were funded in appropriations that also served other missions. When pressed for cost figures,

DoD officials responded (reluctantly) with estimates carrying some such

label as "indications of general 'orders of magnitude." That the acceleration called for by NSC 5422/2 had already begun became apparent,

however, in mid-November when the NSC Planning Board received the

continental defense reports detailing developments during the almost

seven months that had elapsed since the last ones. The services' reclamas

against the budget review staff's proposed reductions naturally made the

most of the argument that accelerations had been responsive to NSC guidance and pressure. Apparently, the services suffered little, if any, net loss

'See Chapter XIII.
326 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

from the review staff's changes. Accordingly, the president's budget for

FY 1956, when submitted to Congress in January 1955, contained an

estimated $3.319 billion for continental defense, almost $1 billion more

than its budget predecessor: $938 million for the Army, $399 million for

the Navy, and $1.982 billion for the Air Force. Approval of this increase40 percent above FY 1955 funding levels compared with the 22 percent increase forecast back in February 1954-offered a measure of sorts

of how much more seriously the president now viewed the threat to the

"continental vitals."59

The New Look Back on Track

The FY 1956 DoD budget appeared on the NSC agenda for 3 December. Previously the services' proposed oversized budgets, submitted to

OSD on 4 October, had undergone the prescribed review by the OSDBoB review team, which had reached the final stages of negotiating with

the services the proposed reductions of some $5.5 billion in new obligating authority and $3.3 billion in expenditures. If carried out, these

cuts could bring the DoD budget down to levels compatible with

Hughes's early November model of a lean, low-deficit, attainable federal

budget that would "approach" balance. But this hope was now dimmed

by prospective add-ons under NSC consideration that Hughes had recently called to the president's attention. The most alarming add-on, for

the nation's shrinking mobilization base, by now had receded far enough

over the horizon not to threaten the FY 1956 budget, but others-including the new reserve program (about $1.7 billion), accelerated continental

defense, and a new military pay bill and career incentive proposal (about

$1 billion)-remained to be reckoned with. 60

The 3 December council meeting heard presentations on manpower

and the budget. On the 6th a smaller group at the White House heard a

presentation by Assistant Secretary Burgess on the new reserve proposal

and the military pay bill. The president talked about waste and "padding"

in DoD and of the tendency of the military to pile "program on program"

in the effort to provide for "all possible contingencies." He warned that it

might be necessary to accept "lower relative security" as new threats

appeared on the horizon. 6i

Despite these straws in the wind, apparently no one expected anything dramatic at a final budget meeting on the 8th. On 30 November

Wilson, in a jovial mood, had told the press that he expected FY 1956

expenditures to run about $35 billion and requests for new money
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 327

between $29 billion and $34 billion (the totals for FY 1955 and FY

1954, respectively). At the next week's conference he confirmed $35

billion as the probable spending total, "plus or minus two billion." The

New Look economy drive seemed to have come to a halt, temporarily

at least. 62

Before the meeting on the 8th, the Joint Chiefs met with Wilson to

submit informally a scheme recently drawn up by the Joint Strategic Plans

Committee for an increase in service strengths and force levels by the

end of FY 1957. For the Army it was a follow-on from the plan approved

by the president at the end of September to expand the Army's force

structure from 19 to 24 divisions with no increase in manpower by

upgrading 5 "training" divisions to combat status and assigning the training function to the divisions themselves. The increase in divisions was

illusory, despite some savings in training personnel, since the five training divisions would have to be trained before they could perform useful

missions. Because of needs elsewhere, only 13 divisions remained to meet

the Army's commitment to provide NATO 17 divisions within six months

after war began. 63

To meet its NATO commitment, in November the Army proposed to

the Joint Strategic Plans Committee creation of four more divisions by

the end of FY 1957, involving an increase of 179,000 above the strength

ceiling of 1,173,000 approved in July. In the committee, the Army member won the support of his Navy and Marine Corps colleagues for this

increase while, in return, endorsing the Navy's request for beginning and

end strengths of 698,000 and 740,000 in FY 1957, along with an additionalcarrier. The Air Force member went along with the carrier but

opposed all the personnel increases. The committee as a whole agreed on

the currently approved strengths for the Marine Corps and the Air Force,

and on the Air Force's 137-wing goal. In presenting this plan to Wilson on

the morning of 8 December, the chiefs took no position as a body, while

Ridgway strongly defended the Army's proposal. Wilson, too, decided to

pass; he took the matter with him to the meeting with the president. 64

The meeting in the president's office on 8 December included only

the key individuals concerned with the Defense budget-Cutler and

Sherman Adams, Secretaries Dulles, Humphrey, and Wilson (accompanied

by Deputy Secretary Anderson and Admiral Radford), Hughes, and Council

of Economic Advisors Chairman Arthur Burns. When Wilson mentioned

the JCS split position on strengths and force levels for FY 1957, the president promptly branded the JSPC proposals "unacceptable" and proceeded

to spell out his decisions. In essence, he had decided to go back to the

reduction goals announced in December 1953 and to move up their
328 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

fulfillment from the end of FY 1957 to a full year earlier. At the same

time, some of the cutbacks-and, in the case of the Air Force, a small

increase-were to be carried out before the end of the current fiscal year.

The totals finally decided on, after some discussion, were as follows:

TABLE 9

1954 Personnel Projections

2,815,000

970,000

2,940,000

Approved

8 Dec 54

for 30 Jun 55 for 30 Jun 56

1,100,000 1,000,000

870,000* 650,000

190,000

975,000

Estimated

Actual Strength

31 Oct 54

1,370,285

702,129

221,352

963,500

3,257,266

Approved by president

29 Jul 54 for

budget purposes

(begin & end FY 56)

1,173,000

682,000

215,000

975,000

Total 3,045,000

Army

Navy

Marine Corps

Air Force

* Combined Navy and Marine Corps

Source: See note 6.

The president explained the reasons for his decision. The commitment to reinforce NATO during the first six months of a war, he said,

would be virtually a dead letter in a nuclear conflict; the divisions

simply could not be moved overseas. The "real use for the Army" would

be to "help keep the civilian population in order." More money for

continental defense and technological improvements would mean "we

would have to cut down somewhere." The Army seemed the logical place

to start. It still had a lot of fat, with less than half of its strength in

combat divisions and regimental combat teams; forces in Korea need not

be maintained at full authorized strength. Smaller cuts might be made in

the Navy and Marine Corps, and even some of the Air Force's "cushy"

jobs could be eliminated. 65

The next day Eisenhower announced his decisions to the NSC; it

was time to get the New Look back on track. He emphasized the new

foci of effort: continental defense, advanced technology (mainly missilery), reserve forces available for mobilization in the month following

an attack, pay increases and benefits for servicemen, and a strengthened

mobilization base, especially for protection of critical components. Money

saved by personnel reductions would go for these new priorities, and

the strengthened reserve forces would also offset, to some extent, the

reductions in regular forces. 66
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 329

Over the next two weeks the actions were made public, starting

with the president informing congressional leaders on 13 and 14 December and the press in his news conference on the 15th. On the 20th

Wilson publicly disclosed the specifics of the cut, but not its rationale

except for a comment that the threat of global war seemed to have

diminished-an unfortunate gaffe. The next day Secretary Dulles, just back

from meetings in Paris to report on decisions to incorporate normal use

of tactical atomic weapons into NATO war planning, p'ronounced that

Soviet long-range aims had not changed, and the danger of war had not

diminished. Planned reductions in manpower reflected rather the availability of improved weapons, which promised greater strength with

fewer men. The press played up the personnel cuts, and Democratic politicians vowed to make it an issue in the forthcoming session of Congress.67

It was time to call a halt to debate and ensure that key administration

spokesmen sang in unison-something not to be taken for granted. While

the Army was the only service seriously affected by the new personnel

cuts, the Joint Chiefs and the three service secretaries remained united in

opposition to an impending revision of basic national security policy, spearheaded by State and clearly favored by the president, that they believed

reflected a dangerous underestimation of the threat posed by the growing

military strength of the Soviet Union. Wilson stood with the president, but

he presided over a potentially rebellious department. In the approaching

review of the FY 1956 budget by the Democratic-controlled Congress, the

testimony given by the chiefs and the service secretaries before the appropriations committees might be less than enthusiastic.

On 22 December Wilson and the Joint Chiefs gathered at the White

House, where the president undertook to ensure that the chiefs understood what was expected of them. As usual he emphasized that real

security rested on a sound economy. The nation faced the prospect of

an armed truce of indefinite duration and for the first time in its history

the United States faced the threat of being "knocked out within the first

thirty days of combat." First and foremost, it was essential to deter or

blunt the enemy's initial blow; this meant having an assured capacity

for massive retaliation and effective continental defense. Also, large forces

of trained reserves must be available during the period of early hostilities to help the Army and Marine Corps maintain order-a big job-and

to prepare for eventual deployment overseas. Large-scale early deployments overseas were not in the cards. Third, through the initial period

of hostilities it was imperative to protect the industrial base so that

the United States could "outproduce the rest of the world" and go on to

win the war. 68
330 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The president's succinct statement left much unsaid. Ridgway,

obviously unhappy over the relegation of the Army to a wartime role of

directing traffic, chasing looters, burying dead civilians in mass graves,

training reserves, and similar duties, raised the embarrassing question of

what would happen to the forces already abroad (two divisions in Korea,

five in Europe) cut off from reinforcements and supplies. The president

reminded him that they would have tactical atomic weapons but admitted

that troops and their dependents might be threatened. In the last analysis,

"the first essential is to take care of the threat that endangers our very

existence." A large active Army ready to go on D-day would still have to

wait many months before its deployment could get under way. Reserves

were cheaper, and there would be time to train them. The crucial question, the president concluded, was how expensive a defense establishment

the country was willing to support under a free enterprise system.

The president used the remainder of the short 22 December meeting

to impress on the Joint Chiefs his insistence that they wholeheartedly

support his decision. He mingled admonition and exhortation in roughly

equal measure: The cuts, he said, reflected his own judgment arrived at

after long and careful thought; everyone present was welcome to come to

him and express his own views, but now that the decision had been

made, he was entitled as commander in chief to the loyal support of all

his subordinates-and he expected to get it. Wilson added his own

statement-administration officials testifying before congressional committees should present a positive and confident bearing and make the

most of the real merits of the administration's actions. 69

The unnamed primary target of the president's exhortations was, of

course, Ridgway, who was by now shaping up as the probable star

adversary in the approaching hearings. The accelerated reductions imposed on the Army consistently captured headlines from mid-December

on, as reports of planned implementing measures kept the issue alive;

the reports cited the service having to reduce its draft calls by almost half,

releasing draftees and reserve officers ahead of schedule, and extending

deferment of ROTC graduates from active duty.70

Ridgway had previously formally protested the proposed cuts on

17 December in a letter through channels to the president. Recalling his

similar protest a year earlier, he now stated his opinion that his views

had not been sufficiently considered-perhaps had not even reached the

president. Affirming "profound respect, with no claim to clairvoyance,"

he asserted his "professional military opinion" that the prescribed endstrengths for the Army would make impossible the fulfillment of its commitments in a general war, especially during the critical first six months.
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 331

"Peripheral wars," moreover, posed the further danger of sucking in

forces from the general reserve and thus making them unavailable to

reinforce NATO in the event of escalation to a general war. Stevens

forwarded the memo to Wilson with a short letter expressing his own

"deep concern" over the Army cuts.71 Perhaps influenced by it, the president granted DoD a token restoration of 35,000 in the end-totals for

30 June 1956. Early in January the JCS allocated it as follows: Army

25,000, Navy 7,000, Marine Corps 3,000, resulting in the following revised end-totals: 72

Army

Navy

Marine Corps

Air Force

Total

1,025,000

657,000

193,000

975,000

2,850,000

On New Year's Day 1955 the incoming new Democratic chairman

of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Richard B. Russell of Georgia,

promised a prompt and "thorough" investigation by his committee of

the administration's whole plan for slashing the armed forces. Earlier, his

opposite number in the House, Rep. Carl Vinson, had weighed in with

a similar announcement. Secretary Wilson, he assured reporters, would

be expected to give Congress a "complete briefing and justification."

Both indicated that the views of the Army chief of staff would also be

listened to with great interest. 73

When the proposed DoD budget for FY 1956 incorporating the new

strength reductions went to BoB on 21 December, the total new money

request amounted to $31.377 billion. Eventually, additional proposed legislation raised the amount to $34.360 billion. To the naked eye the dollar

impact of the strength reductions was invisible, but reasonable inferences

could be drawn. The rule of thumb for estimating savings from a reduction in military personnel held that each 100,000 reduction would save

about $500 million annually. In this instance the problem was complicated

by the decision to begin the reduction immediately, in mid-fiscal 1955.

For the Army this meant plunging from its current strength of almost

1,370,000 to 1,100,000 by 30 June 1955, a 20 percent loss in little more

than six months. This would leave only 100,000 of the total reduction

(only 75,000 after the president's second decision) to be spread over the

remaining 12 months. Theoretically the savings that would have come in

FY 1956 from a less "front loaded" reduction program would now accrue

instead in FY 1955. But the acceleration would also bring with it additional costs from turbulence, loss of efficiency, and mass discharges.

Wilson's military assistant, Col. Carey Randall, USMC, warned him that the
332 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Army might have to bring units back from overseas and disband others,

and even temporarily stop the draft in order to reduce the intake. He

advised Wilson to ask the president to allow several months' leeway in

reaching the FY 1955 goal. The less demanding FY 1956 program-75,000

for the Army, 20,000 for the Navy and Marines-may have represented

monetary savings of under $400 million. 74

Thus the president's dramatic and highly publicized decision to put

the New Look personnel reduction program back on an accelerated

course had only a modest impact on the DoD budget for FY 1956. In

the negotiations over proposed cuts, the original service budget requests

were pared almost $4 billion instead of the $5.5 billion proposed by the

review staff. This left $34.36 billion in new obligational authority, but

Wilson proposed to finance $1. 5 billion of it by another levy on the

Army: $700 million from the Army stock fund and $800 million from the

Army's hoarded unobligated procurement funds left over from wartime

appropriations. BoB and the president on 29 December approved these

figures, and the request to Congress (minus later supplementals) came to

a mere $31.377 billion. FY 1956 expenditures were still projected at

$35.75 billion, but Wilson, under pressure from BoB to keep spending

down to $34 billion, promised that he would try, and this became the

official projection. 75

On 4 January 1955, two days before the president's State of the Union

address to the Democratic-controlled Congress appealing for bipartisan

support of his legislative program, the New York Times ran a lengthy

review of a three-months-old revision of Army Field Manual FM 100-5,

Field Service Regulations-Operations. The manual expounded the

Army's views on massive retaliation (without mentioning the term), the

needlessly destructive impact of strategic airpower, and political limitations on use of airpower in "little wars." It set forth a doctrine of

limited war. "Indiscriminate destruction," as a policy, was unjustifiable.

Of all the services, the Army could best serve the needs of national policy,

barring only a war deliberately aimed at "ruthless annihilation" of the

enemy. Army forces constituted the "decisive component" of the military

"by virtue of their unique ability to close with and destroy the organized

and irregular forces of an enemy power or coalition of powers; to seize

and control land areas and enemy lines of communication and bases of

production and supply; and to defend those areas essential to the prosecution of a war." Normally, the manual also pointed out, the Army commander exercised overall command in joint, unified operations.
The FY 1956 Budget: Decision to Retrench 333

What made the manual newsworthy was its underscoring of the deepseated institutional contention between the Army and the Air Force over

money, manpower, and their respective roles and missions. The Times

reviewer noted Ridgway's bitter opposition to the impending manpower

cuts but discounted the widespread expectation that he might resign as

a gesture of protest. If summoned to testify before congressional committees, the article predicted, he would "make the best case he can for

maintaining Army current strength, but would accept the decision like

a good soldier."76 Another reporter thought he would "speak his mind,"

proclaim his disapproval~and be fired. Either outcome would make

headlines.
CHAPTER XV

Updating Basic National Security

Policy: NSC 5501 and the Soft Line

With the submission to the president of the FY 1956 Defense budget

in mid-December 1954, NSC 5422/2 had served its main purpose of

providing policy guidance for the budget makers, although its purpose

had never been altogether clear. Some officials tended to think of it as

a simple updated NSC 162/2, the security policy bible, which, many agreed,

had been overtaken in part by the ominous events and portents of the

first half of 1954. Even the most steadfast believers in the usefulness of

NSC 5422/2 as a supplement to a still basically valid NSC 162/2, the Joint

Chiefs (over General Ridgway's dissent) complained as it took form that

it was assuming too much the character of a replacement for that document. On the eve of approval of 5422/2 at the beginning of August 1954

the chiefs finally agreed that NSC 162/2 should be completely rewritten.

This sealed the ultimate fate of NSC 5422/2, but for the next five months

seekers of guidance on national security policy still had to consult first

the basic writ, NSC 162/2, and then the gloss, NSC 5422/2, which might

or might not agree with it, not to mention scattered bits of wisdom in

other documents. To these two papers the Planning Board, on 11 October,

added another, not to be taken as an authoritative restatement-the

"Summary Statement of Existing Basic National Security Policy"-compressing and paraphrasing in 24 pages policy statements from the two

basic documents and other sources for the use of the council and those

engaged in revision of NSC 162/2. 1 Cutler planned that the council would

discuss suggested changes to basic policy on 18 November, in the light of

the Net Capabilities Evaluation Subcommittee's report (then scheduled

for 9 November), ongoing talks on NATO strategy and German rearmament, and other recent developments. The Planning Board would then

334
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 335

draft a new policy statement for the council's final consideration on

9 December. 2 Meanwhile, Secretary Wilson solicited recommendations

for changes from the Joint Chiefs and the service secretaries for discussion by the council on the 18th. 3

DoD's New Hard Line

Most of the issues that had emerged in the production of NSC

5422/2 surfaced again, and the think piece writers seemed to have found

the earlier effort useful in their work. Papers for the revision of NSC

162/2, written mainly in ISA's Policy Planning Staff during October and

November, reflected urgency and a nearly unanimous perception of

impending national peril. 4 General Bonesteel's own contribution-meaningfully titled "The Survival of a Free United States" -may fairly be analyzed

as representative of the intellectual and emotional climate in which the

revision of national security policy was undertaken. 5

Bonesteel announced his bleak and hyperbolic theme at the outset:

The United States, even though at the peak of its power, was "fundamentally insecure for the first time in its history." The nation faced "a peril

more insidious and profound than we have ever before faced" and was

likely soon to become "directly vulnerable to devastating attack." The

"Soviet-Communists intend ultimately to destroy or neutralize the power

and the .free institutions of the United States." The Soviet military threat,

Bonesteel went on, was increasing rapidly, foreshadowing possible achievement of nuclear parity with the United States before 1960, and enormously

enhancing the Soviet potential for nuclear blackmail. Achievement of

either an effective air defense or an intercontinental missile capacity

ahead of the United States would make an attack on the United States a

safe option, enabling the Soviets to use their great preponderance in conventional arms to take control of all Eurasia.

Meanwhile, in Bonesteel's estimation, the Communists' strategy of

creeping expansion through subversion and insurrection was rapidly

eroding the free world position in Asia. America was also losing the propaganda war. The Communists had won successes despite inferior material

resources, partly through subversive propaganda portraying communism

as the wave of the future. The United States and other Western nations

were tarred as status quo powers clinging to riches extorted through

exploitation of the masses. In the free world American strategy was

coming to be regarded as excessively reliant on nuclear weapons and on

military responses to essentially political, economic, or spiritual challenges.
336 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK ,

There existed widespread fear of both superpowers and of the consequences for mankind of a confrontation between them. On the other

hand, the threat of Communist aggression was often taken less seriously

abroad than in the United States, although in Asia the free world had been

unable to resist Communist expansion except by force of arms.

Bonesteel proposed to relax NSC 162/2's budgetary constraints on

defense spending, originally carefully crafted to balance two potentially

incompatible values: meeting the "necessary" costs of national security,

and maintaining a "strong, healthy, and expanding U.S. economy." "Barring

basic change in the world situation," said NSC 162/2, the government

should "make a determined effort" to balance its total annual expenditures with its total annual revenues. But just such a basic change, Bonesteel

protested, was "taking place right now," and Bonesteel was confident the

American people would readily support a higher tax burden if they

understood the need. The need for a new national strategy was crucial,

Bonesteel and his colleagues believed. They were appalled by the absence

in the public and the government of a common perception of the

Communist threat. In the face of the baffling but apparently coordinated

Communist cold war tactics, there must be a common, "genuinely accepted"

understanding of the Communist threat throughout the national security

apparatus, and a new integrated cold war strategy designed to seize the

initiative and win. The strategy should not merely attack the Soviet bloc

directly; it should encompass positive efforts to strengthen the free world.

In every sector of the global conflict the enemy must be harassed, undermined, and kept on the defensive by relentlessly aggressive tactics.

Bonesteel drew up lists of "positive" courses of action, in effect, a revival

of the "rollback" thinking of the early weeks of the administration. 6

The Joint Chiefs, meanwhile, had been developing their own hard

line, foreshadowed in June by their proposal that all negotiations with

the Soviets should be avoided pending a fundamental change in behavior

for the better on their part. On 3 November 1954 they forwarded to

Wilson a terse, four-paragraph manifesto, written by General Ridgway,

opening with the assertion that "the struggle between the Communist and

non-Communist world is now in a critical era and within a period of relatively few years will probably reach a decisive stage." The growing threat of

Communist aggression had caused fear of nuclear war to spread throughout the non-Communist world, with a corollary drift toward neutralism.

The non-Communist world had ample means to deal with this threat,

through "positive and timely dynamic countermeasures," probably without

resort to war, and, if war proved unavoidable, could probably win

"beyond any reasonable doubt." But failing such countermeasures, the
President-elect Dwight D. Ei~nhower at Pentagon with Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett and Chairman of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff Genet21 Omar . Bradley. November 1952.
Above: ecr tary-De ignate Charle E. Wilson (right) at pre conference witb

ecretary of Defense Lovett, 26 0 ember 1952.

Below: ecretary of Defeo e WiJ n with tOp a israots, left to right Wilfred J.

Mc ell Roger M. Kye ,J hn A. Hannah, Frank C. a h February 1953.
Truc~ signing at ,\tunsan. Ko~a.Jul)f 1953. Gcncnl Mark W. Clark. UN command~r

in chief. is sa.ted center.

Chairman of the Joint

Chids of Staff AdminJ

Arthur W. Radford. 1953·57.
General J. Lawton Collins, U.S. Army

chid of staff, 1949-53.

General Manhew B. Ridgway, U.S. Army

chief of staff, 1953-55.

Admiral Robert B. Carney, chief of naval

opera lions, 1953-55.

General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, chief

of staff, U.S. Ajr Force, 1948·53.

At left, Lt. Gen. Lauris Norstad.
Aboue: Secretary Wilson presides as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower

and Personnel John A. Hannah (left) and Assistant Secretary of Defense for

International Security Affairs Frank C. Nash are sworn in by Director of

Administration Ralph N. StOhl.

Below: Secretary Wilson, JCS Chairm:ln Radford, :md Army Chief of Staff Ridgw:ly

meet with French General Paul Ely, March 1954.
Robert 8. Anderson, secretary of Ihe

avy. 1953·54; deputy secrelary of

defense, 19;4-;;.

Charles S. Thomas, secretary of lhe

Navy, 1954-;7.

5ecrelaT}' of Defense Wilson Wilh Secretary of lhe Army Robert T. 51cvens (cenlcr)

during visit to Nike site. April 1955.
bo

Belo

r e 8-6b mb r.

ut of firt 8--2, hington, Mar b 1

-.
Lewis L. Strauss, chairman,

Atomic Energy Commission,

1953·58.

Nike, U.S. Army's first antiaircraft guided missile, on display in France in June 1956.
Abol,~: Aircr.lft curi~r USS Forr~slal running trials JUSt prior to commissioning.

on 29 S<=pt~mlKr 1955.

Belou.': USS Nautilus ~nt~ring ew York harbor.
Chid of Naval Operations Admiral

Arleigh A. Burke, 1955-61.

General Nathan F. Twining, Air Force

chief of staff, 1953-57.

Secretary of the Air Force Donald A, Quarles with figluer pilots.
Air F r fi hrer ir raft.

from top F- 6F, F

corpioo -10.
I.eft IQ rlgl)l: u.s. Army Honest John, Nike, and Corporal.

Rc:p. Gc:orgc: H. Mahon, mc:mlxr or House: Appropriations Commiuc:c: and

cha.irman or Suocommiuc:c: on Department or Derense: Appropriations.

Key senators on defense

matters, clockwise from

lOP teft. Richard 8. Russell,

leverett Saltonstall,

Stu:ut Symington. and

Henf)' "I. Jackson.
Trevor Gardner sworn in

as assislant secretary of

the Air Force (R&D) by

Secretary Harold E. Talbot!,

hlarch 1955.

Secretary of Defense Wilson meels the press.
Clockwise ft"om top:

Defense contractors

as emble boo ter

component for

Thor IRBM; KC-97

refueling of a B-47 in

flight' paratroopers

jumping from an

H-21 helicopter.
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 337

United States might within a few years find itself isolated and facing the

alternatives of either submission to Soviet demands or resisting them

"under conditions not favorable to our success."7

On 12 November the chiefs followed up with an explanation of why

NSC 162/2, while still basically sound, had tended to promote weak and

reactive implementation measures. They called for a security policy "of

unmistakably positive quality," written in a manner calculated not merely

to inform but also to persuade, and reflecting throughout the "greater

urgency of the present situation." Implementation measures could and

should include some that courted the risk of war but without deliberately

provoking it, and the United States must not be required "to defer to the

counsel of the most cautious among our Allies."s

This aggressive line spoke for all the chiefs, and Ridgway signed it as

acting chairman. He attached some "additional thoughts" as an appendix,

in which he rejected two of the cardinal points of NSC 162/2 and the

New Look, which the other chiefs tacitly still accepted. Ridgway argued

that the valid claims of national security should always override financial

considerations and that rather than reliance on retaliatory striking power,

effective deterrence required balanced and flexible armed forces capable

of countering all levels of aggression. Wilson did not forward these separate views of Ridgway's along with the basic ]CS memorandums. 9

A week later, Army Secretary Stevens also lashed out at the New

Look, criticizing the continued reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence despite the approaching nuclear parity between the two superpowers. With the advent of mutual atomic plenty, he argued, the mere

possession of superiority in atomic weapons would become relatively unimportant. American strategy was already becoming incompatible with

allied nations' perception of their own security needs. Owing to the

"inability of any nuclear strategy to assure [their] territorial integrity and

population survival . . . they are being sorely tempted to stake their

chances on surviving as neutrals rather than victors in a [nuclear] war."lO

Ridgway'S and Stevens's renewed attack on the New Look was for

the moment only a side issue in the developing debate over basic national

security policy. Ridgway eVidently had no difficulty in concurring with

his colleagues in their 12 November paper, and they accepted the

inclusion of his "additional thoughts" as an appendix-since the paper

itself did not address the New Look as an issue. The call for a harder line

even at the risk of war was a course that Ridgway could only applaud.

Stevens similarly aligned himself with the other two service secretaries

on 21 November when the Armed Forces Policy Council formally recommended that the 12 November paper, sans appendix, be accepted as the

DoD position in the current policy review. 11
338 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

With the Joint Chiefs, the three service secretaries, and the "little

State Department" in ISA now expounding a common view, Wilson faced

a clearly dominant constituency in his own department backing a fundamental change in national security policy that could conceivably tear apart

the free world coalition, isolate the United States, and bring on a confrontation, possibly even war, with the Soviet Union. Not that it was likely

that the president would ever approve so dangerous a reversal of policy.

What Wilson had to face was the decidedly unwelcome task of having

to defend before the president and the NSC a course of policy and action

that might be regarded, in that conservative forum, as possibly leading to

a near-term military showdown with the Soviet Union.

The Emerging Soft Line: Dulles Takes Charge

By mid-November Wilson must have known what stand the State

Department would take on the NSC 162/2 revision. Secretary Dulles's

"Suggestions," forwarded to the NSC on the 17th, reflected a perspective

of the world situation radically different from that prevailing in DoD. He

recognized, as all did, the growth of Soviet nuclear power, the approach

of nuclear parity, the threat posed by modern weapons to the survival of

civilization, and the risks of a general war with the USSR through miscalculation. But Soviet "soft" tactics since Stalin's death were, in his

estimation, a "major new factor," probably indicative of a change of attitude

on the Soviet side. "The evidence so far does not prove that the USSR has

modified its basic hostility toward the U.S. and the free world. As of now,

however, the USSR appears anxious to avoid general war with the U.S.

and probably will refrain from actions likely to bring on such a war, and

may be seeking an extended period of lower tensions." Even Communist

China, still hostile and bent on ultimately regaining Formosa, would limit

itself mainly to subversion of its neighbors. Reviewing trends in the free

world, Dulles noted as hopeful developments the recent settling of disputes in Egypt, Iran, and Trieste; the Manila Pact and the London-Paris

accords on West German rearmament and admission to NATO; and the

liqUidation of the Communist regime in Guatemala. He conceded adverse

long-term trends in underdeveloped areas and growing strains on alliances resulting from fear of nuclear war and the new Soviet "soft" line.

Dulles rated existing basic national security policy as "generally valid"

but urged a stronger effort to counter the Communists' cold war strategy,

mainly through increased economic and technical aid, especially in

South and Southeast Asia. Military aid should be applied with caution to

bolster local defense and internal security but without destabiliZing local
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 339

economies. The rearming of West Germany and Japan should be carried

out "at a pace and in a manner to minimize dangers of militarist revival."

The United States should continue to encourage economic and political

integration in Western Europe and reduction of world trade barriers.

Two final recommendations put Dulles on a collision course with

the DoD hard line. One, a sore point with the Joint Chiefs since the NSC

5422 debate, was that the United States should be prepared to negotiate

with the Communists on disarmament and other areas of tension, forcing

the Communists to "put up or shut up"; either their "soft" tactics and

"peace offensive" would be exposed as false or they would be driven to

make real concessions and compromises. His other recommendation

retorted uncompromisingly to Defense's proposed "risk war" stance. U.S.

policy, Dulles declared, "should take full account of the fact that total

war would be an incalculable disaster." The United States and its allies

should seek to deter any Communist aggression by convincing Communist rulers that their adversaries had both the means and the will to

ensure that aggression would not pay. More importantly, however, "the

U.S.... should (1) forego actions which would generally be regarded as

provocative, and (2) be prepared, if hostilities occur, to meet them, where

feasible, in a manner and on a scale which will not inevitably broaden

them into total nuclear war." In Europe, the most dangerous arena, the

organization of NATO defense around nuclear weapons, currently under

negotiation, should, while preserving their deterrent effect, avoid exclusive dependence on them. Otherwise, the strategy would "strain the will

to fight and spur neutralism.''12

The CIA took at least as grave a view of the Soviet Union's growing

military power as did the Joint Chiefs, estimating that it would have a

net capability from 1957 on to "inflict increasingly serious injury on the

US," with the further prospect of developing an intercontinental missile

by the early 1960s. Our major allies in Western Europe and Japan, in the

CIA appraisal, would inevitably lose appetite for risking war by resisting Communist subversion or minor aggression in Third World areas. On

the other hand, there were indications that the top Soviet leadership

might genuinely desire several years of coexistence with reduced tensions

and risk-taking. Western European governments and publics were avid to

explore this pOSSibility, following the expected ratification of the German

rearmament agreements, and the United States would be under strong

pressure to seek a general settlement with the Soviets. Provided the West

maintained an adequate military posture, the CIA analysis concluded,

the USSR would refrain from overt aggression for the next five years and

would restrain its allies and satellites, while, at the same time, exploiting
340 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

weaknesses and division in the free world. This, not the military threat,

was the real danger. 13

In State's view the world was by no means the ticking time bomb

pictured by the Cassandras in the Pentagon. The leaders in Moscow and

Peiping had not renounced the goal of world domination, but neither

were they megalomaniacs. Things had not gone altogether as they wished

during the past two years, even in Indochina, certainly not in Korea. Their

total resources were still far inferior to those of the free world. So the

apparent hankering of the Kremlin for a few years' respite from wars

and threats of wars was wholly believable-especially considering the

possibilities of low-cost gains from continued "creeping expansion" under

the Communist definition of coexistence. For the West this was a prospect

worth gambling on. It meant maintaining a firm and vigilant deterrent

posture against Communist aggression and threats while refraining from

provocation, responding to all overtures and pursuing all avenues that

might foster the peace process, using the vast economic power of the

United States and, cautiously, its military resources, to help its European

allies and Third World nations to stand on their own feet.

Wilson thus knew that Dulles would be his principal adversary in the

coming NSC debate, and aDM's Arthur Flemming his only hard-line ally.

FaA Director Stassen, as might be expected, favored more emphasis on

economic and technical aid programs and a re-examination of the relative roles of U.S. and allied forces in dealing with local aggression; his

general view of the state of the world was, like State's, meliorist and

pragmatic. 14 On 21 November the service secretaries recommended that

DoD adopt the JCS position of 12 November. The next day Wilson bit

the bullet and sent the JCS paper to the NSC, noting that the three service secretaries agreed with it, "as do 1."15

Wilson Backs Off

At the 24 November NSC meeting Cutler started the discussion in

the usual way with initial presentations by the protagonists. 16 Dulles led

off with a succinct statement. The weakest areas of national security

policy, in his opinion, concerned economic policy and the organization

of counter-subversive operations that the CIA hoped to correct. In the

political and military spheres, however, he thought "our basic policy on

the whole was pretty good" -even if, he added sarcastically, it had not

resulted in the war the Joint Chiefs seemed willing to risk without

actually provoking it. American policy was in no sense "craven." We had
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 341

avoided war for good reasons in Indochina; Chinese war planes had been

shot down in a recent incident over Hainan Island; U.S. reconnaissance

aircraft were overflying Soviet territory; the soon-to-be-signed defense

treaty with Formosa would be a "major challenge" to Communist China;

the collapse of the EDC treaty had been promptly offset within a month

by allied agreement on German rearmament, a diplomatic victory of the

first order. No one could argue "that our policies are not strong, firm, and

indicative of a willingness to take risks." On the other hand, they had

stopped short of "actually provoking war." Only in the relentless approach

of atomic plenty and nuclear parity with the USSR was the position of

the United States deteriorating. But how could this be prevented without

precipitating war?17

Wilson's rejoinder was brief but startling. He "looked at the situation,"

he said, "very much as Secretary Dulles did." He urged "patience in our

effort to defer another world war for long enough to permit the seeds

of decay which were inherent in Communism to have their effect."

Flemming cautiously said that he too would not differ with Secretary

Dulles, other than in putting more stress on the threat of approaching

nuclear parity. 18

Left alone to defend the DoD position, Admiral Radford grimly restated

it: Once the Soviets attained nuclear parity, one could no longer count

on them to hold back from launching a general war, and the Joint Chiefs

could no longer guarantee a successful outcome. The chiefs believed that

only a limited time remained for the United States to "reach an accommodation." Since 1945 the Soviets had pursued the strategy that the chiefs

now advocated for the United States-risking war without deliberately

provoking it-with the aim of dividing and subverting the free world. In

the chiefs' view, the Soviets had been very successful in Indochina and

they were likely to repeat that success in North Africa, where the United

States would have to choose between affronting the whole Arab world

by supporting the French or disrupting NATO by abandoning them.

Pressed by a now testy Dulles to explain "how the military people

would solve the problem of North Africa," Radford answered that they

would favor supporting the Arabs against the French. This, Dulles retorted,

was a political not a military decision and outside Radford's jurisdiction;

besides, it had obviously not been thought through, which was State's

responsibility. If told now that they were to be abandoned in North Africa,

the French would undoubtedly refuse to ratify the London and Paris

accords, thus killing all hope of German rearmament, "on which he understood the Chiefs of Staff to place great store." Radford denied any intention

of invading State's prerogatives, but he stubbornly insisted that unless the
342 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

United States stopped reacting, seized the initiative, and began to forestall

Communist aggression, "we cannot hope for anything but a showdown ...

by 1959 or 1960."19

Dulles summed up the difference between his and the JCS position:

they wanted to take "greater risks for bigger goals." His guess was that

"what the military was really advocating was that we should tell the Soviets

that they must restore freedom to Czechoslovakia by a certain date 'or

else.' Was this correct? In any event, the U.S. had already taken many risks

and, except for the setback in Indochina, with pretty good results ....

Thus we come back to the question of what we can do now to prevent

the Soviets from achieving nuclear balance with the United States....

The Joint Chiefs' views don't suggest any way of stopping it."20

The president followed the sometimes acerbic debate, occasionally

intervening. Like Wilson, he said, he wanted a more dynamic policy, but

policy should be "responsive to specific cases and situations." A little later

he again broke in, with some vehemence, to declare himself "completely

unable as yet to perceive a fundamental difference" between the departments, and he repeated the assertion at least three times. More dynamic,

yes, "but where and how?" Finally he pronounced national security policies, in his opinion, as "now well stated," but he wanted in addition

"advance identification on problems that were coming up.... He was

tired of abstractions."21

Wilson supported, not very coherently, the president's effort to find a

common ground between the State and Defense positions, in the process

making even more evident his abandonment of the latter. There was

nothing basically the matter with existing security policies, he asserted. It

was natural that the DoD recommendations, primarily military in nature,

would seem to differ radically from those of other departments. Wilson

also dwelt briefly on the familiar theme that too much military power

was as bad as too little; there was a point of "optimum security" -just

enough to deter aggression but not so much as to precipitate war-a

historic tendency of oversized military establishments. Wilson then invited the service secretaries and the chiefs to "speak their minds" if they

were so inclined. None responded. 22

The meeting produced no immediate decisions on basic national

security policy. Despite the president's remark that existing policies were

already "well stated," the Planning Board was instructed to draw up a restatement of them in the light of the discussion for the council's early

consideration. The president also said he would talk with Wilson and

Radford later about assigning to a high-level in-house group or an outside

organization the task of formulating specific courses of action, calculated
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 343

to strengthen free world cohesion and weaken the Soviet bloc "at the risk

of but with-out being provocative of war."23

It was an important meeting, despite the inconclusive ending. Evidently the emergence of the new DoD hard line had set off alarm bells

in State. Dulles had promptly reacted, underscoring the dangers of

deliberately seeking a confrontation with the Soviets. Item by item he

challenged the chiefs' gloomy scoring of gains and losses over the past

year, ridiculed Radford's proposed handling of the impending North

African crisis, and as much as accused the chiefs of planning to institute the "rollback" strategy talked about during the 1952 presidential

campaign. It left Radford licking his wounds.

The behavior of the president and Wilson must have been as puzzling then as it seems in retrospect. Eisenhower may have really believed

that State and Defense were close together on the basic issues but Dulles,

Radford, and Cutler clearly did not. To Dulles, and probably to Radford,

the essential difference between them lay in the ]CS willingness, before

American nuclear superiority had evaporated and after other favorable

"conditions" had been created, to go to the brink of war in an effort to

force the Soviets to negotiate an accommodation mostly on American

terms. All this Dulles had wrapped up in a succinct phrase, "greater risks

for bigger goals." His own 15 November paper had stated the primary aim

of American security policy in dual terms: "to deter any Communist

armed aggression and to avoid the danger that such aggression would

develop into general nuclear war," stressing that "total war would be an

incalculable disaster." He accepted the prospect of nuclear parity and mutual

nuclear plenty between the superpowers as unavoidable but as permitting (without assuring) an uneasy coexistence, and he looked hopefully

to the traditional processes of diplomatic negotiation, aided by gradual

mellowing. within the Communist world, to make coexistence increasingly tolerable. 24

It is difficult to see these positions as other than poles apart. For

Wilson to argue that they merely seemed to be opposed because one

was "military" and the other "political" appears almost fatuous. The

preSident's hypothesis was a little more plausible. He seemed to say that

the "abstractions" about which the debate revolved were too fuzzy to

reflect really meaningful differences; the important question was, how

would the hard-liners propose to handle particular situations-with the

implication that, being practical men, they would probably do the same

as the soft-liners. Whether the president really believed this is at least

doubtful.

Regardless of the merits of the arguments, however, the president had

a good reason for trying to minimize the rift, especially in the NSC forum.
344 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

This was no ordinary policy debate. Dulles and Radford each genuinely

believed-and the belief was widely shared in their staffs-that the

other's proposals posed a threat, sooner or later, to the nation's survival.

Of course this was not a public crisis, but within the national security

community the crisis was seen as real, and tremors were felt in the larger

bureaucracy and the world outside. Since the president shared Dulles's

view and presumably intended to direct that basic national security policy

be revised to reflect it, he had also to consider how this decision would

affect true believers on the "losing" side; discontent would run deep. It

might be alleviated if the president gave the impression of believing that

there was an underlying common ground between the adversary positions.

This suggests a possible explanation not only for Eisenhower's puzzling,

almost perverse line of argument during the 24 November discussion,

but also for Wilson's unexpected "cave in" at the beginning of the meeting. Both men could have been playing out a scenario.

Ridgway's Interlude

The Joint Chiefs' position on 24 November was not as unanimous

as their paper seemed to indicate. As usual, Ridgway's was the dissenting voice. After writing the chiefs' 3 November paper to Wilson and

endorsing the 12 November paper that incorporated and amplified it,

Ridgway had found in Secretary Dulles's "Suggestions" certain points

with which he agreed, notably the secretary's emphasis on negotiating a

wide range of issues with the Communist powers. When the Joint Strategic

Survey Committee circulated a harsh in-house criticism of Dulles's paper,

Ridgway promptly responded with a rebuttal arguing that a liberal policy

on negotiation with the Communists would be desirable and consistent

with NSC 162/2 as long as it was backed up by adequate military strength. 25

The chiefs took no action, however, on either the JSSC's comments or

Ridgway's. At the NSC meeting on the 24th Ridgway was one of the silent

audience ranged along the wall while the principals debated.

The president and Wilson had, however, already taken steps to give

him another opportunity. On the 24th, Ridgway received a formal invitation from Cutler-"as a Member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are

by statute Military Advisers to the President, the National Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense" -requesting his attendance at the NSC

meeting on 3 December. As first on the agenda, Cutler informed him, he

had been allotted up to 30 minutes to present his "individual views" on

basic national security policy and its revision. Attendance for this item

would be limited with no preliminary circulation of papers. 26
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 345

In effect, Ridgway was to be kept on a short leash. The president

clearly regarded him as a formidable adversary-"Ridgway has taken

over Stevens," he noted sourly to Attorney General Herbert Brownell

about this time. Among the Joint Chiefs, he had been the lone dissenter

to proposals in April to bomb the Viet Minh besiegers of Dien Bien Phu

and in September to allow the Chinese Nationalists to bomb mainland

China during the Quemoy crisis-both times because he feared that such

use of airpower would ultimately suck in American ground forces, something the dwindling, already over-committed Army wanted to avoid. Since

Eisenhower had supported his view on both occasions, some pundits

now professed to see Ridgway's star as rising, but the president's dramatic

decision on 8 December to accelerate the Army personnel cutbacks

showed him as still fundamentally at odds with Ridgway. 27

Ridgway's chief difference with the other chiefs was not over the

new hard line, but over the New Look force structure, peacetime deployments, and warfighting strategy. In his short address to the council on

3 December, Ridgway chose to air his differences on these points, with

particular reference to the Army's role in a general war and-the worst

heresy-the possibility and desirability of avoiding the use of nuclear

weapons. On this point, he firmly believed that the Soviets would not

resort to nuclear weapons unless the Americans did, and that the nation

using them first would incur the undying hatred not only of its own

allies, but also of all mankind. The United States had no choice, therefore,

but to develop a capability to counter every threat of aggression at all

levels. In an earlier meeting, Ridgway had already irritated the president

by his remarks about large-scale deployments overseas in the early stages

of a general war.

Not surprisingly, therefore, Ridgway's presentation met only stony

silence; no one volunteered questions, the president thanked him, and

he departed the cabinet room. A short post-mortem followed. Both the

president and Humphrey ridiculed the idea that the Soviets would refrain

from using nuclear weapons in a general war, and they reaffirmed the

cardinal New Look dogma that the United States could not prepare to

fight all kinds of wars without wrecking its economy and free institutions. The president was impressed by the general's fears, which he

shared, of carrying on in a shattered post-nuclear world, and by the

evident sincerity of Ridgway's views. Wilson seconded this point, but

reminded the council that Ridgway was trying to justify a much larger

Army and the council "should recognize what it was hearing."28
346 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The Administration Refines Its Position

Ridgway's strong dissent from the party line that a general war with

the Soviets would necessarily be a nuclear war was evidently on the

president's mind when he made his closing remarks. He reiterated the

necessity of relying primarily on nuclear weapons, because the country

could not otherwise afford the burdens and strains of total defense

readiness as a way of life, and because an all-out war with the Soviet

Union could be won only by a paralyzing blow at the outset. Then he

added a warning, which seemed to say it all: "We are not going to provoke the war, and that is why we have got to be patient. If war comes,

the other fellow must have started it. Otherwise we would not be in a

position to use the nuclear weapon, and we have got to be in a position

to use that weapon if we are going to preserve our institutions in peace

and win the victory in war."29

To avoid provocation and to be patient under provocation had also

been the theme of the president's news conference the day before, which

reporters were already lauding as "historic." He promised that he would

not be goaded by the Communists into precipitate action, as Senator

Knowland and others were urging, in response to China's recent refusal

to release 13 Americans who had been sentenced and jailed as spies.

Secretary Dulles had made the same point in a major foreign policy speech

a few days before, using the occasion also to modify his massive retaliation doctrine. The response to a local aggression, he assured his audience,

would not "automatically" involve "atomic bombs being dropped all over

the map."30

By late fall, then, the Joint Chiefs and their supporters in ISA could

have had no illusions as to the fate that awaited their "risk war" and

other hard-line proposals in the next test before the NSC, scheduled for

21 December.31 Rumors and leaks had alerted the public to the fact that

the president faced some sort of "peace or war" decision. Something like

a "war party" had formed in the Senate headed by Majority Leader

William F. Knowland, who had been beating the drums for a much tougher

and riskier policy toward the major Communist powers-in effect, a public and more provocative version of the Pentagon's hard line. In midNovember Knowland had called for a comprehensive congressional

review of the administration's foreign and national security policiesY

At the end of November the president summoned Ambassador

Charles Bohlen back from Moscow to report on the latest "co-existence"

bid. He had Bohlen meet on 1 December with the NSC Planning Board,

which was then engaged in preparing its revised paper on basic security
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 347

policy. Bohlen was asked his views on, among other things, the problem posed in paragraph 45 of NSC 162/2, to which the Joint Chiefs had

addressed their 12 November paper:

-Can the U.S. force the USSR prior to atomic plenty to accept

a settlement?

-Can we take such measures before this situation arises (0

diminish the threat?

-Are more positive and dynamic policies needed now?

Bohlen's response was blunt. Short of war, he said flatly, "the military

threat can't be reduced." But in the long run, economic forces at work

within the USSR would "sooner or later come into violent conflict with

Marxist theory. When this happens, we may expect some changes." He

described a Russia cautious, conservative, and wholly defensive in outlook, with "no unrequited urge for territory except the Dardanelles," and

no conscious aim to dominate the world, since capitalism by their

reckoning would ultimately be swept aside in the march of history.

Russians were tired of turmoil and wanted stability and peace, even the

new generation. Communist China, still in the "whoop-it-up," "marijuana"

stage of revolution, was a partner rather than a dependent, but regarded

as both unreliable and unpredictable; Moscow held "no whip-hand over

Mao." A really serious American threat to China would alarm Moscow and,

if prolonged, might lead to war. But Russia definitely had no desire to go

to war over Formosa. The Soviet bloc was no monolith and no finetuned machine, as witness China's aggressive tactics while the Kremlin

preached coexistence. On coexistence-evidently a large preoccupation

of the board-Bohlen characterized the Soviet leaders as not sincere but

serious. "They want no war and no risks of general war because of their

many domestic problems, many of which they inherited." They saw coexistence, therefore, as peaceful but not inconsistent with continued

subversion and agitation. "If the Free World can keep its nerve, they won't

blackmail us. If they think there is no risk, they will take what the traffic

will bear. The growth of atomic capabilities, including their own, may

act as a deterrent."33 Bohen's remarks provided ammunition for the softliners in the board and the NSC.

Bohlen may have contributed to the signs in December that the tide

was flowing strongly at high administration levels against any real

toughening of policy toward the Soviets. At the NSC meeting on

9 December the president explained the larger policy context of the
348 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

impending strength reductions: Strategic retaliatory forces remained

the centerpiece, but with more emphasis on continental defense, guided

missile development, readily mobilizable reserve forces, increased pay

and benefits for the armed forces, and expansion of the mobilization

base-and less emphasis, obviously, on active ground forces. All this

would seem to point to an effort to build up defensive capabilities, both

for limited and cold war and for the all-out conflict that was an everpresent possibility, while, for the longer haul, continuing to push the

frontiers of advancing weapons technology. 34

The other side of this coin was an emerging shift in cold war strategy

from military to economic aid for underdeveloped countries, particularly

in Asia-one of Dulles's mid-November "Suggestions." It was signaled on

1 December by the president's appointment of his former BoB director,

Joseph M. Dodge, as his special assistant to review foreign economic

policy and coordinate activities in this area. 35 Dulles and Stassen stood as

the principal promoters of the shift, which envisaged a long-range

program of economic grants and loans. It would be "the free world's chief

weapon in the cold war," reflecting the view of both the president and

Dulles that the struggle with communism had shifted from military to

economic competition, and that the threat of global war had receded.

Eisenhower had approved the idea in principle. Investment was seen as

primarily a task for private capital, although government help was needed

more in Asia than elsewhere because the political risks were greater

there. All agreed that they contemplated no "Marshall Plan for Asia"; the

area lacked the developed infrastructure that could rapidly absorb such

capital infusion as had wrought an economic miracle in Europe. 36

The Planning Board Compromises

The Planning Board circulated its draft revision of basic national

security policy (NSC 5440) on 13 December. Labeled as "tentative," it had

been prepared in haste to allow as much staff feedback as possible before

consideration by the council on the 21st. The president had decided that

the 21 December discussion would be only preliminary, since the principals would have had little time to review the paper, but he still wanted

to hear their first reactions as possible input for his State of the Union

address. The final council review would be postponed to the first week

in JanuaryY

Instructed to draft the revised policy statement "in the light of" both

the 24 November NSC discussion and the departmental position papers,
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 349

the drafting group attempted to produce a compromise paper reflecting both the hard-line and the soft-line positions in a reasonably balanced

and coherent fashion but could not avoid some inconsistency.38 The Joint

Chiefs, unhappy with the draft since it fell far short of adopting their

position, did applaud the opening statement: "The Soviet-Communist

challenge, including the approach of the USSR to nuclear plenty, constitutes a peril greater than any the United States has ever before faced."39

The chiefs' fundamental objection was to the proposed national

strategy, which they summed up as one of "persuasion leading to mutually

acceptable settlements" and "the encouragement of tendencies that would

lead the Communist Regimes to abandon their expansionist policies." In

their view such a hope was totally illusory. They also found that NSC 5440

provided no statement of major objectives; failed to define the "conditions," called for in NSC 162/2, under which a settlement might be

negotiated with the Soviets; and did not Stress the urgency of realizing

such conditions while the United States still retained nuclear superiority.

They detected, moreover, "a discernible tendency" in the analysis of

probable Communist intentions and strategy to underrate the threat of

aggression during the era of nuclear plenty, and to overrate the likelihood that current Soviet "soft" tactics might reflect a meaningful shift in

Soviet policies. 40

NSC 5440 took a curiously aloof approach to the prickly issue of

the Joint Chiefs' proposed "risk war" strategy. The drafters presumably

had had to choose between confronting the issue head-on by writing a

strong statement either endorsing or rejecting that strategy, or avoiding

the issue, as NSC 162/2 had done. The result was a compromise. Paragraph 35 opened with a positive statement rejecting preventive war "or

acts intended to provoke war," and ended with one affirming a "determination to oppose aggression despite risk of general war" and "to prevail if

general war eventuates." Between the two appeared a bracketed passage,

proposed by State: "The United States and its allies will also have to

forego actions regarded as provocative, if such actions would foreclose

the requisite domestic political support for the use of force should this

become necessary Moreover, if the Communist rulers should conclude that

the United States is bent on aggressive war, they may feel that they have

no choice but to initiate war themselves at their own time. Hence, the

United States should attempt to make clear, by word and conduct, that it

is not our intention to provoke war." In their 17 December critique of

NSC 5440, the chiefs did not even allude to their original proposal, and,

with reference to the preventive war paragraph, merely recommended

omission of State's proposed insertion as unduly restrictiveY
350 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Even before NSC 5440 came before the NSC, the Joint Chiefs had

thus abandoned their demand for a provocative policy of risking war in

order to bring the Soviets to acceptable terms while American nuclear

superiority lasted. Their response to NSC 5440 also revealed a significant

weakening on another issue, nuclear air retaliatory power-to which

NSC 5440 no longer accorded primacy in the force hierarchy. NSC 5440

stressed the function of deterrence and went on to state that effective

deterrence would require forces sufficiently strong, flexible, and mobile

"to deal swiftly and severely" with any Communist overt aggression,

including a general war. The word "massive" seemed to have disappeared from the lexicon. All this prompted only editorial reaction from

the Joint Chiefs in their 17 December critique.42

The most visible split between "soft-" and "hard-" liners in NSC 5440

came over the familiar issue of negotiating with the Soviets. Both sides

agreed to a general statement to the effect that negotiations should be

undertaken whenever they appeared likely to serve American interests,

and also on such issues as atoms for peace, in order to put the Soviets on

the defensive and gain public support. In their 17 December critique the

chiefs stuck to their point regarding demonstrated good faith on the

Soviet side, but suggested that, if this were retained, most of the remaining verbiage could probably be boiled down to a few sentences. 43 As in

the first go-around in November, Air Force Secretary Talbott and Navy

Secretary Thomas lined up solidly behind the chiefs, Army Secretary

Stevens somewhat less SO.44

On the eve of the crucial 21 December NSC meeting General Bonesteel faced the awkward task of preparing routine briefing notes on NSC

5440 for Secretary Wilson's use in the meeting. Despite his awareness of

Wilson's abandonment of the JCS position at the 24 November meeting,

Bonesteel wrote up his briefing notes as though he believed otherwiseperhaps with some lingering hope for an eleventh-hour change of heart

by the secretary. Overtones of exasperation sounded through. NSC 5440

was "so compressed," he advised the secretary, "that it requires a full

reading" -and (violating the staff officer's cardinal rule) he offered no

summary. He recommended that Wilson criticize NSC 5440 for its lack of

a sense of urgency, its failure to state objectives or define conditions that

would assure their achievement, and its unrealistic expectation that the

Soviet-Communist threat could be countered merely by a deterrent posture,

counter-subversion activity, and economic aid throughout the free world. 45
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 351

Anticlimax in the National Security Council

As it turned out, the DoD hard line had no defenders on 21 December.

Radford did not attend the meeting, and Twining, who did, declined an

invitation to speak. 46 Dulles again dominated the discussion. He had some

sympathy with the chiefs' craving for more dynamism in the American

attitude, but experience indicated that it was "not easy to go very much

beyond the point that this Administration had reached in translating a

dynamic policy into courses of action, and in any case we had been more

dynamic than our predecessors." Dulles reminded the council that pre·

ventive war had been ruled out, and that a rollback strategy of attempting

to detach China and the European satellites from the USSR would probably lead to general war; if the strategy proved successful without leading

to war, the "heart of the problem" would remain: an unimpaired and

ample nuclear capability in the Soviet Union itself. Indeed, said Dulles,

the only way that an aggressive strategy could succeed would be by precipitating a general war which the United States could win. And even if

more aggressive policies should cause the disintegration of the Soviet bloc,

they would surely break up the free world bloc as well, "for our allies ...

would never go along." Of course, the growing military strength of the

Soviet bloc was the fundamental threat. Still, Dulles suggested, "we need

not ... be too pessimistic. Time might well bring about many changes."

It was altogether likely "that there will be in the future some disinte·

gration of the present monolithic power structure of the Soviet orbit."

In the main, therefore, Dulles considered existing security policies

adequate-or, at least, better than any others he could think of, except in

the Middle East, Indonesia, and VietnamY

Humphrey backed up Dulles on most points and added some new

thoughts. He envisaged "a world division of power so carefully balanced

that neither side dares to 'jump' the other. For these reasons we should

avoid provocative actions vis·a·vis the USSR." He listed the key areas that

he believed the United States should concentrate on holding or domi·

nating-Latin America, the Middle East, Japan, Indonesia, Western Europe,

North Africa. Not India. "We should ... not spend our time and resources

anywhere else." He considered it "absolutely essential" to develop more

trade with the Soviet bloc nations ("instead of constantly trying to kick

Russia in the shins"). And in Latin America, "we should make it absolutely

clear that we will not tolerate Communism anywhere in the Western

Hemisphere. We should ... support dictatorships of the right if their

policies are pro·American." "You mean," the president interrupted with

the already famous line, "they're OK if they're our s.o.b.'s?" Humphrey

agreed. Finally, the treasury secretary was "not in the least afraid of
352 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

co-existence." The American system, he felt sure, was strong enough to

win in any competition.48

The president could not swallow all of this. If the Communists took

over India, a subcontinent of 350 million people, he pointed out, they

would almost certainly take the Middle East, too. "This was a certain

invitation to general war" -in fact, probably to preventive war. To let all

of the free world except a few important areas "go by the board" was

simply not feasible; each time the Soviets took over another country, "the

rate of the process accelerates." But if, Humphrey retorted, we would

eventually get pushed out of certain areas like Indochina, would it not

be better to get out first? Humphrey's notion that dealings with the Communists could be purged of irritations merely by staying out of their way

and trading with them-as Wilson had chimed in, by taking "the heat

off certain hot spots" -made the president a little impatient. Unless we

were prepared to "get off the earth," we would have to live with irritations. Without undertaking to defend all of South Asia, much could be

done to prevent that vast area from slipping into the Communist orbit.

The United States need not become an Atlas, "bearing the weight of the

world," but "a couple of billions would not be wasted on them [South

Asian countries] if we consider the size of our total defense budget."

Dulles supported the president. There was a "tenable ground," he suggested, between a military commitment to save nations from communism

and abandoning them to communism. Historically the Soviets had usually

been cautious in wielding power, relying more on subversion than on

military force. "It will be very much worth our while to provide ... vulnerable nations sufficient military and economic assistance as will enable

them to provide for their internal security and for the bettering of their

economic health." Vietnam, he noted, was not typical, because the French

"had messed up the situation so thoroughly."49

No whisper of the DoD position (other than from Secretary Dulles in

rebutting it) had been heard in what had been anticipated as the climactic

confrontation of the hard-line vs. soft-line policy debate. After his de facto

abdication as titular head of the hard-liners on 24 November, no one expected Secretary Wilson now to reclaim that role, nor did he. His remarks

on this occasion were far more revealing and coherent than his musings

a month earlier. He delivered a short credo on the principal issues of the

controversy. The Soviet threat had not diminished, but global war seemed

less likely than before. We should consider carefully "those areas where

we can and should make our stand," economically as well as militarily.

Unlike Humphrey, he did not propose backing out of areas now held by

the West (e.g., Korea and Malaya)-and he opposed writing off India.
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 353

"Plainly, we must live for the time being with Communism," which he

was confident would ultimately destroy itself. So, reluctantly, he favored

coexistence, containment (for lack of a better word), and (cautiously)

expanded trade with the Soviet bloc. Economic aid should be aimed at

helping nations to help themselves, military aid at strengthening their

internal security without encouraging foreign adventures. 5o

All this aligned Wilson unequivocally on the side of the president. The

DoD hard line seemed to have evaporated. When Cutler asked for guidance

on the State-JCS split in NSC 5440 over the issue of negotiating with

the USSR, the president declared with some exasperation that if we

always said "no" to proposals to negotiate, we would lose public support

in the free world. The council decided to leave only the initial sentence of

the paragraph: "The U.S. should be ready to negotiate with the USSR whenever it clearly appears that U.S. security interests will be served thereby."51

The NSC discussion on 21 December effectively ended the 1954 debate

over basic national security policy. On the 28th the Planning Board circulated NSC 5440/1, a slightly revised version of NSC 5440, for final council

consideration on 5 January. The Joint Chiefs found it only marginally

preferable to its predecessor and so informed Wilson on the 30th. The

basic policy set forth in NSC 5440, they thought, had "not been significantly altered." In general they considered their 17 December critique still

valid and applicable. 52

The Soft Line Affirmed (NSC 5501)

On 5 January 1955 the NSC, as scheduled, quickly ran through NSC

5440/1 and resolved the remaining differences-in most cases by ruling

against the DoD position. The hard-liners had to accept the replacement

of their preferred characterization of the Soviet-Communist challenge-

"a peril greater than any the United States has ever before faced" -with

a tamer "grave peril to the United States." The amended paper was

approved by the president on the 7th and renumbered as the new year's

first NSC paper, NSC 5501. The first in an annual series of "basic" national

security policy papers, it superseded both NSC 162/2 and NSC 5422/2. 53

NSC 5501, dominated by the State Department's perspective, foresaw

a probably indefinite continuation of the current state of hostile coexistence, based on military stalemate, mutual deterrence, and mutual

recognition of the "no win" nature of all-out nuclear war-always recogniZing the risk of miscalculation or a Soviet technological breakthrough.

The free world could match the growth of Communist military powerby improvement of NATO forces, introduction of West German forces,
354 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

"some" Japanese rearmament, and modernization of U.S. forces and

expansion of the U.S. mobilization base. But the "most serious challenge

and greatest danger" would come from the Communist strategy of subversion, insurrection, and limited aggression. The situation in Southeast

Asia was particularly ominous. Also dangerous, if ambiguous, was the new

flexibility of Soviet foreign policy under Malenkov, stressing "peace" and

"coexistence." Undoubtedly aimed at dividing the free world, perhaps also

a prelude to local aggressions after the advent of nuclear plenty, it might

also reflect a desire for reduced tensions, conceivably even a willingness

to negotiate on armaments control. 54

NSC 5501 defined the basic national objective as simply "to preserve

the security of the United States, and its fundamental values and institutions" without "seriously weakening the U.S. economy." The United

States had only one acceptable means of doing this-to attempt to modify

Soviet-Communist bloc policies. The only alternative-to physically destroy

the power of the bloc-was not a viable option: "The United States and

its allies must reject the concept of preventive war or acts intended to

provoke war," while seeking to hold the free world together. Programs

for implementing this strategy before anticipated major increases in

Soviet nuclear capabilities should be pursued as a matter of urgency.

While much of NSC 5501 was a restatement of corresponding portions

of NSC 162/2, it perceptibly blurred the old focus on massive retaliation.

Nuclear air retaliatory power, although requiring special protection

against a knockout blow, received mention merely as part of the varied

forces, American and allied, needed to deal with Communist aggression. 55

This was a long step away from the second-class status accorded

general purpose forces in NSC 162/2 and a significant concession to

General Ridgway's well-known views. General Maxwell D. Taylor, then commanding the Eighth Army in Korea, later commented in retrospect that

Army leaders had "found great hope" in the new policy as representing

a "most encouraging trend away from reliance on Massive Retaliation ...

[toward] a more flexible strategy."56

At the heart of the problem of sustaining allied cooperation in resisting Communist aggression· was the issue of using nuclear weapons and

the growing fear of nuclear war. NSC 5501 warned: "The United States

cannot afford to preclude itself from using nuclear weapons even in a

local situation, if such use will bring the aggression to a swift and positive

cessation, and if, on a balance of political and military consideration, such

use will best advance U.S. security interests. In the last analysis, if confronted by the choice of (a) acquiescing in Communist aggression or

(b) taking measures risking either general war or loss of allied support,
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 355

the United States must be prepared to take these risks if necessary for

its security." NSC 5501, by rejecting preventive war and acts to provoke

war, was not hospitable to a broad "risk war" strategy. 57

In addressing how to strengthen free world cohesion, NSC 5501 was

actually more aggressive than NSC 162/2, mainly within the realm of nonmilitary action and covert operations. Communist subversion, NSC 5501

admitted, was a baffling and frustrating matter, which repeatedly confronted the United States with a choice between prompt action, inevitably

inviting criticism as premature or over-reactive, and "allowing the situation to deteriorate" until more costly and less certain measures might

become necessary. Against a threatened or actual Communist takeover,

the United States should employ all feasible measures, even direct military action if necessary. But in the long run, success would depend mainly

on the ability of the free world "to demonstrate progress toward meeting

the basic [economic] needs and aspirations of its peoples."58

In a sense, however, the political strategy and the coordinated free

world counter-subversion campaign, even though largely non-military,

represented the positive response to the Communist threat. Against the military threat the paper proposed what the hard-liners regarded as a passive

and dangerously Wishful response-to accept and perpetuate a military

standoff that simply rejected the premise that the Soviets' impending

achievement of nuclear plenty would create a crisis of the first magnitude

which the United States must anticipate by imposing an acceptable

accommodation while its nuclear superiority still enabled it to do so.

The State Department, whose position NSC 5501 embodied, held that

the Soviet leaders were no more likely than their American counterparts

to deliberately precipitate an all-out nuclear war; the threat, though real,

was remote-perhaps even more so than the risk of war through miscalculation. The Soviets could not be prevented from developing their

military capabilities except by force or the threat of force-measures that

the United States of its own volition had ruled off-limits. NSC 5501's

political strategy, still hardly more than a gleam in the eyes of State

planners, would take form and, over the long haul, nurture the "seeds of

decay" inside the Communist empire. 59

The revision of the basic national security policy was a surprisingly

well-kept secret. During the eight months after the inception of the undertaking echoes of the debate over it had reached the public in leaked

accounts. It was Widely known that the president had pursued a "soft

line" in the Dien Bien Phu crisis and, thus far, in the Formosa crisis, against

hawkish counsel from Radford and other hard-liners. But the existence of

something akin to a "war party" in the Pentagon seeking a fundamental
356 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

shift across the board to a hard-line policy toward the major Communist

powers was little more than a rumor. It was, of course, very much in the

interests of the administration to keep this under wraps, and its success

in doing so testified to the effectiveness of special measures employed to

prevent leaks from a notoriously porous bureaucracy. By the same token,

however, it was desirable to reassure the public of the constancy of the

administration's basic war-avoidance policy, particularly as the Formosa

crisis began to escalate early in January 1955.

At this juncture the New York Herald Tribune, in an obviously

inspired article, reported a "new approach" in the administration's foreign

and defense policy, dating back to a high-level re-examination initiated

early in 1954. The new approach, which had been in effect without fanfare for some time, explained "much that was said and done during the

last six months of 1954" -for example, the passing of the initiative for

German rearmament to Great Britain and France after the failure of the

European Defense Community, a policy that had become identified in the

European mind as an American more than a European policy. The article

noted that the administration had decided against a JCS-proposed "risk

war" policy and had reacted cautiously to alarming reports of growing

Soviet military power and the threat of surprise nuclear air attack. "The

new approach," explained the article, "is not, as has been claimed in

some quarters, the outcome of a new appraisal of Soviet policy. Rather it

is the fruit of a new estimate of what is effective."60

Postscript

Almost simultaneously with the approval of NSC 5501 as basic

national security policy, the president signed another, equally authoritative

policy document in the form of a letter dated 5 January to Secretary

Wilson. Ostensibly this was a reply to a request by Wilson two days

earlier for a publishable written statement setting forth Eisenhower's

views underlying his decisions on personnel strengths of the armed

services "to guide me in my consideration of those matters" during the

coming year. Eisenhower's letter in fact ranged in broad terms over all

major aspects of a general war and the nation's defense posture during

the cold war. According to James c. Hagerty, the president's press secretary, the idea for the letter originated in the White House, as a response

to Democratic allegations that the armed forces cutback was primarily a

money-saving move. 6l
NSC 5501 and the Soft Line 357

Addressing the question of military personnel strength, the president seemed to back away from some of the figures he had approved on

8 December, implying that they might be adjusted up or down. He

suggested a goal for 1956 of 2,850,000, with "any further material reductions dependent upon an improved world situation." On the other

hand, it was clear that he considered the indicated strength a heavy burden

for the country to carryover a period "which may last for decades." The

president saw austerity and stability as the basic features of the nation's

long-haul security arrangements. For the long term, the president stressed

the nation's dependence on collective security: "The security of the

United States is inextricably bound up with the security of the free world."

Some of the key concepts advanced at the 22 December White House

meeting and the 15 December news conference were now repeated,

including no single "danger date" and giving priority to maintaining effective retaliatory power and continental defense. 62

As on earlier occasions, the president'S "big war" bias was conspicuous. He did, however, devote a short paragraph to the problem of

dealing with "lesser hostile action" not involving a major aggressor power.

To meet this threat "growing reliance can be placed upon the forces

now being built and strengthened in many areas of the free world . . . .

There remain certain contingencies for which the United States should

be ready with mobile forces to help indigenous troops deter local

aggression, direct or indirect." This passage, evidently intended to

correspond to the "other ready forces" paragraph in NSC 5501, offset in

some measure the president's casual treatment of "little wars" in his

December statements. His view of the big-war problem, however, now

betrayed an optimism difficult to understand against the background of

the discussions during the fall and early winter of the growing threat to

the U.S. mobilization base from shrinkage and vulnerability to attack.

Retaliatory power and a continental defense system "of steadily increasing

effectiveness," he now seemed to believe, would "assure that our industrial

capacity can continue throughout a war to produce the gigantic amounts

of equipment and supplies required. We can never be defeated so long

as our relative superiority in productive capacity is sustained." Finally,

the letter touched with a special note of seriousness on the theme of

advancing technology. He stressed technology's classic role, through the

achievement of enhanced firepower and more effective performance, in

reducing manpower requirements. More generally, he warned against

"fixed or frozen ideas" in an age of sWiftly marching technology and

bewildering change. 63
358 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

At the president's direction his letter was released to the press on the

first day of the new session of Congress.64 Its obvious immediate purpose

was to support the administration's case in the impending debate over

the budget and military manpower. But the letter also afforded a large

audience an illuminating glimpse of how the president viewed the whole

national security picture, far above the level of detail and precise formulations in NSC 5501. To DoD policy implementers from Wilson on

down, its simplicity, sharp focus, and explicitness on certain key points

made it a more effective guidance instrument than NSC 5501. Without

really contradicting NSC 5501, the letter in effect superimposed on it

the president's big-war and airpower bias, his preoccupation with the

great power arena, and, conversely, his near indifference to small wars

and small countries, especially in the Third World. One slim paragraph

reflected the measure of his unconcern for these problem areas, and he

left undefined the "contingencies" for which he conceded that American

mobile forces might be needed. Under lean peacetime budgets, with

"priority in all planning" now assigned to retaliatory power and continental defense, and a large rebuilt Army reserve given pride of place

over active ground forces in general war planning, provision of the

"other ready forces" called for by NSC 5501 to deal with local aggression

was likely to be mostly a matter, as Ridgway later put it, of "by-products

or left-overs." The reduction of the active Army now in progress was

the blueprint.6s
CHAPTER XVI

Congress and the FY 1956 Budget

Like its predecessor, the FY 1956 budget submitted to Congress in

January 1955 proposed to spend more for defense in a peacetime year

than for all other needs of government. The Defense Department budget

accounted for 54 percent of all estimated expenditures, and all the major

national security programs (atomic energy, stockpiling, military assistance, and DoD) accounted for 65 percent. The percentages were almost

identical with those of the year before. "Today the world is at peace," the

president proclaimed in his State of the Union address on 6 January, "[but]

it is, to be sure, an insecure peace." Overnight, the Formosa Strait crisis

was blossoming into the most ominous war scare since Korea. During

January the Chinese Communists attacked offshore islands held by Chiang

Kai-shek's Nationalists. On 29 January Congress authorized the president to

use American forces as he saw fit to defend Formosa and the Pescadores

together with "related positions and territories of that area now in friendly

hands." Two weeks later the president signed the Formosa mutual security treaty, following Senate approval. During the ensuing months the

ongoing crisis provided a background drumbeat for the congressional

hearings and debate on the FY 1956 budget.!

While squeeZing what credit he could from the technical absence of

war in a perilous postwar world, the president also wooed the Democratic

majority he now faced in both houses of Congress, whose leaders he had

briefed on the new budget in December. 2 Alluding to the dangerous state

of the world, he made an unabashed plea for "unhesitating cooperation"

between Congress and the executive branch in defense and foreign affairs,

and for abandonment of politics as usual. It was not the campaign rh~toric

that he had used in the fall, when he warned that a Democratic victory at

the polls would bring paralysis and a cold war of partisan politics. 3

359
360 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

An Airpower Defense Budget

The full-dress budget message on 17 January formally opened the

budget debate. It stressed the national security theme, the transition from

war to peace, the insecurity of the times, the need for economic austerity

and stability. Although total spending in FY 1956 would be $1.1 billion

less than the expected $63.5 billion in FY 1955, there would still be a

deficit of about $2.4 billion (approximately half of the predicted FY 1955

deficit) even if Congress accepted the president's recommendation for a

year's extension of excise and corporate income tax rates now scheduled

for reduction on 1 April. 4

While estimated spending was down, requests for new money were

up: $1.3 billion more than was granted in FY 1955-again, mainly owing

to military requirements. Major national security programs would need

$2.4 billion more new money than in FY 1955, but new money requests

for FY 1956 were still lower than estimated spending and anticipated

revenue. For major national security programs the administration proposed to spend $40.5 billion in FY 1956, $34 billion by DoD. The Air

Force's slice, $15.6 billion, took almost half of the Defense total and $400

million more than in FY 1955; the Navy's share came to $9.7 billion, the

Army's to $8.8 billion, both slightly less than in FY 1955. The DoD budget

also included about $1 billion for a new military pay and incentives bill

and the proposed six-month training program for 17- to 19-year-olds under

the new reserve plan.

The president briefly described his military personnel cutbacks,

calling them a tentative "reaffirmation," with changes in timing, of the longrange plan approved a year earlier. For now, he planned to reduce the armed

forces by some 200,000 from their existing 3.2 million by mid-1955 and

by another 200,000 a year later. Since the end of Korean hostilities 5 Army

divisions had come home from the Far East and 1 1/3 Marine divisions

were soon to follow, strongly increasing the central strategic reserve. The

president noted that the Army was experimenting with new concepts for

the "atomic battlefield" and would probably emerge with "smaller but

more mobile and self-contained units with greater fire-power." The Navy

planned to operate about 1,000 active ships in FY 1956, 100 less than currently, but with the same number (400) of warships, all with reduced

crews; its existing 14 attack carriers and 16 air carrier groups would each

be increased by one,and its existing 15 antisubmarine squadrons would

be maintained. The Marine Corps would retain its present structure of

three divisions and three tactical air wings. The Air Force would continue

to build toward its goal of 137 wings by mid-1957, aiming at an interim 121

wings by the beginning of FY 1956 and 130 wings by the end of the year.
Congress and the FY 1956 Budget 361

Two-thirds of DoD expenditures would go into building and maintaining airpower. The Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps would increase their

active aircraft inventory from 34,000 in mid-1954 to 36,000 two years

later; the Air Force's share of the latter figure would be 23,000. The

Army's force of 3,600 active aircraft would remain level but with a 20

percent increase in helicopters. By the end of FY 1956 Air Force combat

units were expected to be equipped almost 100 percent with jet aircraft,

while the Navy and Marines, converting more slowly, would increase their

jets by about 15 percent. Much of this airpower would go into the expanding continental air defense system, now centralized operationally under

the joint Continental Air Defense Command reporting directly to the JCS.

Procurement and production of major equipment would account for

more than a third of DoD spending in FY 1956, about the same level as

in the current year; two-thirds of this one-third would go into aircraft and

guided missiles, also about as much as in FY 1955. Spending for shipbuilding would increase, nibbling at the fleet's "block obsolescence" problem.

The fifth Forrestal-class carrier was one of the scheduled new starts, and

additional atomic submarines were to be funded in FY 1956.

Aggregate DoD spending on research and development would increase

almost to the FY 1954 level, engaging about one-half of the nation's research

scientists and engineers. Military construction, also on the increase, would

surpass not only the FY 1955 but also the higher FY 1954 level. The Air

Force was to get one-half of the $1.9 billion requested, the other two

services dividing the remainder about equally.5

Earlier, in two special messages on 13 January the president requested

legislation to authorize the new reserve plan, a four-year extension of the

draft, and a package of higher military pay scales and allowances and

improved career incentives. The pay raise cost amounted to $950 million,

and the first year's cost of one feature of the new reserve plan-six-months

of initial training of 17- to 19-year old inductees into the reserves-was

$123 million. 6

The largest non-DoD component of the national security budget related to that part of the mutual security program devoted to the buildup

and support of allied and friendly military forces, administered by DoD

although funded by the Foreign Operations Administration. For this military assistance the administration asked for more than $2 billion in new

obligational authority and proposed expenditures of almost $3.7 billion

in FY 1956. 7

By using some of the large accumulation of unobligated funds, built

up by savings in construction costs, the new budget intended to make

do with $1. 3 billion in new obligational authority for the expanding

atomic energy effort, substantially the same level as the previous year.
362 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Spending was projected at about $2 billion, slightly less than in FY 1955.

Operating expenditures, however, were expected to rise from $1.2 billion

in FY 1955 to an unprecedented $1.5 billion, owing to expanded procurement of raw uranium ores and concentrates and anticipated increased

production as new facilities were completed and placed in operation.

Research and development would go forward in FY 1956 on improved submarine reactors, a reactor for large surface vessels, and atomic-powered

aircraft and land vehicles.

For stockpiling strategic and critical materials in FY 1956 the administration requested substantially more new money while planning to

spend less than the previous year. A new long-term level had been superimposed on the existing minimum objectives for additional security, aimed

at adding $3.3 billion in materials to the present objective of $6.5 billion.

Procurement was to be limited to purchases that would help maintain

essential domestic production. Projections indicated that by the end of FY

1956 stocks would be built up to $5.1 billion toward the minimum goal

and $1.2 billion toward the long-term goal, for a total of $6.3 billion. 8

TABLE 10

Major National Security Programs Proposed for FY 1956

($ million)

Programs Expenditures New Obligational Authority

FY1954 FYl955 FY1956 FY1954 FY1955 FY1956

actual estim estim actual estim estim

OSD-directed activities 464 500 600 791 658 640

Army 12,910 8,900 8,850 12,777 7,788 7,303

Navy 11,293 9,775 9,700 9,612 10,272 8,937

Air Force 15,668 15,200 15,600 11,411 12,065 14,536

Proposed legislation 1,000 2,983

Unallocated reduction

in estimates - 1,750

Transfers of prior

year appropriations - 1,500 --- Total DoD 40,335 34,375 34,000 34,591 30,783 32,899

Atomic energy 1,895 2,050 2,000 1,118 1,284 1,292

Strategic & critical

materials 651 994 783 NA 380 522

Military assistance

& support 3,641 3,225 3,675 3,763 1,939 2,030 --- -- --- --- -- ---

Total 46,522 40,644 40,458 39,472 34,386 36,743

Source: Table, Major National Security, Budget of the US. Government, FY 1956, M28.
Congress and the FY 1956 Budget 363

The Squeeze Problem

With the Korean conflict fading into history and despite the storm

clouds over the Formosa Strait, the new DoD budget posed a dilemma

for Democrats. Their recent congressional gains notwithstanding, the

country, like the administration, obviously wanted to get on with the

business of peace; the president now promised that under his budget

this could safely be done. For mere congressmen to call for more defense

spending in a peacetime budget already larger than its predecessor might

seem both excessive and presumptuous.

Ironically, most congressional criticism of the FY 1956 Defense Department budget focused on a handful of items-the military personnel cuts,

pay increase, career incentives, and the expanded reserve-all together

accounting for less than six percent of the new money requested. Generally, the critics nibbled at the edge of cost issues, concentrating on mainly

non-monetary issues where the administration might prove more vulnerable. The proposed Army reduction seemed a natural target, since that

service had in its chief of staff a champion whose record as a professional

soldier might enable him to challenge the president's military judgments,

especially at a time when the threatening situation in the Far East cast

fresh doubt on the wisdom of further cuts in military strength. Ridgway

had the distinction of being the only Army officer who had· held the

three positions of Army chief of staff, Supreme Commander Allied Powers,

Europe, and Commander in Chief Far East Command. Nevertheless, this

hope was to prove ill-founded, in part owing to Ridgway's own shortcomings as a spokesman and advocate.

Looked at up close, the DoD budget and the manpower reductions

built into it were less reassuring than the president pictured them. Down

the drain was the Army's plan, which the president had tentatively

approved less than four months earlier, for increasing its 19 combat

divisions to 24 with no additional manpower by converting "training"

divisions to combat roles and shifting the training burden to the divisions themselves. 9 By 1957 the accelerated reduction schedule would

bring the Army down to 17 divisions and 12 separate regimental combat

teams (RCTs). The only expansion would come in antiaircraft battalions

for the continental air defense system, which would increase from the

current 117 to 142 by mid-1957. 10 Ridgway emphasized, in explaining

the alternatives to Wilson in January, that the Army's dwindling strength

would no longer warrant an equal apportionment of its mobile forces

between the European and Far East theaters; one or the other must be

short-changed."
364 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

To thoughtful critics, questions raised by the DoD budget were larger

than one of numbers of men and divisions, and the Army was not its only,

although the principal, victim. As one critic, Hanson Baldwin, explained in

a series of perceptive articles in the New York Times, the defense posture

that the budget proposed to buy reflected a military policy riddled with

inconsistencies and contradictions, embracing such contrasts as "the

foot soldier with the bayonet and grenade in man-to-man struggle and

the jet plane with hydrogen bomb wreaking impersonal devastation upon

the cities and peoples of mankind." The net result, he argued, was a trend

toward increasing dependence on nuclear weapons. "We can still fight ...

without using atomic arms. But we may not be able to if the present

trend continues for another few years." Something had to give-either the

drive for a balanced budget, or the needs of lower-priority claimants on

defense dollars. Ergo, more "squeeze" on the Army, the Marines, and the

Navy-in that order.

The "squeeze" had other aspects, Baldwin held. Reductions in money

and manpower could only encourage America's allies to follow suit-a

consequence already evident in Western Europe-while the nuclear thrust

of American strategy, paralleled by the growth in Soviet capabilities, was

inducing something like paralysis in diplomacy, inhibiting resolute action.

Fearing to trigger an explosion, "our own government threatens with the

big stick but hesitates to use it in crises."12

Ridgway and the Formosa Crisis

The critic most awaited on Capitol Hill was General Ridgway, whom

Democratic leaders in both houses had promised to call as a leading witness in the upcoming DoD hearings. This would be his last chance to state

his position as chief of staff unless the president reappointed him for

another two-year term.

The sudden eruption of the Formosa crisis late in January upstaged

the budget hearings before they began. During the joint discussion of the

Formosa resolution by the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services

Committees in closed session on the 25th, Democratic senators evidently

hoped to label the American response to the sudden Communist challenge

in the Far East as crippled in advance by the administration's budget and

manpower cuts. With the other chiefs lined up in support of the administration's contention that available forces were adequate, Ridgway seemed

particularly qualified to challenge it because of his recent opposition to

U.S. military intervention in Indochina in April 1954 and in the Quemoy

crisis the following September. 13
Congress and the FY 1956 Budget 365

The Democratic senators made slow headway. When asked whether

the Army could provide sufficient ground forces if needed (Radford had

just testified that use of ground forces was not contemplated), Ridgway

replied that, in a purely "localized" non-escalating situation, even on the

mainland, the Army could at least initiate those operations, but that the

ultimate requirements in a spreading crisis were purely speculative. Later,

when asked whether any need was anticipated to put American ground

forces on Quemoy, Radford and Twining answered with a flat "no." For

this contingency Ridgway held (and Carney and Shepherd agreed) at least

a reinforced division must be provided as a counterattack force against a

major Communist assault. 14

Did the chiefs support the proposed resolution on Formosa that

would authorize the president to employ U.S. armed forces to protect

Formosa and the Pescadores? Ridgway, who feared escalation leading to

involvement of ground forces, held back. He readily conceded, when

pressed, that the United States could always decide not to land ground

forces on the mainland; particularly if Soviet airpower entered the picture, it might be advisable to restrict mainland operations to air strikes

and naval bombardment. But such a strategy always ran the risk of accidental escalation, say, by a local commander's action. 15 Ridgway stated

that he "wholeheartedly" agreed with the president's objectives, that is,

to ensure that Formosa and the Pescadores remained in friendly hands;

but, he said, "my opinion [on the resolution] was not asked." None of the

chiefs, except Radford, had been closely involved in preparing the resolution. On the day that Radford briefed his colleagues, Ridgway had been

out of town, and by the time he returned, the essential decisions had

been taken. With his colleagues, he acceded to Radford's request that the

president be told that the chiefs "unanimously supported the President's

idea of stabilizing this area and his [directed] actions," but under senatorial quizzing Ridgway stubbornly refused to say that he supported the

resolution. To express "approval or disapproval of a decision taken by the

President of the United States" was, he insisted, out of his province. 16

It seemed that Ridgway had nothing against the resolution but did

have deep misgivings about the consequences that might flow from it.

Rigidly defining his own competence as "purely military," he would not

pass judgment on it officially or publicly. Senators who attempted to rearticulate his views while interrogating him tended to flounder, distorting

or oversimplifying them in the process. Ridgway, not always an articulate

speaker, was usually less than lucid in expounding his ideas, so his ambiguous position on the Formosa resolution did not prove particularly useful

to either its supporters or its detractors. 17
366 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Stevens Backs the Army Cuts

On 26 January, during a briefing for the House Armed Services Committee, Wilson made public what had become common knowledge-that

the Army chief of staff opposed the accelerated manpower cuts ordered in

December. 18 The Air Force, Wilson told the committee, had pronounced

the FY 1956 defense program "good," the Navy and Marine Corps had

"minor reservations," but the Army "from its point of view would still

recommend some higher strength for [its] active forces." He went on to

say that he foresaw no further strength or spending cuts nor, for that

matter, any major spending increases for the indefinite future-short of

war. He pooh-poohed the "Formosa business" as "just a little ripple" that

called for no change in basic planning. The remark did not sit well with

some of the committee members. 19

The committee grilled Wilson inconclusively on the manpower issue,2°

and the discussion reached its climax on 31 January, when Stevens and

Ridgway appeared as witnesses. The former carried most of the burden,

Ridgway's testimony being limited to a short prepared statement and

terse replies to a few questions. Stevens seemed a different person from the

worried, sometimes confused official who for a year or more had alternately resisted and rationalized imposed personnel reductions and budget

cuts.* Now confident, he made it clear that on the manpower issue he

supported the administration without reservation. Pressed by Chairman

Vinson to recall whether, facing the dictated personnel reduction of the

Army from 1.3 million to 1,027,000, he had not recommended a higher

figure, the secretary said no, he had "adjusted [his] thinking completely to

this balanced program."21

The committee thus faced a conflict of testimony, since only five days

earlier Wilson had told them that the Army wanted a higher level-off

strength than that approved by the president. Vinson and other members

pressed Stevens to explain the contradiction, but in vain. Under relentless

questioning, Stevens faithfully recited, without waffling or embarrassment, all the party-line reasons for his changed position: allied forces

being built up to deal with local aggressions, the strategically placed central

reserve and expanded reserves, more efficient use of manpower, new

manpower-saving weaponry, etc. When contradictions were pointed out,

he simply restated his argument. Clearly he had returned to the fold. 22

The committee expressed particular interest in the secretary's views

on what would happen if Congress failed to pass the reserve plan. Stevens

• Stevens had undergone a great deal of stress during the McCarthy hearings in 1953-54. By

this time his ordeal was over.
Congress and the FY 1956 Budget 367

admitted that if the Army could not get an adequate ready reserve to supplement its reduced standing forces in an emergency, the latter would

have to be expanded. If the legislation failed to pass, would the Army then

come back to Congress and ask to be given back the 140,000 men it

was losing, or take a chance with no reserve? Stevens admitted, "we might

have to come back."23

Earlier Vinson had played another card, asserting that "last year [we]

gave you what you said was the very minimum you could afford to have,"

and then DoD, without consulting Congress, had begun to reduce the

strength. "These bills," he pontificated, "are not merely permissive laws.

It is the law. And the executive branch is presumed to enforce the law,

whether it likes it or not .... I think there has to be a showdown."24

Vinson's presumed purpose had been to come up with higher strength

goals that could be sold to Congress and imposed on the administration.

But Stevens's reluctance to stray from the official line had effectively stymied the effort. He did not, indeed, venture to challenge the constitutional

doctrine Vinson had asserted. When Mendel Rivers of South Carolina

asked Stevens whether the "last word was down town or up here on the

Hill," Stevens unhesitatingly replied, "Right up here on the Hill." Other

congressmen offered a contrary doctrine: Congress merely put a ceiling

on money and manpower and could not force the executive branch to

spend all the money or uniform all the men authorized. Caught in the

middle, Stevens floundered between the two positions. Vinson decided

for the present not to insist on a congressional constitutional prerogative

to invalidate the administration's mandated strength goals. 25

The last hope for making a strong case against the Army manpower

cuts now rested on Ridgway, whose only helpful contribution to the

debate thus far had been an assertion that more destructive weaponry

and the inevitability of huge casualties would require more rather than

fewer men. He pointed out that combat zones, which in World War II and

even later had an assumed depth of 30 to 50 miles, were now being estimated at from 150 to 200 miles. Later, when asked whether the reduction

of the Army during the current Far East crisis affected the safety of the

country, his simple reply, "I think it does, sir," apparently startled everyone. He repeated the point and amplified it to stress that the problem

went beyond the immediate crisis area and was global in scope. But he

then interjected the now familiar qualification: "It isn't up to me or to

any other officer in uniform to oppose a decision by the constituted

authorities of our Government."26

Ridgway evidently had no more ammunition to give the opposition.

His prepared statement added nothing significant to the debate over

personnel cuts. Indeed, his characteristic emphasis on the Army's effort
368 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

to adjust to its reduced status and mounting challenges was, if anything,

reassuring to champions of the New Look. Nevertheless, press accounts

played up Ridgway's public testimony as signifying a clear break with

the president. It made virtually certain, predicted the New York Times,

"a bitter Congressional fight ... to force the administration to keep

military manpower at least at present levelS."27

The president apparently decided to take no chances. Queried about

Ridgway's testimony at his news conference on 2 February, he displayed neither annoyance nor concern, and disposed of the matter in a

few brisk sentences. His decision on the Army cuts, he said, had been

taken only after long study. The general had expressed his personal convictions, as was his right and duty, but his responsibility was "a special

one, or, in a sense, parochial," as contrasted with the responsibility of

the commander in chief in his recommendations to Congress. He was

aware, he added, of the opinions of all the Joint Chiefs; "I know exactly

who agrees with me and who doesn't."28

House Budget Hearings: Win Some, Lose Some

Meanwhile, on 31 January the budget hearings got under way in

George H. Mahon's House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Two

Democrats, Daniel J. Flood (Pa.) and Robert L. Sikes (Fla.), pressed the

military manpower issue in their interrogation of Wilson. Flood used

blatantly harassing tactics, initially with some success, in an effort to force

Wilson into damaging or misleading statements, but although he rattled

the secretary he elicited little noteworthy information. Sikes's interrogation, longer and calmer, proved more productive. Wilson admitted, in

effect, that the Army's projected strength was a peacetime level only;

larger forces would surely be needed in a "shooting war." As for tactical

atomic weapons, Wilson pointed out that they had not yet been tested in

battle and no one knew what their effect would be. What about mobility?

He conceded that until "we improve our air transportation," the Army's

mobility would be little changed. He admitted that the decision to reduce

the Army had involved conscious discounting of Ridgway's view that

modern weapons dictated more rather than fewer men. "If you listen to

the military people only, they will bankrupt the nation or else create a

military dictatorship. That is why our Constitution says that the civilians

should say how big the Army should be."29

On the constitutional balance between the legislative and executive

branches, Wilson now retreated into his shell. He was sure the reduction

of the Army was "the right thing to do," but he was "not a constitutional
Congress and the FY 1956 Budget 369

lawyer," had never thought much about the question, and didn't want to

go into the "technicalities" or "protocol" of Congress's right to determine

the size of the armed forces. What would he do, Sikes demanded, if

Congress actually voted more money-buy more troops or return the

money to the Treasury? Wilson said he had no plans to use more funds;

the whole defense program would have to be restudied. Despite a few

abrasive moments like these, Sikes wound up his long interrogation with

a compliment: the secretary had been "a very patient man."30 Sikes had,

in fact, scored a few damaging points. The arbitrary and abrupt nature of

the president's decision to accelerate the reduction of the Army now

appeared starker than before, and the failure to consult Congress or at

least its leaders raised questions of constitutional propriety if not legality.

Radiating loyalty to the president and uncritical acceptance of his judgment, Wilson's rather inexpert parroting of the official rationale could

have been persuasive only to those already persuaded.

Admiral Radford, who appeared before the committee on 2 February,

was an adversary of a different stripe. Where Wilson, uncertain and claiming no special military expertise, often said more than he needed to say,

the admiral took refuge in a calculated "know nothing" mode. Every mention of budget dollars, even totals blazoned in newspaper headlines,

was prefaced by a disclaimer that "I am not prepared to testify in detail

on the budget," and further qualified by denials of personal knowledge.

On one critical point Radford blandly denied what Wilson had readily

admitted, that the president's decision to cut the armed forces had been

sudden and unexpected; Radford described it as merely "continuing" the

original New Look program. "I can say for myself that there were no decisions that were a surprise to me." To Flood's demand whether he would

"support this budget and this Army reduction until the shooting starts,"

Radford cited the president's 5 January letter to Wilson and the message

on the Formosa resolution to show that the FY 1956 strength targets

were not cast in concrete and could be modified in the face of intelligence pointing to new dangers. But was the administration not counting

prematurely on passage of the new reserve bill to offset cuts in the

active forces? Radford, without argument, pointed out that large numbers

of trained men were completing active service and entering the reserves

every month. 31

On 7 February the entire House Military Appropriations Subcommittee turned out to hear Stevens and Ridgway testify at the opening

session on the Army budget, which normally would have been held before

Sikes's five-man Army panel. The Democrats dominated the first day's

session, seeking to portray a deteriorating world situation (the threat to
370 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Formosa, collapse of the Mendes-France government in Paris, a recent

increase in Soviet military expenditures) in which the Army, with reduced

capabilities, would be hard put to carry out its commitments. Ridgway

confirmed the report that the Army had little warning of the December

decision to accelerate its reduction, contradicting Radford's recent statement. 32 But by the end of the day, the Democrats had failed to add much

to their case against the Army personnel cuts or to breach Ridgway's and

Stevens's solid support of the administration's position. The next day the

senior Republican committee members launched a vigorous counterattack. Stevens emphasized recent diplomatic successes and redeployments from the Far East and Ridgway testified that the projected

FY 1955 and FY 1956 levels did not rest on expectations of early formation of a German army. Both admitted that their views had not been

ignored at high levels at the time of the final decision on personnel cutS. 33

Under Republican quizzing, Ridgway discoursed volubly on the nature

and significance of increasing firepower, a phenomenon that apparently

baffled some of the committee members. Ridgway conceded that the

firepower of an American division had grown theoretically by about 85

percent since World War II, with only a moderate increase in manpower.

But he denied vehemently a suggestion that 20 divisions today would therefore be "worth" 35 or 36 World War II divisions, because nuclear weapons

not only gave a division enormous firepower but also made it highly vulnerable, like the hypothetical single soldier armed with a nuclear hand

grenade. Ridgway held the opinion, in fact, that the power ratio between

the Soviet bloc and the free world, based on combat effectiveness, had

"altered to our disadvantage in the last twenty-four months" as a result of

the modernization and training of satellite air and ground forces, particularly the dramatic improvement of the Chinese Communist Army. 34

Ridgway's appearance on 7 and 8 February gave both parties a final

opportunity to exploit his views and persona in an effort to influence

House action on the military personnel reductions. With one exception,

most of his testimony was too finespun to make a mark on the gross

issues around which the ongoing debate revolved. The exception, one

potentially disastrous to the case the Democrats were trying to build, was

his off-the-record recommendation, assuming continued intensification

of the overall threat, of an "optimum" strength of 1.3 million for the Army

in FY 1956. Later, Rep. Gerald R. Ford unobtrusively asked Army Comptroller Lt. Gen. George Decker to estimate the extra cost of such an

increase. The estimate, covering both FY 1955 and FY 1956, came to almost

$1.3 billion. It provided the first concrete indication of the budgetary

consequences to be expected if Congress should decide to implement

Ridgway's views-as contrasted with estimated savings of about $700
Congress and the FY 1956 Budget 371

million in FY 1956 from the proposed reduction of the Army from

1,173,000 to 1,025,000 men. 35

By this time House Democratic leaders had taken a reading of the

membership and concluded that, on this issue, the game was lost. Vinson

subsequently retracted his earlier doubts and declared his wholehearted

support for the personnel cuts. The president had assured him, he said,

that the planned level-off strength of the armed forces (2,850,000) would

remain stable for years to come. Together with the commitment to defend

Formosa, he saw it as a firm barrier against further Communist aggression. That Congress could not force the administration to spend money it

did not wish to spend,* or legally set a minimum strength for the armed

forces, seemingly was now generally accepted. 36

Senate Hearings

In the Senate also, hearings (again aimed mainly at the Army personnel reductions) were held by both the Armed Services Committee (in

February) and the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee (beginning in

April). In both committees administration spokesmen encountered more

skepticism and resistance than in the House, primarily of course from the

Democrats, but also from a few Republicans who on this issue opposed

or only lukewarmly supported the administrationY As in the House,

Ridgway again offered the favorite target of interrogation. The resistance

to DoD cutbacks in the Senate could be attributed in part to the rising

threat of hostilities in the Formosa Strait area in March and early April,

the uncertain prospects of new leadership in the Kremlin following Georgi

M. Malenkov's fall from power, and from mid-May on the rising clamor of

public debate triggered by the Soviets' surprise unveiling of new types of

bombers and interceptors in their annual May Day air parade. t

Ridgway's final appearance before the Armed Services Committee at

the end of February was noteworthy for his recommendation that the

Army should be built back up to a strength of 1.4 million, 100,000 more

than he had recommended in the House. 38 Six weeks later, however, and

in a different forum (the Military Appropriations Subcommittee), he once

more gave 1.3 million as his favored goal in the "distinctly deteriorated"

world situation. Without departing from his self-defined "military" role,

* In 1962 Vinson would make an effort to force President Kennedy to spend money on

the B-70 bomber. Once again the issue was resolved without a direct clash between the

two branches.

t See Chapter XVII.
372 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

scrupulously avoiding value judgments on the decisions of his constitutional superiors, he stressed the costs, as he saw them, of the imposed

reductions in the Army's strength. Among other measures, the Army had

been forced to abandon the tested system of training recruits in separate

centers and to shift the burden to the active divisions themselves, to the

detriment of combat readiness. On the other hand, the large-scale redeployment from the Far East was actually salutary in relieving a risky

overconcentration of the Army's effective strength in remote and difficultto-defend areas. The peacetime Army, he said, could deal promptly with

"small local aggressions," but not carryon beyond a limited time without expansion. 39

Inevitably the appropriations subcommittee flogged the threadbare

issues of whether the Joint Chiefs had "approved" the decision to cut

the Army and who had proposed it. Ridgway pointed out-apparently to

the astonishment of some senators-that the chiefs had been consulted

on the matter but had not approved, because that was not their function. "When a decision is announced by civil authority ... superior to

the Joint Chiefs, [then] it is accepted with whole-hearted loyalty," he

added sententiously.40

Thus to the end, Ridgway rebuffed the role of rebel that some of

the legislators obviously sought to thrust upon him. As the president

himself had put it, Ridgway's point of view was unavoidably "parochial."

The distinction between "purely military" and "purely political" judgments was not, of course, universally accepted, even in Ridgway's

profession, and in a few years would be widely rejected; but Ridgway

was obviously comfortable with it. 41

General Twining's testimony was skillfully crafted both to soothe

and to worry his audience at the same time. Expansion of the Air Force

was moving swiftly toward the 137-wing goal for '1957. Complete conversion of medium bombers from propeller-driven to jets was in sight,

with completion of phasing-in of the medium B-47 by early 1956. The first

B-52 heavy bombers would join SAC in summer 1955. New high-altitude

jet tankers would increase the range of the jet bombers. In the tactical

forces, all fighter bombers and light bombers could now carry atomic

as well as conventional ordnance; aerial tankers and airlift would

give these forces added range, mobility, and flexibility. Continental

air defenses were improving across the board, but only SAC's long-range

striking forces could prevent a repelled enemy from attacking again.

The Air National Guard (ANG) and Air Reserve were being equipped

with modern aircraft, and ANG fighter wings would be fully converted

to jets by the end of FY 1956. Airpower was entering the missile era.

Pilotless Matador surface-to-surface squadrons were already operational in
Congress and the FY 1956 Budget 373

Europe, and the air-to-air Falcon and the surface-to-air Bomarc were doing

well in tests. A trio of intercontinental missiles-Navaho, Snark, and the

Atlas ICBM-were under development. Work continued on the still

conceptual revolutionary nuclear-powered airplane. Skimming over a

touchy subject, Twining noted that the troop carrier force "will continue

to grow" and that a 50 percent increase in airlift was projected by 1960.42

The threat posed by Soviet military power, Twining declared, was

growing ominously; important stages in nuclear development had been

reached "well ahead of our predictions." Communist airpower posed the

"number one threat to our security," particularly the improving Soviet

capacity to deliver nuclear weapons. New types of j.et bombers and fighters, apparently now in quantity production, were capable of reaching

most of Western Europe and all of Alaska, and much of the Far East; the

new heavier types could extend this reach to all of Europe, Asia, North

Africa, and, with air refueling, North America. The groWing Chinese air

force was also a threat, but a greater danger, especially in the current

tense situation in the Far East, was China's rapidly expanding network of

air bases, which would enable the Soviets to move in their own aircraft

and thus "double or triple their air strength in the Far East overnight."

The Soviet missile developments, including an ICBM, posed for the United

States a defense problem "more difficult than any ever faced in history."

To offset it, Twining assured the senators, "the very highest priority" had

been assigned to the Atlas ICBM.4 3

Twining's upbeat testimony echoed the cautious optimism the senators had already heard from Secretaries Talbott and Thomas (Navy), all

three taking their cue from the official line expounded on the opening

day by Radford and Wilson's deputy, Robert B. Anderson.. Admiral Carney

and General Shepherd, on the other hand, were cool in endorsing it,

Carney professing concern regarding the Navy's ability, hit hard by perc

sonnel and budgetary cuts, to fulfill its general war missions. He would,

of course, carry out the prescribed reductions, but "if conditions continue

to put a heavy strain on us with respect to overseas deployments, I might

feel called upon to ask for some adjustment."44

Carney's lack of enthusiasm may have reflected cumulative strain

caused by the mounting Formosa Strait crisis that had thrust Carney into

unwelcome prominence. On 24 March he had allegedly predicted (off

the record) that the Communists would attack Matsu about 15 April and

Quemoy some weeks later. The news leaked, and garbled reports-Carney

publicly denied the allegation-triggered a chain reaction, ballooning

into one of the biggest news sensations since the end of the Korean War

and portraying the luckless admiral as a leading hawk. Carney remained

resolutely silent, while the administration tried frantically to smother the
374 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

fire by disavowals and a presidential statement that peace was not served

by such speculation. At some point Carney was probably "taken to the

woodshed," although the president denied it. 45

When his turn came before the Senate committee, General Shepherd

had two well-turned paragraphs in his prepared statement about the

effect of the personnel cuts on the Marine Corps. Cuts of this size, he

admitted, would "involve some sacrifice," but could be absorbed by disbanding some units and reducing manning levels in others. The staying

power of combat forces would be reduced somewhat, but otherwise the

readiness of operating forces would not be diminished. After a lengthy

grilling by the chairman, Shepherd reluctantly admitted that in an

emergency "we would have to have more men, more materials" for

sustained operations. Although he expressed support for the budget as

submitted, eventually the commandant acknowledged that a strength of

210,000 to 215,000 would be an "ideal optimum peacetime strength" for

the Corps. Shepherd had opposed the original decision to reduce active

forces, but later accepted it and was prepared to make the best of it.

Like Ridgway, he admitted to misgivings regarding the adequacy of the

reduced force to cope with an emergency until reinforcements could

be mobilized. In addition, Shepherd revealed that as a byproduct of the

Navy's force reduction the Marines would be provided amphibious lift for

only one-and-one-third instead of two divisions as at present (one for

each coast).46

The first round of Senate hearings wound down with Ridgway's

testimony on 6 April. Shepherd clearly had made an impression as

Ridgway's rival in the annual Capitol Hill game of how-to-get-moremoney-without-actually-asking. Several Democratic senators now predicted that the Marine Corps personnel cuts would be restored. Both in

the country and on the Hill, the constituency of the Corps was probably

at least as large as the Army's, and the price tag of $75 million for the

restoration looked modest by comparison with the sums that would be

needed to pay for even a portion of the additional manpower Ridgway

wanted. By mid-April, the president was reported to have been warned

that Ridgway's testimony had made serious inroads in committee support

for the budget and to have decided to write a personal letter to the chairman in an effort to turn the tideY

House Hearings and Floor Debate

From the House, by contrast, the word was "not to worry." The

powerful chairman of the Appropriations Committee, 75-year-old Missouri
Congress and the FY 1956 Budget 375

Rep. Clarence Cannon, in times past a legendary budget cutter and fiery

debater, was convinced that every dollar of this particular budget, above

all the DoD budget, was vital to the nation's security. But because he also

had unshakable confidence in the president's judgment on military

matters, he parted company with his Democratic colleagues on the issue

of reducing the ground forces. "So far as the armed forces budget is concerned," he declared, "I intend to give him [the president] what he wants,

no more and no less."48

On 5 May the House Appropriations Committee overwhelmingly

approved and sent to the floor a DoD budget reduced by about $750

million in bookkeeping and technical money transfers, but in substance

virtually intact as submitted. Flood fought a losing battle to restore

approximately that amount in order to recoup some of the Army losses

and vowed to renew the fight on the floor the following week. The committee report noted the opposition of some members and also the

administration's assurance that more money would be requested promptly

if the world situation worsened. 49

The House floor debate, such as it was, consumed the better part of

two days (11-12 May). Along the way, Rep. George Mahon pronounced

that the Defense budget was "about as good as could be expected at

this time." It did, however, contain much that he did not like, above all

its "colossal failure" in the procurement field, "where losses to the taxpayer are greatest," especially for the big-ticket items such as airplanes,

electronics, and industrial products generally. "We want to see big and

little business do well." But some, Mahon said, were doing too well and

at the taxpayers' expense, and their high-priced executives enjoyed an

unfair advantage; "a few timid civilians and harassed lieutenant colonels

are not equal to the task of meeting big business on even terms." What

President Eisenhower would later call the "military-industrial complex"

was not yet perceived as a peril of which the nation should beware.

Representative Sikes, heading the Army subcommittee, voiced serious

misgivings over the force reductions. He noted in particular the difficulty

his group had experienced in determining who had been responsible for

initiating the Army cuts. No witness believed that current world conditions warranted a general relaxation in defense preparations, despite

the obvious current trend toward peace. Nevertheless, Sikes concluded,

after careful deliberation, "our committee is supporting the budget figure

that was presented to US."50

Almost the only sour note came from Representative Flood. Early in

the session he announced a series of amendments restoring all the personnel to be eliminated, as well as the Navy's ship reductions-to the

tune of almost $410 millionY Representative Ford made the principal
376 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

argument in defense of the Army budget. Ford's most important contribution to the debate was a methodical analysis of Ridgway's statements

during the hearings, demonstrating that Democratic spokesmen had

singled out statements supporting the case against the personnel cuts.

What might be called Ridgway's net position, based on all his testimony,

turned out to be a mixture of ambiguity, uncertainty, and simple wait-andsee noncommitment. Ford showed, moreover, that Ridgway's widely cited

view of the probable effects of atomic warfare on manpower requirements was really not relevant to the debate on the FY 1956 budget, since

the Army was only now conducting field tests aimed at clarifying, if

not resolving, this issue. Neither the manpower nor the dollar figures

projected for FY 1956 reflected expectations that the new reserve program would be passed and produce, in that period, large numbers of

trained reservists. They did assume growth of the National Guard and

Reserve forces by some 271,000. Ford also reviewed in some detail the

Army's impressive record in improving the ratio of combat to non-combat

personnel, increasing firepower and mobility, and improving communications. The clear implication was that the Army could make do

with fewer men. 52

Committee Chairman Cannon mostly held aloof during the long

session. His one significant intervention came late on the second day.

"We cling to the old ways, the old times, the old weapons, and the old

strategy," he began. "Always there are those who want to fight the next

war like they fought the last war. And invariably it has ended in disaster."

His main point, accepting the Air Force "big bang" image of a general

war, held that the Army would be virtually useless in a major conflict

except to control riots and bury the dead; moreover, the Navy would

take two weeks to go into action, and the Army a whole year. He urged

the members to vote for the bill as presented. At the end of a long day

(12 May), which went into a night session, the members shouted down

all the Flood amendments so resoundingly that he did not bother to ask

for a hand count. The House passed the Defense budget, substantially as

reported by the committee, by a vote of 382 to 0. 53

The Senate: Symington Wins One for the Marines

The ho-hum mood of the House during the 12 May floor debate

owed much to the relative calm that had prevailed for several weeks on

the world scene. The Formosa Strait crisis was still a crisis, but Admiral

Carney's predicted Communist assault on the Matsus in mid-April had

failed to materialize and pressure on the administration to negotiate a
Congress and the FY 1956 Budget 377

cease-fire by the two sides was increasing. On the other side of the world,

the promising negotiations for an Austrian peace treaty (consummated

in May) and the impending Big Four summit conference seemed to signal

a new relaxation of East-West tension.

But on the day following the House budget vote, official announcement of the appearance in a Moscow air parade of two new Soviet jet

bombers, a turboprop bomber, and a newall-weather fighter caused a

firestorm of scare publicity that the administration tried, at first with

little success, to dampen. By the end of the month, the heat had abated

somewhat, and the administration responded to the pressure by a

decision to accelerate production of B-52 bombers, reminding its critics

meanwhile that the United States retained superiority in medium bombers. The administration seemed to be winning the airpower debate in

the budget struggle. From the outset, airpower had been a potential

rather than an actual budget issue, not merely because the administration had taken the minimum steps to defuse it, but more fundamentally

because the opposition consisted of two groups, airpower and ground

force partisans, whose alliance was as uneasy now as it had been during

the battles over the 1954 and 1955 budgets. As early as the end of May,

senior Democrats gave reporters the impression that they had little hope

of being able to override the president's influence as the nation's top

military expert; he had always won such battles in the past. 54

On 14 June the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a DoD

appropriations bill funding the requested stepped-up B-52 production. It

also restored to the Air Force an authorization to spend for various

purposes $380 million of carried-over funds that the House had ruled

off limits. The cost of the B-52 acceleration was $356 million; the whole

bill provided a net increase of about $348 million over the House bill,

for a total of $31.8 billion. 55

A languid floor debate on the 20th revealed the extent to which the

issues had been exhausted in the press and committee hearing rooms.

Symington, chief ball-carrier for the Democrats, spoke at some length but

added little of substance to his previous pronouncements. During the

discussion on the 20th the question of accelerating fighter production

became a non-issue when Senator Dennis Chavez read a letter from Secretary Talbott reporting that the two newest supersonic fighters then

under development, the F-I0l and F-I04, had been determined to be

"ready to be placed in quantity production," and that he had so recommended to Secretary Wilson. No need for additional appropriations was

anticipated, Talbott noted. Symington then gave up any thought of adding

a further $200 million to the Air Force budget for this purpose. 56
378 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Symington said little about the B-52 acceleration: that it fell far short

of what was needed; that in the air the United States was much worse

off than before, with clear superiority only in one limited category,

medium jet bombers. Regarding the ICBM, the weapon that "should cause

us the most concern," Symington claimed that the Soviets were "well

ahead," his most sweeping assertion to date. On the airpower issue, he

was thus reduced to simply challenging, on the basis of past performance, the administration's credibility in promising future superiority.

Accordingly, Symington shifted the debate back to the cuts in ground

forces, urging that they be suspended while the issue was reappraised.

To start the ball rolling, he had already introduced an amendment adding

about $46 million to the Navy budget to halt the reduction of the Marine

Corps and bring it back up to an end strength of 215,000 in FY 1956,

the number originally authorized in the 1955 appropriation bill for the

end of that year. 57

Symington received little vocal support from his Democratic colleagues, except for Senator Russell of Georgia, who branded the cut in

the Marine Corps as the "most inexplicable" of all the planned reductions

and ridiculed the anomaly of refusing reenlistment to Marine veterans

while drafting thousands of young men who had no wish to serve. 58 The

vote on Symington's amendment was a cliffhanger, the winning vote (40

to 39) provided by a last-minute switch by Louisiana Democrat Russell

Long. The Senate divided mainly along party lines. Eventually the Democrats decided not to push their luck and gave up the struggle against the

Army reductions. The purely symbolic character of Symington's victory

was generally recognized: Even if it were sustained in conference, the

president could not be forced to spend the money. No other important

issue arose, and the Senate voted 80-to-0 to approve the committee bill as

amended. 59 On the 29th Senate-House conferees quickly agreed to the

Senate's actions in adding funds to halt the Marine Corps' reduction and

to finance acceleration of the B-52 program. Both chambers subsequently

approved their conferees' reports. The final budget stood at $31.8 billion

in new appropriations. The Army received $7.3 billion, the Navy/Marine

Corps $9.1 billion, the Air Force $14.7 billion, and the remainder went to

OSDand interservice and other activities. 60
CHAPTER XVII

The 1955 Bomber Gap Flap

Early in May 1955 the House was nearing the end of its review of

the FY 1956 Defense budget. Abroad, war clouds over the Formosa Strait

seemed to be dissipating, and elsewhere the international scene was

relatively calm. Then, on the 14th the New York Times carried a twoparagraph Defense Department press release about the recent appearance

of new Soviet aircraft-a medium jet bomber, a heavy bomber, a turboprop bomber, and a jet fighter-over Moscow. 1 This, it soon appeared, was

the tip of a large, intrusive iceberg, which would not merely disrupt the

budget review but shake the foundations of the New Look itself.

The Moscow Flybys

The 14 May announcement, "terse to the point of ambiguity," as

defense expert Hanson Baldwin described it, provoked interest less

by what it said than by what it failed to say. It was mostly old news. One

of the Type-37 bombers (similar to the American B-52) had been among

the 175 aircraft flown over Red Square in the 1954 May Day parade.

Observers then had publicly labeled it a prototype, but during the following summer and fall as many as two or three were seen flying

together on several occasions. Also observed in the 1954 May Day parade

was a formation of nine Type-39 medium bombers (similar to the American B-47), by then known to be in series production. A year later, May

Day 1955, bad weather prevented the customary air parade over Red

Square, but during a three-week period straddling that date observers

saw some 13 flights of new aircraft types, including the two jet bombers.

379
380 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

These flights, promptly reported by news media in Europe and other

countries, did not receive public attention in the United States until the

14 May news release. Information was, of course, available earlier in

the Pentagon; Allen Dulles, in his regular intelligence briefing to the NSC

on 28 April, noted the flights observed up to that time. 2

Why the Defense Department waited almost two weeks to release

the information, and then only in a hoarse whisper, baffled reporters at

the time and remains unclear. To be sure the flybys were intermittent,

making the story cumulative and ongoing-much of the news was stale,

and on its face, the story was good news for the Democrats, bad for the

administration. If released before or during the House floor debate on

the budget, for example, it might have changed some votes, though hardly

enough to stem the landslide that buried the bill's opponents on the 12th.

In the Pentagon and the intelligence community, moreover, the fierce

dispute that had immediately erupted over the interpretation to be placed

on Moscow's sudden and dramatic display of these particular aircraft

argued for holding back as long as possible while answers were being

sought. In assessing Soviet intentions and capabilities, Wilson always

tended to go slow and underrate. He was also not a militant champion of

the public's right to know about national security matters. Wilson seems

to have regarded any important news release as a potential time bomb. 3

Obviously, however, the story could not be held back indefinitely,

and each successive day's delay aggravated the damage that could be

expected when it finally broke. Secretary Talbott who, it turned out, had

released it after clearance by his superiors, lamely noted that "I thought

the American people should know the facts," since the London papers

had already carried the story. Wilson, already under orders to play down

the story, decided in favor of the "terse" version finally released, not, as

in Hanson Baldwin's acid comment, "for information but for effect and

restricted to partial truth."4

The full story, dribbled out over the next two or three weeks, described the five new aircraft types (with their American names) seen over

Moscow as follows:

Bison (Type 37): a very long-range, swept-wing, four-engine jet'

bomber; one-way range about 6,000 miles.

Badger (Type 39): a medium-range, swept-wing, twin-engine

bomber, comparable to the B-47.

Bear: a very long-range (one-way about 8,000 miles), sweptwing, four-engine turboprop aircraft tentatively designated a

bomber, but could be a tanker.
The 1955 Bomber Gap Flap 381

Farmer: a twin-engine, swept-wing, air-superiority supersonic

day fighter, never seen before; configuration suggested 800-

mph class.

Flashlight: all-weather interceptor, first such aircraft revealed

by Soviets. 5

What had been seen seemed to indicate that the Soviet air forces

were in process of being rapidly equipped with at least five up-to-date

types of combat aircraft; two of the five had never before been seen, two

had been seen but had been presumed to be prototypes still years

away from large-scale production. Only the Badger was known to be in

series production and flying in combat units. 6 The real mystery plane,

the turboprop Bear, could not equal the speed of a jet over the target,

but its lower fuel consumption gave it a significantly longer unrefueled

range, an important asset for the Soviets in view of their lack of forward

bases close to the North American continent. The unexpected appearance

of the Bear along with the Bison raised the question whether the Soviets planned to develop and produce two intercontinental jet bombers, or

to use the Bear as a tanker for the Bison. Since the Bison's estimated

range barely qualified it for an intercontinental role, the latter possibility

seemed more likely. With a refueling capability, a long-range striking force

of Bisons would pose what one Air Force official in May 1955 called

an "appalling" threat. Air Force intelligence was forecasting that within

three years the Soviets could have a fleet of 350 Bisons and 250 Bears,

more than enough for a crippling attack on the continental United States.

Actually in 1958 the Soviets had only 50 and 150, respectively, and long before that date had switched emphasis from bombers to ballistic missiles. 7

Publicity Firestorm

The debate touched off by the. disclosure quickly attained the proportions of a headline firestorm. Three days after the first news reports of

the Moscow flybys based on the Pentagon's tardy press release, Senator

Symington, now a prospective presidential candidate, charged that the government's limited revelations showed- that the United States was losing

control of the air to the Soviets. He called for a full-dress Senate inquiry

into all aspects of American versus Soviet military strength. The Soviet

air force, he told the Senate, had not long ago been characterized by

Secretary Wilson as "defensive." "It is now clear that the United States,

along with the rest of the free world, may have lost control of the air
382 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

except for the possibility we still have advantages in base location and

training." Sen. Richard Russell, meanwhile, announced that his Armed

Services Committee would conduct a closed-door investigation of Air

Force readiness, probably through the Preparedness Subcommittee headed

by Sen. Lyndon Johnson. 8 In his news conference the next day, the president tried to play down the whole affair. He admitted that "we may not

have as many B-52s as we should like at this moment," and that Soviet

achievements had sometimes "exceeded predictions," but he ridiculed

the notion that the United States could have lost "in a twinkling" its

longstanding qualitative superiority over the Soviets. 9

In less than a week the ill-conceived 14 May news release had thus

triggered the kind of escalating public debate over national security that

the administration had hoped to avoid as the DoD budget, emerging

almost unscathed from the House, moved into the more hostile arena of

the Senate. Top officials, attempting to enforce the president's low-key

treatment of the matter, qUickly discovered that many of their own

troops, especially in the Air Force, more or less openly agreed with the

alarmist opposition line. When the administration attempted to mobilize

official speechmaking over the Armed Forces Day weekend (20-22 May)

to counteract the recent scare stories, it turned out that several speeches

submitted by high officials for clearance read as though they had been

framed for the opposite purpose. In haste, the word went out that they

should be rewritten to hew to the official line. Secretary Talbott, under

instructions from the White House and Secretary Wilson, revised his

own speech and advised General Twining to do likewise; Lt. Gen. Thomas

Power and others down the line received similar guidance. Also the Air

Force put out an order reminding its personnel that all public statements

on intelligence matters must be cleared with the Pentagon and admonished officials to be careful in their public utterances. As always,

however, some apparently failed to get the word. General Thomas D.

White, Air Force vice chief of staff, in his Armed Forces Day speech,

declared that America's lead in scientific manpower "is going, if it has

not already gone." He confirmed reports that the Soviets had "thousands"

of the supersonic MiG-17s, as compared with fewer than 100 U.S. F-lOOs

now in combat units. 10

As the debate moved into its second week, the Democrats stepped

up their attacks. On 23 May Symington demanded that the administration

confirm or correct a detailed critical analysis of recent Soviet gains in

airpower published that day by Aviation Week. Senator Russell expressed

unhappiness over the administration's failure to ask for more defense

money, since "Congress cannot itself create or operate an Air Force."
The 1955 Bomber Gap Flap 383

Senator Johnson, Democratic floor leader, seconded both his colleagues,

and declared that Secretary Wilson "ought to step in to clear up confusion

about Pentagon statements on Soviet power."ll

The next day Wilson, flanked by Air Force Assistant Secretary Roger

Lewis, faced newsmen with a new formal statement ostensibly providing

the clarification demanded by Senator Johnson. The statement listed the

aircraft observed in the Moscow flybys earlier that month, the numbers

agreeing substantially with those published in various earlier published

reports. These facts, it said, were "not new to the Defense Department"

and were recognized as demonstrating "an ability to produce long-range

aircraft." Wilson added that the president had correctly stated recently

that the United States still enjoyed air superiority over the Soviet Union,

and he then reasserted the familiar New Look claim of "adequate overall

defense" for the long haul. 12

Refusing to be deflected, the reporters honed in on the sticky issue

of air superiority. Wearying under their relentless pursuit of numbers,

Wilson produced a recent statement by General Twining to the effect that

straight numerical comparisons did not reveal much about the relative

power of opposing air forces, since many other elements had to be

considered-e.g., degree of modernization, weaponry, base systems,

experience and skill, ability to fly long distances and hit targets, ability

to operate and maintain complex equipment, ability to supply a force

and keep it fighting. On the other hand, numerical disadvantages could

not be ignored. As Twining put it, "We must recognize any advantage they

[the Soviets] have in quantity as a gap that must be bridged by our superiority in quality and technology."13 Wilson and Lewis insisted that the only

real surprise in the Moscow flybys was the numbers of several advanced

models of aircraft the Soviets were able to muster at one time. The technology itself was state-of-the-art, within demonstrated Soviet capabilities.

The numbers displayed were sufficient to suggest the probability of series

production rather than handmade prototypes. What must not be forgotten, Wilson warned, was that "we just saw what they wanted us to see."

Still, it seemed a "fair assumption" that the Soviets were now bent on

building a long-range bomber force similar to SAC; his estimate a year

ago, based on the continued heavy production of MiG fighters, that their

air force was basically "defensive," now appeared to be out of date. But he

stuck to his prediction that the Soviets would not be able to mount a

sustained bombing offensive against the United States before 1957 at

the earliest. 14

For all his discounting of mere numbers, Wilson was probably more

worried about them than he seemed, particularly the numbers of Bisons
384 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

now in existence and yet to come. A week earlier Radford had sent him

a somber warning, apparently unsolicited. It reviewed the erratic course

of official estimates of Soviet heavy bomber development over the past

two years. 15 In 1953 u.S. intelligence credited the Soviets with no jet

bombers at all, heavy or medium. By now, according to some estimates,

enough Bisons could have been produced to equip the equivalent of a

SAC wing (about 30), and current production might be running at 6 a

month and might rise to 20 by late 1956. Radford gave an intelligence

estimate of 20 Bisons and 200 Badgers in operational units at mid.1955,

rising to 200 and 650, respectively, by mid·1957. In short, Bisons almost

certainly were now coming off the line faster than B·52s-of which as yet

only 26 eXisted. 16 The Air Force had asked a select panel of airframe manu·

facturers whether a four'year design·to·production cycle, for a bomber

with the Bison's specifications and under a number of stated assump·

tions, was within Soviet capabilities. The panel concluded that it was. 17

The B·52 had experienced a more leisurely birth and growth-first

specifications drawn in November 1945 and first flight in April 1952.

The Bison evidently was a product of a crash program from the outset,

one still roaring ahead at full throttle, whereas the B-52 had been con·

ceived and launched in a period when the Soviets' only long·range

bomber was the Tu-4 and it was widely believed that they lacked the in·

dustrial potential to build a long-range air force. As late as December

1952 only about 60 B-52s were on order; output in the spring of 1955

was about one or two per month, aiming at eight by December, for a

projected total of 399 by mid.1959. 18

Radford clearly considered accelerated B·52 production imperative.

"If present B·52 production schedules are continued," he warned Wilson,

"it would appear that the Soviet program will give them numerical superi·

ority in the heavy jet bomber field," beginning in 1956 and rising to a 7·

to·4 ratio of Bisons to B-52s by the end of 1959. Intelligence estimates

of Soviet jet bomber production over the past two years, he wrote, had

"grossly underestimated" Soviet capabilities. Clearly the Soviets had

demonstrated "exceptional ability to accomplish the task of executing a

large aircraft project from design through production to probable opera·

tional status in a short period of time" while simultaneously carrying

forward development and production of the Bear-perhaps the pros·

pective tanker for the future Bison fleet. Congress, Radford warned (this

was only two days after the 14 May press release), would surely react

sharply to the intelligence activity that had failed to detect this buildup

in only a few years of a formidable offensive Soviet airpower. 19
The 1955 Bomber Gap Flap 385

Worried Pentagon observers viewed the B-47 medium bomber as the

most reassuring feature of the visible landscape, with more than 1,000

on hand and now operational in 80 percent of SAC's medium-bomber

wings. With its 3,000-mile range, doubled by in-flight refueling, it would

be the principal carrier of American air-atomic power during the long

transition from the B-36 to the B-52, enabling SAC to threaten the entire

area of the Soviet Union from American forward bases. The B-47 was thus,

and for some time would remain, the mainstay of American offensive

airpower-according to Symington and other critics, the only type in

which the United States enjoyed a clear advantage. Symington himself

could claim some parentage for the B-47 since he, as Truman's first Air

Force secretary in 1948, had made the decision to order it into production from prototype. The Soviet Badger evidently was intended mainly,

in Soviet counter-deterrent strategy, to neutralize the B-47 by knocking

out American forward bases at the outset of a war. Since it had been in

quantity production for well over a year, its current output was assumed

to be at least equal to that of the B-47. 20

Wilson's "no surprise" stance at his 24 May news conference had

more credence with respect to the new Soviet fighter and all-weather

interceptor than to the new bombers. The fighters reflected, after all,

the classic image of Soviet air strategy dating back to World War II. Hence

Wilson's characterization of the Soviet air force in 1954 as essentially

"defensive," which critics now threw back at him at every opportunity.

But the image retained some validity, despite the clear signs of an emerging offensive capability. Beginning in 1952, the legendary MiG-15 was

superseded by the larger, faster, and more potent MiG-17. By mid-1955

an estimated 7,000 of these had been produced and about 4,000 were in

combat formations, with production probably running at more than 300

per month. The comparable American F-I00 Supersabre had as yet reached only a small fraction of these numbers; fewer than a hundred were

flying in combat units. Air Force Assistant Secretary Lewis, when quizzed

on 24 May regarding the "comparability" of the MiG-17 and the F-I00,

waffled unhappily; superiority, he said, was a "matter of judgment."21

SUitably arrayed, all these facts and apparent facts could add up to

a highly disturbing picture. The Russians, one worried critic summed up

(somewhat hyperbolically),

are ahead of the United States in the design and construction

of large jet and turboprop engines and of interceptors, and ...

have matched us in the design of medium and heavy bombers

and in getting heavy bombers into production. In spite of
386 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

American skill in production, the Russians have a supersonic

interceptor in combat formations while we have none; they

have thousands of trans-sonic interceptors in combat formations

while the United States has a few hundred; they started two

years later than we to make a jet intercontinental bomber and

now have it in formations while we don't; they have developed

jet engines which, when first shown a year ago, had about twice

the thrust of anything developed in the West; they have built

more jet aircraft of a single type-the MiG-IS-than we have of

all jet aircraft combined and have built more light two-engined

jet bombers than all the free world put together.... At the same

time that the Soviets were involved in crash programs for medium

and heavy bombers, they also had crash programs on long-range

missiles. The United States, in contrast, completely dropped its

intercontinental ballistic missile for two years and was progressing at a leisurely pace until Soviet progress forced a top priority

on our missile programs.

Equally disturbing, the administration had tried to cover up: first in the

cryptic 14 May press release and even in the subsequent belated release

and accompanying press conference on the 24th. 22

Had the United States, then, lost its air superiority? Superiority involved more than "numbers and performance of aircraft." As Hanson

Baldwin, a sympathetic critic, pointed out, the United States had a

"decided edge" in most of the basic factors that went into airpower: a

cushion of distance between North America and the nearest Communist

bases, a network of bases ringing the enemy heartland, superiority in oil

and fuel production, capacity to produce aluminum, overall industrial

power, technical know-how, and design and engineering skill (although

the Soviets were fast closing the gap in numbers of scientists and engineers). Indeed, geography alone had saddled the Soviet Union with a

virtually insoluble air defense problem in its immense frontier and

numerous axes of attack open to its enemies, whereas the United States

and Canada were vulnerable only on the north behind a vast buffer of

sparsely inhabited wilderness and polar wastes. In sheer numbers of

military aircraft and productive capacity in being, the Soviets at the

moment seemed to have a lead, but more than half of their total aircraft

were support types or in storage or reserve, and many were World War

II leftovers. Their operating force was estimated at 18,000 to 22,000

aircraft, against an "active" U.S. inventory of 31,000. The debate, however,

focusing on land-based aircraft only, overlooked the American monopoly

of ship-based airpower, as well as modern troop and cargo transports,

and airborne nuclear weapons. 23
The 1955 Bomber Gap Flap 387

Qualitative comparisons seemed, on the whole, to favor American

airpower. "The best qualitative yardstick," Baldwin commented, "was the

Korean War," where American pilots flying the F-86 Sabrejet ultimately

racked up a 10-to-l ratio of combat kills over the MiG-15s. 24 As General

Gruenther had asserted more than once, the Soviets still had nothing

capable of stopping the B-47 and had no organization remotely comparable in training and experience to the Strategic Air Command. These

qualities, to a degree, underpinned American airpower as a whole. The

USAF, its spokesmen were fond of saying, was "more modern in total"

than any other air force. 25

But, as Baldwin warned, "comfortable comparisons of current situations are not enough." The total Soviet effort devoted to expanding their

airpower seemed to be larger than the American. Their ability to sustain

multiple crash programs over periods of many years-heavy and medium

bombers, fighters, turboprops and jets-was not even approached in

American experience since World War II. In more specific terms, the

new Soviet interceptors, especially the all-weather Flashlight, had made

the old B-36 obsolete, even for night attacks. To absorb losses, much larger

formations of bombers would be needed since, to permit diversionary

tactics and electronic countermeasures, proportionately fewer planes

would actually carry bombs. The Strategic Air Command would have to

be vastly enlarged, which meant increasing the already huge Air Force

budget. On the receiving end, the United States could expect within two

years to face the threat of massive attacks by modern Soviet intercontinental bombers, but without comparably modern interceptors to

meet them. 26

Without accepting all the exaggerations and urgings of the critics,

Wilson and his advisers still could hardly avoid concluding that the

two-to-three years lead that the defense secretary had verbally bestowed

on American airpower in 1954 had shrunk. But how much? And what

must be done to restore it, or even arrest the shrinkage? The Air Force

buildup had now reached the 124-wing level and the Air Force spending budget was planned to level off at about $15 billion. The president

remained determined to balance the federal budget in FY 1956, mainly at

the expense of the DoD budget. Air Force procurement schedules called

for an intake of only 2,500 new aircraft in FY 1956, slightly less the year

following. These numbers reflected a slowdown, since the Air Force

needed an annual intake of at least 4,000. When reporters asked Wilson

on 24 May whether he intended to do anything specific in response to

the threat of growing Soviet air strength, he said no: no request for larger

appropriations and no expansion of the 137-wing force goa1. 27
388 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

B-52 Acceleration

Wilson was less than candid with the reporters, for a decision to

accelerate the B-52 was already in the mill. Meanwhile Senator Russell

had lined up Talbott and Twining to give his committee a full secret

briefing on 26 May. On the morning of the briefing Wilson submitted to

the NSC, and the president approved, a recommendation to accelerate

B-52 production. Evidently Russell was informed, or got wind of the

impending decision, in advance; that morning, before his committee

assembled, he issued a statement that he favored accelerated production

of both the B-52 and late-model supersonic fighters sufficient to assure

continued American air superiority. The briefing, which consumed most

of the day, portrayed a situation that some of the members afterward

characterized as "grim" but not beyond remedy. After the briefing Talbott

released to the press an announcement that Boeing was being directed

to speed up B-52 production at both the Seattle and Wichita plants by 35

percent, permitting completion of the replacement of B-36s "well ahead"

of schedule. Senators present expressed gratification at the news. 28

The mounting pressure from the Democratic senators seems the

most likely influence shaping the decision, from the moment they began

to exploit the unfortunate 14 May news release and the administration's

subsequent efforts to play down the issue. After two weeks the uproar

they fomented and nourished had risen to such a pitch that the issue of

a lagging, pinch-penny response to surging Soviet airpower seemed on

the way to dominating the impending budget debate in the Senate. The

administration bowed to the clamor, making what it presumably judged

to be the minimum acceptable concession. 29

It was not clear whether the cost of accelerating B-52 production

would require an additional appropriation or come from available Air

Force funds. Legislators vied with one another to proclaim publicly their

willingness to provide whatever sums might be needed. The formal request from DoD on 6 June proposed an addition of $356 million to the

Air Force portion of the appropriation bill that the House had sent to

the Senate; it represented a net increase of $206 million over the

president's original budget, which the House had cut by $150 million. For

the B-52 program the dollar increase of more than one-third was

expected to boost FY 1956 production from 91 to 133, but there would

be no increase in the total program of 399, now to be completed by

mid-1958, about a year earlier than the original target. 30

On 6 June Wilson spent a large part of his news conference

explaining the dollar arithmetic and other aspects of the acceleration.

Why, he was finally asked, was it decided to accelerate? The time was
The 1955 Bomber Gap Flap 389

ripe, Wilson answered in effect; production was moving along and was

ready to be "pushed." About this time of year all programs were reviewed

routinely, and the recent Moscow flybys were not a factor. Then why

35 percent? If the Soviets now had interceptors that could outrun the

B-36, why not go all-out to build B-52s? Wilson insisted that 35 percent

was what the Air Force recommended, and what he had promptly

approved-as did the presidentY

The decision to step up output of the B-52, culminating in the official announcement of 6 June, did not, of course, appease the critics or

lower the noise level of the public debate. The Democratic chorus

welcomed the production speedup but simultaneously denounced it as

a "shocking admission" of foot-dragging and negligence and accused

the administration of putting "greater value on dollars than on national

security." Symington and Jackson repeated earlier charges that the

Soviets "probably" were now ahead in development of the ICBM. Secretary Talbott proclaimed that the U.S. Air Force was and would continue

to be the most powerful in the world. 32

The Sci-Tech Threat

About the second week of June the debate acquired a second focusthe long-range threat implicit in resurgent Soviet science and technology. Assistant Secretary of Defense (R&D) Donald A. Quarles spoke of a

"comprehensive effort" by the Soviets "to search out and educate talent,"

dramatically evidenced in their increasing production of graduate scientists capable of working on defense problems-about 6,800 in 1954,

compared with only 4,000 in the United States. The main Soviet effort, it

appeared, was in the area where the United States was most deficienttheoretical scientists. "We Americans," said Lt. Gen. Donald L. Putt, Air

Force deputy chief of staff for development, in an address at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, "are great at the application of fundamental

knowledge to develop useful things and to produce those things in great

quantities. Conversely, it is sobering to reflect that much of the basic

research and knowledge which forms the basis of our many marvels of

invention-nuclear power and weapons, radar, jet and rocket propulsion,

and others-came from foreign lands .... We must see to it that we

have our own fountains of knowledge from which to draw .... I gravely

doubt that the flow is anywhere near adequate."33

The most prestigious voice sounding this warning, CIA Director

Allen Dulles, was especially scornful of some of the more cherished

tenets of current conventional wisdom in America. "Generally speaking,"
390 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Dulles asserted, "their TOP men appear to be the equal of the TOP men

in the West," even though as yet there were fewer of them at most levels.

In the vital fields of mathematics and meteorology the Soviets were

"clearly on a par" with the West and "even ahead in some respects."

"Unless we quickly take new measures to increase our own facilities

for scientific education," Dulles warned, "Soviet scientific manpower in

key areas may well outnumber ours in the next decade."34

This line of comment gave point and urgency to the Hoover Commission's critical report on military research, released at the end of May

and qUickly picked up by the press. The commission charged the armed

services were "not sufficiently daring and imaginative" in developing

"radically" new weapons systems. It felt that the $20 million the Defense

Department spent in FY 1954 on basic research, vital to all progress in

new weapons, was inadequate; for FY 1956, DoD was expected to spend

about $77 million. "Only to the extent that research and development

provide superior design of weapons," said the commission, could the

United States keep ahead of its enemies in strategy and tactics. It gave

relatively high marks, however, to the Air Force's performance and

organization in research and development. 35

When asked at his press conference on 6 June what he thought

about the commission's adverse report, Wilson replied that he intended

to study thoroughly its recommendations and "implement the ones that

are workable and good." Did he think that $20 million for basic research

was enough, in a total DoD research budget of $1.37 billion? Wilson parried the question with a bromide, illustrating his notion of basic research:

"I think of it like drilling for oil." To drill a hole just anywhere was basic

research; to drill one "in a likely place" was what "smart people in the oil

business" did. The Defense Department should spend its R&D money

where it was likely to be of "some use to us," and maybe basic research

should be the responsibility of some other department, not his. 36

As it happened, Wilson had supported the Air Force's request for $35

million for emergency research and development, plus another $50 million, if needed, by transfer from other funds. In addition, he had requested

authority to transfer to the R&D program in any military department up

to two percent of the unobligated procurement funds available to that

department. Wilson's only allusion to this request at the press conference was a cryptic remark that he was "trying to get some flexibility so I

can move a little more money in there if I can find any place to do it."37

As amazed critics later pointed out, that "little more money" could

(although this was not likely to happen) amount to $500 million or more,

which would increase by more than one-third the total R&D budget of
The 1955 Bomber Gap Flap 391

the department. 38 This was not, of course, a reversal of his concept of

basic research, but only of his settled feeling that the current level of

Defense spending on general research and development was about the

maximum that could be put to good use. The additional funds would be

available immediately to exploit unforeseen "technological breakthroughs."39

Wilson's view that the existing share of total national research and

development going for defense-about half-was about right, and that

defense R&D had already tapped virtually the entire pool of available

qualified scientists and engineers, had many supporters. But so did the

Hoover Commission's contrary view based on the urgency of responding

to the Soviet threat, and Wilson's unexpected move to preserve the option

of diverting large additional funds from procurement to R&D targets

of opportunity was hailed as an encouraging sign. A serious obstacle to any

major expansion of defense-oriented basic research was the difficulty

experienced by the nation's universities and laboratories in absorbing

more than they were already carrying without harm to their primary

educational function. In the long run, however, the best hope for a

significant expansion of defense R&D seemed to lie in increasing the

general pool of scientists and engineers. 4o

"The era of the unmanned missile in warfare," wrote Trevor Gardner,

"is very much at hand," and he predicted that, more than any other type

of weapon, it would define the air force of the future. In the Air Force

Gardner presided over the largest missile development effort in the armed

services and was the most ardent crusader in the Pentagon for an all-out

effort to accelerate the already galloping technology of airpower. The

real Soviet threat, he insisted, came from technology, not production. To

maintain its technological superiority, the United States must have

"weapons of such superior ingenuity, performance and effect as override

the enemy's ability to attack or defend himself." A more explicit warning

came from Air Force General Putt. "In the next five or six years," he said,

"the Russians are perfectly capable of confronting us with a technological

surprise" and gaining an advantage very difficult to overcome, simply by

concentrating their resources on development of a "new super intercontinental guided missile."4l The advanced technology thrust of the airpower

debate received further impetus from publicity attending the series of

underground nuclear tests at the Nevada Proving Ground (mid-February

to mid-May), an underwater explosion in the mid-Pacific, and new revelations concerning the unexpected power of the thermonuclear device

detonated in the Bikini (Castle) test of March 1954. It seemed reasonable

to assume that in development of long-range missiles and nuclear warheads the Soviets were not lagging behind the United States.42
392 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on 11 June,

Admiral Radford appeared to single out the Soviet guided missiles program as the main threat, giving only passing mention to the growing

Soviet long-range bomber capability. Since there was as yet no known

defense against an intercontinental ballistic missile, it was imperative, he

told them, for the United States to lead in development of this weapon.

It might be possible eventually to achieve the same kind of standoff

between the superpowers' long-range missile forces as seemed now to

be emerging between their long-range bomber forces. Radford spoke at

length about the dual problem of secrecy and communication in this

new arms race. The situation he envisaged was asymmetrical-Le., involving American superiority in missile forces-but a standoff nevertheless

in that the Soviets, although weaker, could still penetrate American

defenses and destroy many cities. Accordingly, they must be made aware

that their own cities would suffer a like fate in the inevitable retaliatory attack. 43

Unlike the debate triggered by the ill-fated 14 May press release,

which had pushed the administration into a defensive posture of denying charges of negligence and suppression of information, administration

spokesmen took the lead in the public discussion of the emerging Soviet

threat in advanced weaponry and military research. Senator Jackson's

was almost the only opposition voice raised in this area on the eve of

the Senate budget debate, calling publicly for increased production of

both atomic weapons and delivery systems and denouncing the current

economy policy in defense spending as the "No.1 enemy in trying to

maintain military superiority."44 For many senators, numbers of supersonic

interceptors remained a live issue, along with bombers, and in the final

hearings the appropriations committee pushed it hard. Wilson and Air

Force spokesmen assured the senators that the program was being reevaluated and that a decision on accelerating production would be

reached before Congress adjourned. 45

On balance, the administration seemed on the way to extricating itself

from an awkward position at a reasonable cost, particularly if some of

the production accelerations could be financed from available Air Force

funds rather than through new budgetary requests. As the DoD budget

headed for the showdown votes in the Senate, the administration evidently no longer expected a serious challenge, an expectation that turned

out to be justified, on the whole, by the outcome. 46 The decision to

accelerate B-52 production and the administration's apparent readiness

to do likewise for advanced fighter production effectively deprived Senator Symington, the opposition leader, of his major issues.
The 1955 Bomber Gap Flap 393

Senator Jackson's Twelve Questions

The airpower debate was, however, far from dead. On 21 June, the

day following the Senate floor debate, Senator Jackson called for an end

to the administration's budget-balancing approach to national security.

He demanded an all-out effort on a wartime scale to develop the intercontinental ballistic missile, to produce massive numbers of all the new

combat aircraft, and to expand production of atomic weapons. The key

race for the ICBM, the "absolute weapon," was "nip and tuck"; this project

should immediately be assigned "supreme and overriding importance

in our defense effort." Jackson clearly was looking beyond the FY 1956

budget. But the kind of countrywide sense of emergency he seemed to

want to arouse could conceivably lead to a vast expansion of defense

spending beginning very soon, with huge supplemental appropriations

and the other trappings of wartime budgeting. He proposed a major

expansion of aircraft production, with around-the-clock, seven days-perweek operations, and "as an absolute minimum," maintenance of active

ground forces at their present level. As he candidly admitted, what he

had in mind was a partial mobilization; "we must now build up our armed

strength to wartime footing in time of peace.,,47

Meanwhile, Jackson had seen to it that the airpower debate would

continue. On 27 June he asked Wilson for "explicit and categorical"-

and early-answers to 12 questions on comparative U.S.-Soviet air

strength. Wilson refused, alleging security difficulties and reminding the

senator that full information had already been given to the proper

congressional committees, including several of which he was a member.

Wilson declined more requests that he testify.48 There, for the moment,

the matter rested, but the reviving public debate received a new push on

3 July from the annual Moscow air show, featuring even larger numbers

of all-weather fighters than in the early May displays, a large formation

of a new supersonic single-jet fighter, new twin-rotor helicopters, and a

new swept-wing jet transport. A few Bisons and Bears also appeared. It

proved, Symington declared, that the United States had lost another

"degree" of its air superiority, and he demanded again that the administration give the public "the facts," including still secret photographs of

the widely seen and publicly photographed flights over Moscow in May.49

Official speakers at the annual DoD conference held at Quantico in midJuly assured their audiences of high-level officials that American qualitative air superiority held firm but that this was no reason for complacency.

General Twining reported that the recent air display over Moscow underlined what the May flights had already shown, and Admiral Radford
394 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

warned, "We can expect our difficulties in maintaining a technical superiority in weapons to increase."5o

Jackson got his answers, finally, in the last week of July-classified

"Secret" and backed up by the secretary in person appearing before Jackson's Military Applications Subcommittee of the Joint Atomic Energy

Committee. Afterward Jackson reported that the secretary had given

"complete answers" but failed to change his Qackson's) view "that we are

not making the effort that should or could be made on our air delivery

systems." 51 Despite its "Secret" label Wilson's statement was perhaps little

more candid than a press release would have been. Much that had been

vehemently denied or evaded or minimized in May and June Wilson

now readily conceded. Estimates had indeed grossly underestimated the

speed with which the Bison bomber would be developed and put into

production and squadron service; for some reason, earlier estimates had

proved more accurate than later ones. Available evidence indicated that

the Soviets not only now had more Bisons than the United States had

B-52s, but might have still more in 1958. The Soviets also had "a great

many more" advanced day interceptors than the United States (but not allweather or night fighters), and much more powerful jet engines. Would

the Soviets, by 1960, have more scientists and engineers working on

airpower than the United States? Probably-certainly they would have

more aeronautical engineers, since their annual crop of students in this

field had more than doubled that of the United States since 1950 even

though their training courses ran for 5 1/2 years, against only four in the

United StatesY

Underlying most of these admissions was a basic qualification: in

effect, "we do it differently and, we hope, better." Thus the U.S. military

could now, and in future would be able, to bring to bear against the

Soviet homeland a much larger atomic bomber force than the Soviets

could mount against the United States, taking into account B-36s, B-47s,

fighter-bombers (land and naval), advanced bases, and in-flight refueling

capabilities. Soviet fighter forces appeared designed for defense against

massed deep-penetration bombing attacks, whereas American doctrine

aimed at intercepting smaller numbers of penetrating attackers, if possible before they reached U.S. borders. As for tooling up for mass production, Wilson told Jackson "we believe that as a rule we get larger

numbers of superior aircraft in a shorter over-all time if we proceed

more slowly with development and do extensive testing." Conceding the

possibility of Soviet numerical superiority by 1960 in every category of

aircraft, "we do not believe that they will have a better qualitative solution

of their air power problem than we will have of ours." The Soviets would
The 1955 Bomber Gap Flap 395

likely achieve a continental (i.e., 1,500- to 2,000-mile range) ballistic missile

before the United States, but they were not expected to be first with an

effective intercontinental missile. The ICBM was only one of four U.S. strategic airpower components, which also included manned bombers and

two kinds of guided missiles: the subsonic Snark and the supersonic

Navaho, both under development. The Atlas ICBM, also under development, "now has the very highest priority rating."53

Taking Stock and Looking Ahead

Except among the totally uninformed, the current relative standing of

the two contestants in the race to build airpower was no longer at issue,

but the future standing was. Many thoughtful and informed critics, both

within and outside the Air Force, believed that the recent moves to

produce more heavy bombers and fighters came too little and too late,

leaving the Soviets still ahead in output of their own advanced types in

both categories. The Soviets were believed to be now producing more

heavies and at least as many mediums, and to be far ahead in light

bombers. American output of B-52s, slated to increase but at a glacial

pace, would reach its peak only in mid-1958. The supersonic F-I0l and

F-I04 interceptors recently ordered into production could not be

expected to attain full-scale output until 1958, along with the B-52, while

the equivalent Soviet types were already in volume production. 54

This line of reasoning and speculation by critics pointed to a situation, three years down the road, in which the full-grown Strategic Air

Command, with its core of B-52 heavies, would face much strengthened

Soviet defenses and a vastly larger target system. When they encountered

the more advanced interceptors that the Soviets would have, 500 B-52s

might not be enough to absorb probable attrition, much less cover all

their targets. A similar problem might be looming for the B-47. On the

receiving end, to deal with attacking Soviet bombers, Continental Air

Defense Command would still depend mainly on its F-I00 transonic

interceptors and probably the F-89, F-94, and F-86D subsonic all-weather

fighters-unless production of the newest supersonic types were immediately and dramatically increased. True, a technically superior air force

would not in itself give the Soviets overall air superiority, given offsetting American advantages of geography, better trained pilots and air

and ground crews, and superior organization and experience. But over

Europe and its own homeland the Soviet air force would probably rule

the skies. 55
396 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Such critics did not necessarily reflect prevailing views in the Air Force

high command and staff. But the data that informed their analysis could

only have come from those sources, and it is reasonable to assume that the

conclusions, as well, were widely shared there. Twining had hinted that

137 wings might not be enough, and Air Force Assistant Secretary Trevor

Gardner had publicly revealed that the Air Force needed at least another

$100 million, perhaps twice that amount, in the current year for research.

The additional funds would be requested, he said, when Congress returned in January.56

With the budget battles safely behind him, Wilson paid little heed to

either the critics without or the rumblings of dissent within. Meanwhile

the Air Force, moving at its own pace, gave response to some of the

specific criticisms. In July it ordered into accelerated production an allweather interceptor version of the F-I0l and an advanced model (with a

new engine) of the F-I04, both aircraft capable of supersonic speeds

approaching Mach 2.51 On 3 August it awarded speedup development

contracts for three brand new supersonic aircraft-a long-range inter"

ceptor, a fighter-bomber, and a tactical bomber. The accelerated process

was expected to compress the seven-to-eight-year design-development

process by one or two years-an improvement, but hardly a radical one. 58

Coincidentally, Wilson had chosen Donald Quarles, his assistant

secretary for R&D, to replace Harold Talbott as Air Force secretary. The

appointment was widely hailed as foreshadowing greater emphasis on

guided missiles, atomic-powered aircraft, and other advanced technologies.

Quarles sardonically assured reporters that he had no plans to "discontinue" manned aircraft. In one of his early actions-probably dictated

by Wilson-he killed Gardner's recent bid for an additional $100 million

in research money, and Wilson offered no help with his emergency re"

search funds. Congress cut $122 million from the Air Force's $1.2 billion

construction request, and before the end of the month Quarles found

himself fighting more spending cuts as Wilson, under White House pressure, tried to enforce the $34 billion DoD expenditure ceiling for the

current fiscal year. 59

A New Doomsday Prediction

In September the airpower debate took a new turn. One of the

administration's best-kept secrets, since its submission to the president

in February, had been the report of the top-drawer panel on scientific

and technological aspects of national security headed by James R. Killian,
The 1955 Bomber Gap Flap 397

Jr., the president of the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology.* Its contents

assured it a prominent place on the agenda of all the national security

agencies. On 19 September the veil was slightly lifted when Joseph Alsop

published a garbled summary, describing it as "the most important and

intensive high-level study of the relative curves of Soviet and American

armed strength that has yet been attempted.,,60

By this time, of course, the report had long since been thoroughly

studied at the highest levels, including the NSC, and discussion of its

implementation was well advanced. On 8 September, the NSC, warning

that Soviet achievement of an operational ICBM capability ahead of the

U.S. would have "the gravest repercussions on the national security and

on the cohesion of the free world," had designated the Air Force ICBM

research and development "a program of the highest priority above all

others." On the 13th the NSC also approved a program to develop land- and

sea-based intermediate-range ballistic missiles (lRBMs). Both actions

responded to recommendations by the Killian panel and may have played

a part in the leaking of the report at this particular juncture.61

According to Alsop, the principal revelation in the report was that the

Soviets were expected by 1960 to have a "decided superiority" in ICBMs,

assuring them overall military superiority during the period 1960-65.

The United States might produce an ICBM by 1960, but the Killian committee, said Alsop, thought this unlikely barring a major and immediate

escalation of effort, and even then the Soviet lead could prove decisive.

This did not portend, the committee had concluded, an all-out Soviet

onslaught when the new missiles were ready, but, starting much earlier, a

steady erosion of the American and Western bargaining position as the

power balance shifted. Alsop did not profess to know in detail what

measures the committee had recommended to counter the Soviet threat,

but he assumed they added up to an across-the-board acceleration and

expansion of the whole airpower buildup, offensive and defensive. 62

Alsop's bombshell caught the president on vacation in the Colorado

Rockies. "The story is inaccurate," stated Murray Snyder, the acting press

secretary. Two days later, however, the Washington Star published what

appeared to be an approved (and much shorter) version, this time on

the authority of the Joint Chiefs: the United States, they were reported

to say, now had a "sound lead" over the Soviets in the atomic arms race and

would retain it until 1960; after that, they were not sure. The report was

described as a wide-ranging study of the applications of science and technology to weapon development. The main worry of the president's

* See Chapter XIX.
398 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

scientific and military advisers was that the Soviets might be first to go

into ICBM production and develop a new weapon after 1960 that would

give them a clear, if temporary, advantage over the United States, thus

breaking the existing atomic stalemate. 63

For all its apocalyptic overtones, the public reaction to Alsop's

"revelation" of the Killian report was little more vehement than a stifled

yawn. This seems puzzling in retrospect, considering the report's

intrinsic importance. Symington naturally exploited it promptly, telling

reporters the same day that Alsop's article, if correct, merely confirmed

his own repeated charges that the ICBM program, like other vital weapon

developments, was a victim of DoD's business-as-usual approach. He

denounced Wilson for his alleged proposal that Air Force research funds

be cut another $200 million. 64 But at Wilson's news conference 10 days

later no one even mentioned the subject. One reason for the lack of

response may have been, ironically, Alsop's portrayal of the report as no

more than an amplification, with conclusions and recommendations, of

what had already been revealed in more concrete terms by the Moscow

flybys of April-May: an accelerating resurgence of Soviet airpower that

in due course, it had to be assumed, would be capped by the dreaded

ICBM. There was irony, too, in the reality. The administration's response

to the Killian report had been appropriately prompt and vigorous, commensurate with the seriousness of the threat it revealed, but it was

necessarily veiled from the public and extended in time. The Moscow

flybys added little to an already disturbing picture except the prospect

of some acceleration in the estimated timetable of Soviet production of

strategic bombers and supersonic interceptors. 65

In net effect, Alsop's article came across as added fallout from the

Moscow flybys with new emphasis on the early possibility of a Soviet

"first" with the ICBM. It also sought to alert a jaded public to expect a

major new effort by the administration, by implementing the Killian

recommendations, to match Soviet momentum and ensure continued

American air superiority. Whether the Killian panel's report would in fact

produce such an effort, and what the magnitude of its budgetary impact

would be, remained to be seen. What seemed certain was that the airpower debate would continue and that the administration would have to

endure persistent criticism of major features of its military policy.
CHAPTER XVIII

Minutemen and Veterans

Historically, America has stumbled into war unprepared. The Korean

War was a stroke of luck, at least in its timing, because there were then

available hundreds of thousands of still young World War II veterans

whose fighting skills were only slightly rusted. More than 600,000 were

called back into service because about 2 million physically qualified

young men who had reached military age between 1946 and 1950 had

received no military training, and another 450,000 very little after entering the reserves. "For the second time in a decade," wrote the National

Security Training Commission (NSTC) after the Korean War,

these veterans suffered extended interruptions of their civilian

lives and careers. They were called away from their wives and

children and catapulted into the front lines, sometimes within a

few weeks .... Farm and industrial workers, scientists, teachers,

managers-all were recalled ....The selective principle was applied

to inducting nonveterans for service but not to veterans recalled

for their second tour of duty. Veteran reservists are older, more

highly skilled, and more essentia! to their families, their professions, their communities, ... yet we have made them more

liable for service in limited emergencies than nonveterans. 1

The 1951 Universal Military Training and Service Act (PL 82-51) renewed the draft until 1951, requiring all males between ages 18 and 26 to

register and making all those over 18 Ij2 liable to induction for eight years

of military service, two on active duty and six in the reserves. Looking to

the future, the act also provided for eventual institution, through new

legislation, of a national service system under which all young men

399
400 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

reaching age 18 and not needed for active military service would be

inducted for six months of military training with an obligation of future

service in the reserves. The independent five-man National Security Training Commission, appointed to develop the plan, draft the legislation, and

supervise the system's operation, because of wartime pressures and the

unpopularity of universal military training (UMT), could do nothing during the war to advance the project. By the end of the fighting almost a

million reservists had been called to active duty, more than 60 percent of

them World War II veterans. Yet of about 3.6 million qualified young men

who reached military age between July 1946 and July 1950, some 2 million

had not served in either the active or reserve forces by June 1950. In the

months following the end of the war in Korea, their number continued to

grow as both draft calls and enlistments dwindled.*

The Armed Forces Reserve Act of 1952 (PL 82-476) organized the

reserves in three categories-ready, standby, and retired-the first subject to mobilization by presidential order, the other two by congressional

action. As inductees completed their active service they passed automatically into the ready reserve, becoming eligible after three years of

satisfactory participation for transfer to the standby reserve. In the postKorea climate, however, the system virtually lapsed. As returning veterans

were mustered out, many simply melted into the population, ignoring

or unaware of their still unfilled reserve obligation. At the end of 1953

only four percent of the Army's Korean War veteran reservists and only

one in four of all ready reservists were training with units. With the

1951 UMT plan still unimplemented, and veterans comprising 75 percent

of the nation's two million reservists (including virtually all of the Army's),

a repetition of the Korean War experience in the next emergency

seemed inevitable. 2

"20th Century Minutemen" and Its Critics

When President Eisenhower assumed office in 1953 he was well

aware that the military reserve system badly needed overhaul. During

the election campaign he had promised to do something about it. As

events subsequently proved, it was a knotty and emotional issue over

which powerful and complex political and military interests clashed

'The World War II Selective Service Act expired in 1947. Selective service was reinstated

in 1948, but heavy enlistments permitted discontinuance of inductions in February 1949.

After the onset of Korean hostilities in June 1950, inductions were resumed.
Minutemen and Veterans 401

repeatedly. Legislative outcomes inevitably represented compromises at a

level that left the administration dissatisfied and invited continued efforts

for further change.

Countrywide the need for reforms in the reserve system to shield

veterans against double or multiple jeopardy was an urgent issue. In the

military services and the Joint Chiefs, however, a different perspective

prevailed. They regarded the diminishing numbers of veterans as too

precious a military asset to be released into any kind of sanctuary from

which they could not be plucked as needed in an emergency-an unjust

and unfair fate, no doubt, but with dwindling standing force budgets

in a dangerous world, that was the way it was. Nonveterans were also a

resource, but mainly as a pool of eligible young manpower, diversely

skilled and rich in potential, ripe for recruiting, a future more than a current asset. The services split on this point. The Army, original champion

of UMT, needed a large ready reserve in peacetime, generally because it

alone contemplated mass mobilization in an all-out war, when trained

reserve units and individuals would be needed for immediate post-D-day

expansion and deployments while new divisions were building. Also,

as the Army began to feel the squeeze of New Look reductions in its active

forces, it foresaw a need for trained reserves as a supplement in limited

emergencies. Like its sister services the Army preferred veterans and

wanted them immediately callable in the ready reserve, but since it could

transform inexperienced youths into competent soldiers more quickly

than the other services could remake them into skilled airmen, sailors,

or Marines, it looked more favorably than they on a reserve composed

of young men drafted directly for training before entering active service.

The Air Force and the Navy, anticipating only limited mobilizations and

a short Big War, had less interest in reserves.

Promptly following the end of hostilities in Korea the president, on

1 August, directed the National Security Training Commission, chaired by

Reserve Maj. Gen. Julius O. Adler, to examine the subject. On 1 December 1953 the commission submitted its report, a slick but substantial,

professionally-written pamphlet. Titled 20th Century Minutemen, the

publication circulated widely in government and was available to the

public for .50 cents. It resoundingly endorsed the six-month "national

security training" program authorized by the 1951 act as the best remedy

for the inequities of the prevailing system and the best safeguard against

a repetition of the double jeopardy inflicted on World War II veterans

during the Korean War, which it documented in harrowing detail.

It urged that the program begin immediately (or no later than 1 January
402 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

1955) with an initial increment of at least 100,000, to be chosen by lot

from a pool of 18-year-old selective service registrants after allotments to

the services for maintaining active forces at authorized levels were

filled (also by lot). After six months of training, graduates would transfer

to the ready reserve for 7!j2 years of reserve service, with liability to recall

in an emergency ahead of veterans; the latter, in turn, would receive the

option of reassignment to standby status for completion of their obligated service. The commission had no doubt that sufficient manpower

would be available for the program. Its more conservative estimates indicated that, even in the unlikely event that the armed forces maintained

an active strength of 3,360,000, about 840,000 young men "qualified in

every way" under present laws and regulations would have escaped

military service by 1960. With armed forces reduced to 3,128,000, the total

would rise to an astonishing 1,440,000.

The commission knew that the services would likely resist any

requirement that in an emergency half-trained nonveteran reservists must

be called up ahead of veterans. In that event, from the professional military vantage point, the vast pool of veteran reservists-variously sullen,

bitter, apathetic, a dwindling asset-remained the nation's best hope for

quickly expanding the active forces if an emergency came soon. How

soon was debatable. "The veteran reservist," warned the commission's

report, "is aging, increasing in civilian essentiality, and developing physical limitations. What is needed is a continuing flow of trained reservists,

not a static number of veterans who will outgrow their military usefulness."

Periodic unit training could retard the process but most veteran reservists would have none of it and, as a practical matter, could not be forced.

Nevertheless, to mobilization planners looking only a few years down the

road, 1.5 million veteran reservists, who in a serious emergency could be

called immediately back into active service, represented a bird-in-hand

argument more compelling than considerations of equity and more real

than prospective "20th century minutemen."3

When the commission gave the Joint Chiefs a preview of its report on

20 November, stressing the military usefulness of a large pool of trained

nonveteran reservists, the reception was thus noticeably cool. Admiral

Radford warned that any program that competed with the active forces

for budget dollars would be unwelcome, and Air Force General Thomas D.

White, speaking for General Twining, indicated that the Air Force had

relatively little interest in the mobilization of manpower after D-day.4 20th

Century Minutemen in fact drew decidedly mixed reviews after release

to the public in mid-December. Critics branded the report as another
Minutemen and Veterans 403

attempt to sell UMT, and dismissed its recommendations as unfair, arbitrary, infeasible, ill-conceived, and hastily contrived. The congressional

reaction, with an election year in prospect, was predictably adverse. Even

supporters of universal military training in principle doubted whether

sufficient manpower would be available to support training of nonveteran reservists concurrently with the draft, questioned the fairness

of lottery selection of young men for either six months of training or two

years of service, and challenged the need for large armies and reserves in

the atomic age. 5

The president-attentive to the strength of opposition sentimentsdecided not to expose his administration to the wrath of the public by

sending a bill to Congress at that time. The recommendation and the

rationale for delay were provided by ODM Director Arthur S. Flemming,

who on 6 January 1954 submitted the report of the Special Committee on

Manpower Resources for National Security (AppIey Committee*) that had

been ordered the preceding August to examine the feasibility of the proposed nonveteran reserve training program. Without flatly contradicting

the Adler Commission's more optimistic findings, the committee concluded that even a token program of 100,000 men per year would be

difficult to maintain if the active armed forces were held at 3.36 million,

and would have to be abandoned forthwith if that level were raised.

If the estimates were correct, and if a sudden emergency should make

it necessary to increase rather than reduce active forces, as currently

planned, an ongoing nonveteran reserve training program might prove

an embarrassment or worse. Urging caution and further study of manpower resources before launching such a program, the committee

recommended that the Defense Department determine the proper size

and composition of reserve forces in two categories, one for immediate

call in an emergency, the other to be called selectively. The president

expressed deep appreciation to the commission for the report and

ordered all federal agencies concerned to help develop a new reserve

program, indicating that for the present he would hold in abeyance

proposals for implementing the training provisions of Pi 82-51. ODM and

the Defense Department, in consultation with the Adler Commission,

undertook the task of developing an organization plan for the reserves,

to be presented to the NSC by 1 April. 6

* After Lawrence A. Appley, a business executive, manpower and management expert, and

adviser to the U.S. government.
404 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The Military Take Charge: The Wensinger Plan and NSC 5420

On 13 January 1954 Secretary Wilson established an interservice task

force of highcranking regular officers headed by Maj. Gen. Walter W.

Wensinger, USMC, to develop the plan. 7 The task force submitted its plan

to Wilson early in March and he referred it to the Joint Chiefs for their

recommendation. Despite initial unqualified endorsement of the whole

plan by the Joint Strategic Plans Committee, the Joint Chiefs disagreed

among themselves on a number of points and told Wilson on 9 April that

the plan needed further study. They were still studying the plan when

Wilson approved it without their endorsement and forwarded it on 14 May

to the ODM director virtually intact. Before the end of the month it

appeared on the NSC agenda as NSC 5420. 8

The new Defense Department reserve plan came up for decision just

as the Indochina crisis peaked with the fall of Dien Bien Phu and the

convening of the Geneva Conference, generating enormous pressure for

reconsideration of the whole New Look program. Secretary Wilson spoke

cryptically on 26 April of a "second new look" which might be dictated

by events in the Far East and Europe, and Assistant Secretary Hannah told

the Senate Armed Services Committee about the same time that the new

DoD reserve plan, involving "radical and dynamic changes" in the existing system, was nearing final approval at the highest levels and might

soon be submitted to Congress. Details of the reserve plan began to seep

through the security wraps enclosing it. Many were more or less

accurately reported but one effect was to tag the plan, in the public mind,

as an outgrowth of the Adler Commission and Appley Committee studies,

and as a "UMT" plan reflecting the Pentagon's acceptance of the former

group's proposals. 9

What DoD totally failed to communicate was the extent to which the

Defense plan, incorporated in NSC 5420, although adopting some structural features of the Adler Commission's concept, had rejected its

essence. The framers of NSC 5420 clearly regarded 20th Century Minutemen, with its egalitarian "citizen army" philosophy, as their principal

doctrinal adversary. One of the opening paragraphs asserted: "The critical

nature of existing international relations demands that national security

take precedence over all other considerations. Equity among individuals

must be given due consideration, but in consonance with this principle."

The reserves, NSC 5420 argued, required a "substantial proportion" of

militarily competent prior-service personnel qualified by "extensive training and experience." An "influx of large numbers of relatively untrained

individuals" might fatally weaken the capability of the reserves to perform

their mission.
Minutemen and Veterans 405

NSC 5420 set forth a requirement for a "service callable reserve" over

three million strong, composed of "trained individuals and units instantly

available for call by the military services," to augment the active forces,

expand the training base, replace losses, and begin the buildup of forces

during the first six months of a major war. The plan also called for an unorganized "selectively callable reserve" of individuals subject to call only

by Congress, numbering at a minimum 760,000. The service callable

reserve would be divided into a "front line reserve" and an "auxiliary

reserve," each comprising units and individuals. The frontliners, slated

for immediate combat availability, would undergo the full annual training

program of 48 weekly drills, possibly additional weekends, and two weeks

of summer active duty. A 30-day active-duty tour was a possible alternative

for those unable to attend we.ekly drills. The auxiliary reserve would

receive lesser amounts of training as prescribed by the services.

On M-day the Army would be the least mobilized service since the

reserves it would call up would comprise more than 60 percent of its total

force. Its "service callable reserve" of 1.7 million was 70 percent greater

than the Army's projected end-FY 1957 strength of 1 million. This reserve

would be organized primarily into units intended to be mobilized and

to operate as such. Most individual reservists not directly assigned to

units would be trained to fill vacancies in the active forces or to provide

initial loss replacements. The Air Force, the most fully mobilized service

in peacetime, would account for only 10 percent of the reserves, essentially an M-day force consisting mainly of flying units "designed to be so

highly trained and proficient that they can be immediately employed as

units or used as a source of replacements for early losses."

The Army's huge service callable reserve was the centerpiece of the

plan. Into it would be swept most able-bodied veteran reservists, and most

of its intensively trained first-line reserve of 1.7 million would serve out

the remainder of their obligated eight years. The lucky few who had

already served four years or more in the active forces (the Wensinger

task force had recommended a more liberal 21-months minimum) would

become eligible for transfer to the auxiliary reserve to complete their obligated service under a less arduous training program, when their total

active and reserve service added up to six years. Only veterans who had

seen actual combat-still a sizable number in the immediate aftermath

of the Korean War-could, if they wished and at the discretion of their

service, be transferred forthWith to the selectively callable reserve, which

had no training requirement at all. Veterans who volunteered for the service callable reserve, despite eligibility for transfer or exemption, were

especially prized and would be enticed by "special benefits."lo
406 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Not surprisingly, the bitterest criticism of the Defense reserve plan

came from the Adler Commission. "We ... cannot accept," General Adler

wrote ODM Director Flemming on 24 May, "those parts of the Defense

Department report which not only continue present inequities to the

veteran reservists but increase and compound them. It remains our conviction that no program can be workable so long as it is unfair and

inequitable." On the other side of the coin, by requiring reserve training

for only a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of young men crowding

into the draft-eligible pool, and doing nothing to close the existing "escape

hatch" of deferment and exemption policies, the DoD plan plainly rejected

the principle of universality of obligation inherent in the Universal

Military Training and Service Act, which was still the law of the land. The

plan, declared General Adler, was "morally wrong" and he pointedly reminded the ODM director of the commission's understanding that its

criticisms were to be "submitted intact" to the NSC and the president. 11

Among the services the Army alone lodged a sharp dissent, primarily

on the issue of the inequitable treatment of veterans. Yet no hint of its

views was discernible in the Joint Chiefs' defense of NSC 5420 that

General Twining, in Admiral Radford's absence, forwarded to Wilson on

15 June. The purpose of the whole exercise, the chiefs announced, was to

design a program "from the military point of view to meet the requirement ... for immediately employable trained reserves, both as units and

as individuals ... and to permit a rapid and orderly mobilization when

necessary to meet the threats of a local war or general war." This aim, the

chiefs emphasized, took precedence over equitable sharing of military

service, universality of obligation, and other worthy purposes. 12

In the NSC on 17 June Wilson and Hannah, presenting the Defense

position, faced a mostly unfriendly audience, including aDM's Flemming,

Army Assistant Secretary Hugh Milton, Labor Assistant Secretary Rocco

Siciliano, Treasury Secretary Humphrey, and Budget Director Hughes.

Twining and Carney, without Ridgway, represented the Joint Chiefs.

Tersely, President Eisenhower laid down the law. He would support any

"effective" reserve program, but "the burden should not fall on veterans ....

No program can be sold to the American people unless there is more of

a flavor of equity in it. The present proposals for using so many veterans

and so few others ... would be difficult to get through Congress." The

NSC directed Defense and ODM to collaborate on a revised paper with

cost estimates; in particular they were to examine "the desirability of providing for service by all militarily eligible men." They were also to come up

with proposals for ensuring effective federal control of the National Guard. 13

Given the leaning of a majority of the National Security Council

toward equity of service, the president's instruction that the desirability of
Minutemen and Veterans 407

universal military service be re-examined in this context was, for the

present at least, an important turning point. It represented a victory for

the Adler Commission and, not least, for the Army, over the "equity-bedamned" views of the Wensinger task force, the Joint Chiefs, and OSD. It

put the developing reserve plan back on the "citizen army" track marked

out by the president's 1 August 1953 directive.

Back to the Drawing Board

After the NSC meeting, with some sort of universal service system now

no longer an option but a requirement, and submission of a revised plan

to Congress in the current session no longer a possibility, the OSD-ODM

planners spent the next five weeks in an exhaustive examination of the

available options and took several more months to agree on a first-draft

revision of NSC 5420. The first product of their labors, NSC 5420/1-a

working paper-was submitted to the NSC on 26 July. Ostensibly obedient to its mandate, the paper stressed equity of service (no mention of

veterans) in the sense that all eligible men would be required to serve in

the armed forces, including the reserves. From the planners' perspective,

the overriding and immediate need was to make reserve service truly compulsory, in order to bring the vast pool of now idle veterans effectively

into the system and thus prOVide a quickly mobilizable and nearly ready

reserve for any emergency in the next few years. Compulsory reserve

service, they assumed, could win public acceptance only as part of a system of universal military service, which, ironically, the president had

mandated in order to ensure equity.

Responding to the president's second requirement, the planners also

recommended that the National Guard be permanently separated from

the states and federalized. As the National Guard of the United States it

would become the "principal reserve component of the Army and Air

Force," manned initially by involuntarily assigned reservists. Legislative

authority should be sought for this purpose. To replace the Guard, the individual states could form their own militias. 14

Skeptical of these priorities, the Joint Chiefs (again with no dissent

from Ridgway) intensified their stand against equity and universal service,

reasserting their overriding concern to provide adequate active and reserve

forces to meet an emergency. The chiefs roundly condemned as a "dangerous and expensive theory" the whole idea of seeking equity; its ultimate effect, they warned, would be to reduce the combat capability of

the armed forces by diluting the existing level of military experience. They

urged that the equity policy be reconsidered. 15
408 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The mouse finally brought forth by these labors early in NovemberNSC 5420/2-was a lengthened military obligation for young nonveterans volunteering for service in the reserves, which, together with

other restrictions and burdens, was intended to offset the lure of suspended liability to the draft. The volunteer, if under 19 years of age and

not yet summoned, would have two options: an 8-year military obligation

with concurrent liability to induction for at least 2 years of active service,

or a 10-year obligation with the active service liability suspended subject to satisfactory participation. In an emergency all reservists could of

course be called up. The 10-year volunteers would begin their service

with recruit training for at least six months, for which they would be paid

only $30 per month, and they would not be entitled to veterans' benefits after completing their obligated service. The planners evidently hoped

that volunteer reservists choosing this option would spend the entire

remaining nine years of their service in the service callable reserve. But

pressure from the Adler Commission and Selective Service during the final

week before the NSC presentation led to the inclusion of provisions for

intensified training that would allow reservists to serve out as much as

their last two years, free of training obligations, in the selectively callable reserve. The 10-year option would be offered only by the Army,

Marine Corps, and National Guard; volunteers for the Navy or Air Force

reserves were limited to the 8-year option, which was also acceptable

to the other services. 16

NSC 5420/2 stressed that the secretary of defense would prescribe

quotas and conditions for acceptance of volunteers for the 10-year option

and that the draft could be invoked if quotas were not filled. But it did

not state how many trainees were expected or needed. During the week

or two preceding the NSC presentation, this question, along with some

larger ones, eVidently provoked hot debate in OSD. The Army was the

only service that needed significant numbers of nonveteran trainees in its

reserves, including the National Guard; the Marine Corps would take a few,

but it relied mainly on three-year active duty enlistees. The other services

were either lukewarm or hostile, fearing competition with their recruitment programs. From outside DoD, however, OSD planners came under

countervailing pressure from the Adler Commission and the Selective

Service System. Generals Adler and McLain of the NSTC told Assistant

Secretary Burgess, when he cautiously suggested a token figure of 50,000

trainees, that this was not nearly enough. 20th Century Minutemen had

proposed to start with double that number, to double that in the second

year, and perhaps continue to increase thereafter. Burgess settled on

100,000 as a starting figure and for each of the remaining three years the
Minutemen and Veterans 409

program was projected to run. This was only two-thirds of the number

the Army alone expected to require in the third year and only half of that

proposed by the Wensinger task force. Approved as an estimate for costing purposes, this figure was written into NSC 5420/3, the abbreviated

paper reviewed by the NSC on 15 NovemberY

In the NSC Burgess defended his decision with such vigor as to

suggest that a larger issue was involved, as was indeed so. The Defense

leadership had clearly decided to put its money on veterans rather than

nonveterans. Burgess argued that a flow of 100,000 men per year out of

the manpower pool through six months of initial training and into the

reserves would be just enough, and not too many, when added to those

inducted and enlisted directly into the armed forces, to "insure the

equitable principle that everyone participate in military service." To dump

a larger number of ill-trained men into the reserves every year could

seriously weaken the whole force. 18

Consistent with this emphasis, the reserve plan ultimately sent to the

NSC did not constitute an unqualified triumph for the principle of equity.

As a declaratory ideal it was, indeed, now enshrined as an "objective" in

NSC 5420/3, but on the same footing as, not above, national security considerations. The more specific issue of equity for veterans was compromised in the final version: combat veterans would have first consideration

for transfer to the standby reserve, but virtually all others would have to

serve for several years (two to six) in the ready reserve; only five-year

men could go into standby status immediately after completing active

service. This ensured that for the full term of the plan the ready reserve

would be manned, in the main, by veterans. 19

In the press conference on 17 December that unveiled the new

reserve program to the public, Assistant Secretary Burgess drew unkind

laughter from reporters when he admitted that the term "combat veteran"

was "subject to definition" (by the services). In effect, the "price" paid by

DoD for a reserve program that in most respects hewed fairly closely to

the line drawn by the Wensinger task force-especially in its heavy reliance

on veterans to man the first-line defense in an emergency-was a vague

commitment to some form of universal military service, which the phrase

"equitable sharing of military obligation" was widely assumed to mean.

DoD officials in fact resisted the assumption, fearing (prophetically) that

the unpopularity of "UMT" in Congress and with the public would wreck

the program's chance of acceptance. But their arguments smacked

of quibbling. 20

Granting, however, that universal military service of some kind was

the purported aim, would the program in fact fulfill it? The asserted
410 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

automaticity of the system that was supposed to ensure that no physically

fit male would escape the net raised the eyebrows of natural skeptics who

knew anything about the complexity and dynamics of population growth.

In mid-December, as the program was being unveiled, the president's

decision to accelerate the reduction of the active forces by mid-1956 to

2,815,000 undermined the basic arithmetic of the program. Caught off

guard at their 17 December press conference, Wilson and Burgess floundered and finally stonewalled questions that the president, two days

earlier, had told reporters to save for them. The implications seemed

clear enough. A conservative projection of the effects of the reduction in

military manpower requirements showed that as early as 1957 the

expanding pool of eligible manpower would burst through the 1,000,000-

man ceiling*-the level that had been projected as necessary to ensure

that all males eligible for military service served either in the reserves

or with the active-duty military.

Worst-case projections were even more alarming. There was also

good reason to doubt whether the manpower pool ceiling of one million,

even while it held, would in fact keep the average age of induction low

enough to prevent growing numbers of men from reaching the magic age

of 27, when they would no longer be exposed to the draft. Because inductions were from the top age down, older men were drafted before

younger ones, but most enlistees came from the "bottom," thus raising

the average age of those who remained in the pool. At the beginning of

1955 the average age of induction was over 21 and apparently rising.

Beyond 1959, as DoD spokesmen insisted in every briefing, forecasts

were too speculative to be worth much; military manpower needs were

hardly more than guesses. 21

After December Defense spokesmen stopped asserting that the system

would ensure that no one except the physically unfit escaped service. The

president's special message on 13 January 1955 submitting the new

reserve plan and requesting implementing legislation said little about

equity and nothing at all about universal service. The plan's paramount

aim, Eisenhower declared, was to provide strengthened reserve forces

capable of augmenting the active force in an emergency "with the least

possible disruptive impact on the life of the individual citizen and the

civilian economy," and relying "as heavily as possible on voluntary service." New legislation was also requested to authorize the states to create

organized militia in peacetime to replace federalized National Guard units

• Projections for the manpower pool had covered a wide range but the figure of one million

had been generally accepted as a goal.
Minutemen and Veterans 411

for civil defense and other domestic missions in time of war. The equity

theme surfaced only at the end of the message. Each young man, the president summed up, would be offered several choices for meeting his military

obligations-"the maximum possible right of self-determination." The

plan also aimed at a "more equitable sharing" of those obligations by

giving reservists who had seen combat service some assurance that in an

emergency they would not be called ahead of men who had not. Thus in

some measure one of the glaring inequities of the Korean War mobilization would be avoided. About the corollary inequity of that period and

its possible recurrence-that many had lived through their years of vulnerability without serving at all-the president had nothing to say. 22

As the time drew near for the House hearings, OSD mounted a vigorous campaign to mobilize support both within and outside the defense

community in order to present a united front to the legislators. In the

end all of the service military chiefs dutifully endorsed the National

Reserve Plan but with notable lack of fervor, most conspicuously in the

Air Force. As Wilson sardonically told the House subcommittee, "the

services have varying degrees of enthusiasm over [the plan]. "23 Considering the buzz-saw awaiting the plan on Capitol Hill, its limp endorsement

by the military may not have significantly affected its already dismal prospects, but administration leaders were taking no chances. The president

made it clear that he expected all cabinet officials to issue public statements of support for the reserve plan, and Secretary Wilson "invited"

similar statements from his own hierarchy and the military services. 24

The new military reserve plan announced by the president on 13 January 1955 was part of a package of three DoD legislative bills submitted to

Congress on the 21 st. The other two provided for a four-year extension of

the Selective Service Act drafting young men for two years of active service

and a two-year extension of the doctors' and dentists' draft. Both were due

to expire on 30 June. The three-way split had been dictated by the new

Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Carl

Vinson of Georgia, who intended to assign each bill to a separate subcommittee-a decision viewed with misgivings by several members of

the corresponding Senate body as well as veterans' groups, who regarded

the draft extensions as inseparable from the reserve plan. As a matter of

tactics, separate treatment of the former, which was expected to encounter

little opposition, seemed likely to weaken the chances of the latter. 25

The administration had ample reason to expect that the reserve plan

would run into trouble on the Hill. After its announcement in December,

legislators of both parties had warned that the bill would get a thorough

working-over in both houses. Moreover, the now dominant Democrats
412 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

could be counted on to exploit it for whatever political gains it might

yield. Service partisans in Congress naturally reflected the attitudes,

ranging from tepid support to antipathy, evident in the services themselves; the various rival systems proposed over the past year by the NSTC,

Selective Service, and veterans' groups similarly had their supporters on

the Hill. The most obvious obstacle to passage of the reserve bill was the

UMT label which, despite insistent denials by administration spokesmen,

was invariably attached to it. Rightly or wrongly, almost all legislators

assumed that the American people remained overwhelmingly hostile to

universal military training in any form or degree. Numerous members of

both houses, notably Rep. Dewey Short (Mo.), senior Republican on the

House Armed Services Committee, were already on record as opposed to the

reserve plan for this reason, and congressional supporters of UMT were

pessimistic about its chances. This mindset posed a no-win problem for

promoters of the plan. Universality of military obligation had, after all, been

written into the plan at the explicit direction of the president. Supporters

could hardly be expected to argue that it was only a theory, which would

in a few years be wiped out by the rising flood of surplus manpower. 26

The House: Trainees and Race

In the House the reserve forces subcommittee, chaired by Rep.

Overton Brooks (D-La.), seemed in no hurry to act on the reserve plan.

Hearings droned on through February and into March while the press

reported a steady stream of endorsements by government officials

responding to the president's order. Several alternative plans surfaced. 27

On 6 March 1955 two members of the subcommittee, a Democrat and a

Republican, predicted on national radio that Congress would scrap the

administration's plan and write its own; specifically, they criticized the uncertainties facing young men approaching draft age, the 10-year obligation

of volunteers for six months of training, and the small number to be admitted in the program. Four days later, as predicted, the subcommittee

announced that it had rejected the government plan and started to draft

another, more "voluntary" one, purged of any taint of universal military

training and with reduced compulsion. 28

Working fast, the subcommittee had a draft ready by 18 March and

invited further DoD testimony. As promised, it removed some of the

compulsion in the administration plan, but the drafters had also kept in

mind the asserted need for a guaranteed three million ready reservists by

1959. The six-month training program would be wholly voluntary, with
Minutemen and Veterans 413

no standby power to draft if quotas were not filled, and the major penalty

in the administration plan-less than honorable discharge and loss of

benefits for reservists who shirked prescribed training-was eliminated.

Instead, they might be called back to active duty for 45 days and, if they

continued in noncompliance, face a court-martial. In addition, exemption from required reserve training was extended to all veterans who

had seen active service before the official end of the Korean War, and

all ready reservists would have a choice of either weekly drills plus two

weeks of summer camp or 30 days of summer camp. Instead of a fixed

quota of 100,000, up to 250,000 would be accepted for six months of

training in the first year and their pay was raised from $30 to $50 a

month. The required term of service, active and reserve, went down from

10 to 8 years, with provision for proportionate reduction of the training

requirement by additional increments of active duty. 29

As the hearings proceeded, the debate focused on the trainee-draft

issue and a proposal to give the president authority to call up as many as

750,000 ready reservists for active duty in a limited emergency, without

consulting Congress. Split on these two points, the subcommittee passed

the buck to the full committee, while approving the remainder of the bill,

including a provision giving the NSTC custody of the "health and welfare"

of the volunteer trainees-in order, as Rep. Victor Wickersham CD-Okla.)

put it, to protect them from "liquor and lewd women." By mid-April, however, the political climate-or at least expectations of it-had changed.

Subcommittee Chairman Brooks and Vinson, chairman of the full committee, both predicted that the members would reject the trainee draft,

presumably on the basis of their individual appraisals of how the bill was

likely to fare when it reached the floor of the House. Public pressure was

mounting, with growing agitation by pacifist and religious opponents of

conscription and UMT. On the 27th, Secretary Wilson dissipated what uncertainty remained regarding the fate of the bill's key provision by telling

the committee that, although the administration had not changed its mind

on the trainee draft, "it doesn't ruin the bill if you go the other way." The

next day the Armed Services Committee voted 31 to 5 to send the bill to

the House floor, with authority for the president to call up a million ready

reservists without consulting Congress but without power to draft youths

for the six-month training plan. As Vinson had promised earlier that

month, the bill now did not have a single "line of UMT in it."30

On 17 May the bill finally came up for debate on the House floor. Its

opponents, mobilized by Representative Short, held the floor for most of

the day, stressing objections to the penalties remaining in the bill. Short

contended that offering the six-month training option to escape the draft
414 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

was comparable to "offering an Ozark jackass an ear of corn in order to

get the critter close enough to slip a halter over his head." Supporters of

the bill, mostly Democrats, counterattacked the following day.31

The bill seemed headed toward passage when Adam Clayton Powell,

Democratic congressman from Harlem, and one of three blacks in the

House, introduced an amendment to prohibit assignment of reservists to

racially segregated National Guard or reserve units, which, he noted,

could be found in some 21 states. After a brief startled rejoinder by Subcommittee Chairman Brooks, the amendment passed on a standing vote

of 126 to 87. Whatever Powell's primary motive, the effect was to align

some 70 southern Democrats, who had previously formed an almost solid

block supporting the bill, just as solidly against it. Acting quickly, Vinson

moved and won an adjournment for the night. After conferring with

White House and Pentagon officials, he tried a new maneuver the next

day, offering an amendment that eliminated from the bill the language

to which Powell had objected and Powell's own amendment as well as

some of the remaining elements of compulsion. The maneuver failed.

Opponents of the bill were not won over and joined northern civil rightists in an improbable alliance to smother the Vinson amendment. Smelling

victory, opponents clamored for continued debate and a vote on the bill

itself. Vinson, showing the parliamentary agility he had developed over

almost 42 years in the House, saved the bill from imminent defeat by

moving that it "go back to the Speaker's table" until recalled for further

consideration. His motion carried, but his action left the bill in a coma

from which House leaders and knowledgeable observers had little hope

of soon arousing it. A few days later Rep. Joseph Martin, the minority

leader, predicted that the House would eventually pass some version of

the reserve bill, but other members considered it dead until the next session. The Senate also seemed disinclined to pick up the ball. If the House

could not agree on a bill, said Sen. Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic

leader, "the Senate is not going to march up the hill and down again."32

The setback to the reserve bill, snatching defeat from the jaws of

victory, spurred President Eisenhower to quick action. On 8 June,

immediately after a meeting with Republican legislative leaders, he came

to his regular news conference primed to speak his mind. The reserve

bill was vital, he declared in answer to a question, and if the House could

not get it out promptly, then he "most urgently" hoped that the Senate

could "do something about it." He characterized Powell's anti-segregation

amendment as "extraneous" and the attempt to make vital national security legislation hostage to it as selfish and "erroneous," particularly in view

of his administration's good civil rights record. The reserve bill, even
Minutemen and Veterans 415

though somewhat weakened by changes, still "represented a tremendous

advance" and was "terrifically important" in providing trained, disciplined

manpower ready and available everywhere in the country to maintain

order and prevent panic in a major emergency, to flesh out the National

Guard, to relieve veterans who had already served in war from the double

jeopardy of being called again. He put down the idea, already bruited

about, that beefing up the active forces might be a practicable alternative

to having a reserve. "No increase in the Armed Forces, active forces, of a

logical size," he declared, "could possibly compensate for not having a

reserve. We must have it." Perhaps the strongest plea he had made for any

legislation since becoming president, his message was heard by millions

over radio and television. A few days later the president made another,

more dramatic plea during a radio broadcast from his secret underground

"Pentagon," winding up Operation Alert, a nationwide civil defense

exercise. Appealing candidly over Congress's head for public support of

the bogged-down reserve bill, he declared, "This matter is so important

we cannot possibly allow any extraneous matter of any kind to impede

progress of the bilis through Congress ....This is no place to attach social,

political or any other kind of legislation. This ... is completely nonpartisan. It must be done for the security and safety of the United States

and its 165 million people."33

The Harlem congressman's response to the president's rebuke was

prompt and characteristically defiant. In a half-hour speech to the House

on the day following the president's news conference, Powell asserted

he would "not retreat one inch" from his amendments and was in fact

prepared to offer another one to tie up the school construction bill by

barring federal grants to any state that violated the Supreme Court's

ruling against segregation in public schools. He had found, he said, that

such "riders" provided the only practical way to get legislators' attention

on civil rights matters, since "road blocks" built into the process made it

impossible to bring the issue before Congress on its merits. 34

In the next several days Armed Services Committee Chairman Vinson

eVidently brought to consummation backstage committee maneuvers

aimed at breaking the logjam. On 17 June he announced, and a few days

later held up for public view, a watered-down version of the reserve bill

calculated to win over most of the objectors. Among those persuaded was

Powell, who gleefully called the new version "a complete victory for me"

and even claimed authorship of its key feature, the simple elimination of

all provisions pertaining to the National Guard-thus bypassing the

segregation issue. Vinson had also eliminated the six-month voluntary

training period, reduced the total military obligation from eight to six
416 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

years (five to be served in active and ready reserve status), and eliminated

the president's authority to call up reservists without consulting Congress.

Vinson retained the exemption of Korean War veterans from training obligations, the original House bill's mechanisms for enforcing reserve training, and the administration's ready reserve manpower goal of 2.9 million

men, which he felt confident could be attained under his bill. 35

Vinson's bill was obviously designed to win House votes, not to please

the White House or the Pentagon, neither of which had been consulted.

The president promptly let it be known that he was not pleased and

would try to have the bill amended on the House floor if it got that far.

This was problematical since it turned out that the chairman had also

failed to consult his own committee, particularly the Brooks subcommittee charged with handling reserve legislation, and affronted it further

by demanding that the full committee consider and approve the bill

immediately (on 21 June) so that the House leadership could pass it on

the 23d. The subcommittee rebelled. Brooks complained angrily that

Vinson's action was a "rebuke" to the subcommittee, and Rep. James

Van Zandt (R-Pa.), "sick and tired of Vinson running the show," successfully moved that the bill be referred to the subcommittee for five days

of hearings and study. 36

Wasting no time, the subcommittee reported its revised version the

next day, following hurried discussions with DoD officials the night

before. On the key issues it leaned back toward administration views,

as Vinson's version had leaned away from them. In effect, volunteers

would be offered a contract providing for six months' training followed

by 7!j2 years in the ready reserve, with draft deferment as long as they

kept up their reserve training. Like Vinson's bill, and without objection

by Defense officials, the subcommittee's version tried to skirt the segregation pitfall by avoiding all mention of the National Guard. By now,

however, Powell had had second thoughts. He had already telegraphed

the president urging reconsideration of a long dormant bill to abolish

segregation in the National Guard, although he was not inclined to introduce his original amendments again when the new reserve bill reached

the House floor. When the president, unchastened by Powell's earlier

rebuff, asked him to refrain-"it is a fact of history that no legislation,

however meritorious, containing such a provision has ever passed the

Senate" -the congressman's hackles rose again. Calling a press conference, he charged that the president had "bowed to the will of a minority"

and vowed that the anti-segregation amendments would be introduceddefinitely for the school construction and housing bills and maybe for

the reserve bill as well. 37
Minutemen and Veterans 417

But by late June more than a month had passed since Powell had

introduced his original amendments. Many members who had supported

him then had now changed positions after their own assessment of the

impact of the president's sharp public rebuke of the New York congressman for attempting to give an "extraneous" civil rights measure a free

ride on the back of a bill vital to the nation's security. Among them were

Vinson, who now took over full management of the revised version, and,

more remarkably, Dewey Short. Both were among the 29 members of

the committee who approved the bill on 28 June and sent it to the House

floor for what Vinson vowed would be a "show-down" vote to "defeat

the efforts of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored

People" to compel an end to segregation in the National Guard. The next

day President Eisenhower found an opportunity during his news conference for a final thrust. Dodging a barbed question about whether a

Republican-controlled House would have been more likely to pass an

anti-segregation amendment, he answered: "All I have ever said on that is

that I would like to see one bill, which is so terrifically important to the

United States, be handled specifically on its own merits and without the

introduction of any other kind of matter, no matter how desirable."38

Two days later, on 1 July, Powell submitted his amendment as

promised, and the House beat it down by a vote of 156 to 105. Before

the vote Powell made a long speech, calling the president a "great and

good man" who "has been and is now being used by a distinct minority."

Vinson retorted that the amendment was irrelevant to the bill as then

written and was "purely and simply a method of attaining a political goal

of the National Association of Colored People." The bill's managers did

not attempt to engineer reversal of the approval by an overwhelming

voice vote of an amendment providing that young men volunteering for

reserve service must either have reached the age of 19 or have graduated from high school. With amendments disposed of, the House rejected

a motion to send the bill back to committee, then on a voice vote

shouted approval of the bill-thus leaving individual members safely

anonymous against any future attempt to disinter the dead past. "A good

strong bill," Vinson applauded, "the kind the President wants."39

Senate: Further Compromise

The kind of bill the president really wanted was, of course, the one

he had submitted in January, now shelved and gathering dust in the

House Armed Services Committee. Whether the administration had a formulated strategy of accepting with good grace the weakened version
418 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

passed by the House in hopes of improving on it later in the Senate is

not clear, but it hardly mattered. No sooner had the battered bill

emerged from the House than it became evident that, far from recouping

its fortunes in the Senate, the administration would do well to keep even

the meager remnants the House had left it. The first warning came on

the morrow of the House passage, when Sen. Richard Russell, Vinson's

counterpart in that body and, like him, a Georgia Democrat, announced

that he wanted to make at least one major change. No veteran of 1 liz years'

active service or more, he said, should have to undergo the drudgery of

weekly reserve drills and summer camp, as long as other young men were

available who had had no training. All regular draftees and enlistees,

not merely men who had served during the Korean War and earlier,

should pass directly from active service into the standby reserve and

be liable to recall by Congress only in a major emergency. A week later

Russell followed up with a proposal to offer enlisted men and noncommissioned officers leaving active service a $400 bonus as an inducement to sign up for three years of part-time training with combat units of

the Army and Marine Corps reserves, the only services, he argued, that had

reserve manpower difficulties. 40

Worried that Russell's changes would result in an even weaker bill

than the one passed by the House, administration strategists evidently

decided on an all-out effort to go for a tough bill. They had little time.

The chairman had scheduled only three days of hearings, ending on

11 July, and hoped to get a revised bill to the floor later that week. His

own version of the bill seemed to be gathering support. Within a few

days several leading members and probably a majority of the committee

lined up behind his voluntary service and bonus-incentive proposals.

The Pentagon mobilized its heavy artillery for the 11th, with a parade of

high-ranki~g witnesses and a full-dress presentation by Assistant Secretary Burgess rivaling the one given the National Security Council the

previous November. 41

Burgess methodically rated the bill, point by point, as attaining or

not attaining the objectives of the president's original plan, and in so

doing was able to shift the focus of debate back to the latter, away from

the competing proposals of the legislators. Whether or not he changed

any minds in the process, it was a psychologically effective tactic, since

it forced his hearers individually to view their own preferred proposals

in the context of the original model, where the legislative alternatives

might reveal defects not apparent in the more familiar debating environment of the past few months. Burgess's task was complex in that,

while supporting the House bill in general, Defense wanted it changed in
Minutemen and Veterans 419

important particulars-especially restoration of the eight-year military

obligation-and also hoped to bar the Russell amendments, which would

squeeze out most of what little compulsion remained in the bill and put

the whole program largely on a voluntary, bonus-incentive basis. The

six-year obligation would seriously slow the buildup of both ready and

standby reserves and was shorter than the service terms of NATO countries. Defense also wanted the original age qualifications for the six-month

program-17-18 1fz-reinstated. 42

Burgess spent some time on the National Guard, not even mentioned

in the House bill. Under existing law, which would govern, men in the 17

to 18!j2 age bracket could enlist in the Guard with draft liability to age 28

and deferment contingent on satisfactory participation. The issue for the

services here was the absence of any requirement for basic training, or

even provision for voluntary training with incentives. (The Army and the

Air Force currently operated limited voluntary training programs.) As a

consequence,7 out of 10 enlisted men in the Guard had received no basic

training, which meant that a large proportion of the strength of Guard

divisions slated to go overseas in an emergency would not be qualified

for early deployment-a situation aggravated by a 30 percent turnover

rate in the enlisted ranks. Burgess alluded bitterly to the recent testimony

of the National Guard Association that it was content with the Guard's

voluntary status. Adequate basic training was the paramount need. DoD

held that all reserve components should observe the same minimum

standards of initial training. In short, apply the six-month initial training

requirement to membership in the Guard. 43

The Senate hearings on 11 July were the swan song for the president's reserve plan, sung to a less than enraptured audience. Most of the

committee members reacted coolly or not at all to Burgess's plea for

retention of the compulsory features of the House bill. Russell, viewing

these as a bludgeon with which the Pentagon would force young veterans,

who had already paid their dues, to pay again with several years of parttime training and liability to first call in a limited emergency, offered one

small concession: compulsion might be applied but only to the subsequent

reserve duty of men who entered active service, as volunteers or enlistees,

starting 30 days after the reserve bill became law.

Wasting no time and eVidently with little debate, the Armed Services

Committee two days later reported out a revised bill that the chairman sardonically labeled a "compromise between what the Administration wanted

and nothing." Actually, it included one major concession to administration wishes-restoration of the eight-year obligation-along with a

number of compromises. Compulsory reserve duty was retained but, as
420 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Russell had proposed, only for men who would enter active service 30

days or more after enactment of the bill; all others (except directenlistment reservists) would be exempted from the training requirement.

To bridge the two-year gap between the enactment date plus 30 and the

time when men then entering active service would begin to leave it, the

committee's revised bill provided that men discharged after 18 months

or more of active duty in Army or Marine Corps combat units would

be offered in the interim a bonus equivalent to two months' pay if they

signed up for three years' reserve duty with those services, subject to

acceptance. As "post-enactment" men completed their active duty, they

would enter the ready reserve for one to three years depending on the

length of their active service, for a total of five years including the latterfollowed by three more in the standby reserve. 44

The duration of the training was also made flexible, from three to six

months, at the discretion of the secretary of defense. As in the House

bill, volunteers would be paid $50 a month while in training and would

spend 7 liz more years in the reserves. The senators replaced the annual

ceiling of 250,000 for this program with a provision for annual

determination by Congress through the appropriation mechanism. As

in the House bill, direct enlistment in both the regular reserves and the

National Guard, with draft deferment to age 28 and no requirement for

basic training, was restricted to youths between 17 and 18 !j2. To encourage Guardsmen to take basic training, however, the revised bill provided

that they could reduce their total obligation to 8 years (instead of serving until age 28, which would impose a total of 11 years upon a 17-yearold enlistee) by volunteering for a three-month regular Army or Marine

Corps basic training course. The committee again skirted the segregation

pitfall by prohibiting the transfer of six-month trainees to the National

Guard, while permitting them to switch to regular reserve units. 45

Conference: The National Reserve Plan

When the conference of the House and Senate convened on 20-21 July,

the senators had their way, mostly, on the beginning date for inauguration

of compulsory reserve training, but they yielded to the House members

on the issues of duration of the military obligation and use of bonus

incentives. The conferees agreed that any person who entered active

service before the effective date of the act would not be required to participate in reserve training following his discharge-although he would

remain liable to recall to active duty in an emergency. Also, "in all fairness," as Brooks explained to the House, he would incur the full eight-year
Minutemen and Veterans 421

military obligation. The man entering service after the enactment date,

who would be required to participate in ready reserve training, would

incur only a six-year obligation. The conferees also scrapped what remained

of Russell's bonus plan. Facing the question of how to keep men flowing

into the reserves during the two-year gap before inauguration of compulsory training, they devised two new incentive schemes. Until 1 July

1955, draftees or enlistees (who had entered service before enactment)

after completing at least 12 months of active service could be transferred

immediately to the ready reserve if they agreed to participate in training

for three more years or less, as necessary, to complete a total of four

years of combined active duty and reserve training. Or, those who preferred to reduce their reserve service could complete their full stint of

active duty and then enlist for only one year of training in the ready

reserve. In both instances, the reservists would then be transferred to the

standby reserve to sit out the remaining time of their eight-year military

obligation. Brooks believed that the programs would funnel 700,000 into

the ready reserve during the next two years. These would be prior service

volunteers, Brooks reminded the congressmen, "the backbone of the

Reserve." Added to the 800,000-plus already training, said Brooks, these

new reservists would make a substantial advance toward the 2,900,000

goal for 1959. 46

Russell, less upbeat after watching his pet bonus plan die, pointed

out that the president's goal probably would not be attained until 1961

or 1962. "We now have a workable bill, and this is as far as we can go at

this time." His counterpart in the "other body," Carl Vinson, eVidently

feeling that the House had come out on top in the compromise, pronounced it a "very fine bill" that would challenge the Pentagon to build

a strong reserve. For many, perhaps most, House members, Dewey Short

defined what made the conference measure a fine bill. "There is by no

stretch of the imagination," he declaimed on the House floor, "a sidedoor, front-door, back-door, top-door, or bottom-door way to call this

a universal military training act. There is no compulsion; it is wholly

voluntary." 47

On 25 July the House passed the revised bill on a roll call vote of

315 to 78, with a remarkably even party split on both sides: 169 Democrats joined 146 Republicans to pass the bill, swamping 38 Democrats

and 40 Republicans opposing. Next day the Senate followed suit, but by

voice vote. Outside the legislative halls hardly an utterance was heard in

favor of the bill, but no one seemed to believe that a better one could

have been achieved. It was, in short, the classic compromise. As expected,

Wilson advised the president to sign; his soothing letter emphasized the
422 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

bill's good points. Eisenhower took the advice but was not soothed.

Clearly unhappy with the bill, he conceded in his public statement a

week later that it would "strengthen the Reserve structure"; it nevertheless fell well short of what he had requested in January. He acknowledged

as much by dwelling on the bill's deficiencies. 48

As 1955 wound down, House Armed Services Committee members

were talking of summoning DoD officials for an accounting soon after

Congress returned. Some openly suspected the Pentagon of dragging its

feet with the new program, as it had with reserve programs in the past,

in order to pressure Congress into granting authority to draft men into

the reserve. Burgess, clearly worried over the dwindling flow of volunteers, insisted the Pentagon had not given up and that the real test would

come in the spring. Six months later, 30 June 1956, the picture had not

improved. In the bellwether Army program, since the preceding August

only 13,000 had volunteered for the six-year enlistment (two years active,

three years ready, one year standby) and only 27,000 in the more attractive eight-year draft-deferred program (six months active, 7 1/2 years ready)-

against a goal of 90,000 enlistments for the period. Almost 2 million

names were on the Army's ready reserve rolls, but fewer than 200,000

of them represented men actually in training; the corresponding figures

a year earlier had been 1.6 million and 163,000. In other words, the new

system, like the old one, was actually training only 10 percent of the

paper ready reserve. On paper the total strength of the Army's ready

reserve had soared far above its goal of 1 million, but the 197,000 men

actually in training were 71 percent short of the reserve plan goal of

690,000. By contrast, the National Guard was getting along nicely under

its traditionally relaxed system with nearly all of its 420,000 registered

members actually participating in training. 49

This chapter in the history of American military reserve policy followed a familiar pattern and had a familiar ending that reflected the

experience of both past and future administrations. Powerful political,

economic, and social factors influenced the judgment of the nation's

lawmakers and significantly shaped the legislative debate on an issue of

great sensitivity. Eisenhower and the Department of Defense had to contend with these influences in trying to develop and secure passage of

reserve legislation. Successor administrations encountered the same

tensions and tradeoffs and had to settle for less-than-desired results. The

inevitable outcome was periodic compromise that was not to the satisfaction of DoD, particularly the Army, which relied most heavily on

reserve forces and was the most affected of the military services by the

failure to come to grips with this chronic long-term problem.
CHAPTER XIX

Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity

The need to revisit the great strategic policy issues of the time

occurred frequently during the early years of the New Look. Completion

on 14 February 1955 of the Killian panel's report, "Meeting the Threat of

Surprise Attack," opened a new chapter in the evolution of basic security

policy.l NSC 5501 had been completed on 7 January, a little more than

a month before,2 but the new arrival challenged much of the thinking in

that document and would command the attention of war and strategy

planners for most of the year.

Alarm Bells

The Killian panel, officially the Technological Capabilities Panel (TCP),

numbered 42 professional members, almost all distinguished scientists

or administrators,* whose 190-page report demonstrated a deep, clear,

and fresh grasp of its immensely complex subject. An opening summary

stressed the effect of the thermonuclear weapon revolution in magnifying the rewards of surprise to an attacker and, for the defender, the

penalties of mistakes, miscalculations, or lapses in alertness. "The possible

* The steering committee comprised, besides Killian (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and the deputy director, James Fisk (Bell Telephone Laboratories): three project

directors-Marshall G. Holloway of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (nuclear strike power),

Leland J. Haworth of Brookhaven National Laboratory (continental defense), and Edwin H.

Land of Polaroid Corp. (intelligence); three at-large members~LeeA. DuBridge (California

Institute of Technology), James H. Doolittle (Shell Oil Co.), and James P. Baxter (Williams

College); and one of the special consultants, Robert C. Sprague (Sprague Electric Co.). The

panel was served by a military advisory committee consisting of Lt. Gen. Lyman 1. Lemnitzer

(Army), Rear Adm. Harry D. Felt (Navy), and Brig. Gen. Bruce K. Holloway (Air Force).

423
424 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

penalty of inadequate dispersal or for a failure of strategic intelligence or

early warning looms as portentous as an atomic cloud." A 10-megaton

bomb dropped on Washington might cause 1.3 million casualties. "For the

first time in history, a striking force could have such power that the first

battle could be the final battle, the first punch a knockout." The Russians

were known to have tested a bomb of approximately one-megaton yield;

they were also producing plutonium and uranium-235. 3 Soviet Tu-4

bombers on one-way missions could reach most targets in the United

States; with refueling, all of them. The Soviets also had a large fleet of

oceangoing submarines capable of reaching U.S. harbors, and they could

infiltrate nuclear weapons, or parts thereof, into the country in many

different ways. Considering an air attack alone, against the 50 or so critical U.S. targets, the Killian panel believed that "200 nuclear bombs of

megaton and kiloton yield, if delivered on selected targets with practical

accuracy, could decisively defeat us, and that a first attack could be fatal

if we were surprised and unprepared. Indeed, two hundred or more

bombs of kiloton yield delivered on target, while not decisive, could be

devastating if not catastrophic."4

This conclusion rested in part on serious observed flaws in the nation's

capacity to blunt an attack at the source. The most obvious U.S. weakness

was the extreme vulnerability of the Strategic Air Command to even a

small-scale surprise attack, owing to a high concentration of bombers on

a small number of ill-defended bases. Apart from expansion of the base

system, the panel looked to the development of lightweight thermonuclear weapons for carrier-borne and other small aircraft to expand

nuclear strike capabilities. High-energy fuels could reduce dependence

on overseas bases and tankers, and ultimately ballistic missiles might eliminate it altogether. 5

More serious were the weaknesses in continental defenses. While applauding the creation of the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD)

and all the measures already taken and under way to improve capabilities,

the panel found the defense system as a whole still "embryonic," still far

short of "being planned as an integrated entity." Numerically and qualitatively deficient, the defenses "could be avoided or overwhelmed and

might even be unaware of an attack until the first bomb exploded. Under

these circumstances our cities could suffer millions of casualties and

crippling damage, and enough SAC bombers and bases could be destroyed

to reduce drastically our ability to retaliate." In short, the panel declared,

the country was "at present unacceptably vulnerable to surprise attack."

And the threat would continue. 6

Although nuclear striking power and continental defense were the

primary focus of the Killian panel's report, it urged immediate study of how
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 425

thermonuclear weapons, especially radioactive fallout from them, would

affect protecting the population and maintaining civil order under air

attack, and it expressed concern over the concentration of civilian supporting industries in critical target areas. The report stressed enemy

capabilities to conceal, confuse, and invert the indicators relied on for strategic warning of an impending attack, i.e., before it was actually launched.

For the most part, however, this portion of the report was optimistic, full

of wide-eyed descriptions of ingenious applications of advanced technology to the complex art of determining what the other side was up toJ

The Killian Timetable

The panel's conclusions as to the long-term implications of the twin

vulnerabilities of offensive and defensive systems were set forth in a timetable projecting changes in the relative military strength of the two

superpowers. The "Killian Timetable" was a modified and more elaborate

version of the one Robert Sprague had presented to the NSC in November 1954. (His position as a special consultant on the panel creates a

plausible presumption that he was its author.) The timetable, like

Sprague's, listed four periods. Period I, already in progress, was characterized by American superiority in air-atomic power but accompanied by

a dangerously weak air defense system which left the United States vulnerable to surprise attack. Consequently, neither power could yet decisively

injure the other, although either side might inflict massive damage, and a

sustained U.S. air offensive would probably be decisive in a general war. 8

Sometime in 1956-57 this period would give way to Period II, as the

United States amassed enough multimegaton bombs along with improved

delivery means to decisively damage the Soviet homeland. Improved Soviet

delivery capability, despite improvement in American defenses, would leave

the United States still vulnerable to surprise attack but able to "emerge a

battered victor" in the ensuing war. This period of American superiority

would probably end sometime in 1958-60 as the Soviets acqUired their

own significant multimegaton and jet bomber capability.

Soviet testing of a true multimegaton weapon would signal the start of

Period III, although American superiority, assuming continued improvement of thermonuclear, delivery, and defense capabilities, would remain

decisive until the Soviets had actually amassed a stockpile of thermonuclear bombs and possessed an assured means of delivering them.

Overall American superiority at the beginning could be reversed overnight (from Period IlIA to Period I1IB) if Soviet progress in attack capability should overtake American progress in continental defense, giving the
426 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Soviets the ability in a surprise attack of overwhelming American defenses

and crippling the retaliatory forces. "This situation," the panel warned,

"might develop as early as 1958."

Period III would eventually yield to a nightmarish Period IV, when

each side would possess the means of obliterating the other by saturating

attacks of thermonuclear weapons, including intercontinental ballistic

missiles. Whichever power acquired this monstrous capability first would

thereby gain a major, if temporary, advantage, giving it an even more assured

means of destroying the other. "Period IV is so fraught with danger to the

u.S. that we should push all promising technological development so that

we may stay in Periods II and IlIA as long as possible." Because the post1960 vista looked so bleak, the panel believed that the late fifties (Period

II), since "our military superiority may never be so great again," offered a

now-or-never opportunity for a major diplomatic and political effort to exorcise the threat of war with the Soviet Union, but it did not specify how. 9

The panel thus restated a perennial question: how to make hay in responding to the Soviet threat while the sun ofAmerican military superiority

was still shining. The unspoken assumption was that military superiority

provided an effective lever for persuading the Soviets to reach an acceptable accommodation. Once American superiority had waned or disappeared,

so too would the possibility of accommodation. That a situation of mutual

deterrence in an era of nuclear plenty might prove more propitious for an

accommodation was alien to this line of reasoning, if only because the kind

of accommodation the planners had in mind was probably not the kind

the Soviets could accept, given equality of bargaining power. Still, NSC

5501, approved over strong objections from the Joint Chiefs and most of

the DoD leadership (other than Wilson), rejected preemptive war and

accepted as facts of life continuing cold war, persisting threats of limited

war and "creeping" Communist expansion, and further growth of Soviet

air-atomic power.

The Joint Chiefs had less confidence than the Killian panel in the

predicted inability of the Soviets to mount a decisive attack during the socalled Period II. Unless U.S. defenses improved more rapidly than seemed

likely, the chiefs believed it dangerous to assume that the Soviets would

be unable to break through and inflict crippling damage. Otherwise, the

Joint Chiefs readily went along with most of the panel's recommendationswhich, in most cases, they said were already being implemented.lO

Killian and his steering committee presented an extensive briefing

to the National Security Council on 17 March. The NSC staff then assigned

the report's 15 general and 90 specific recommendations to concerned

departments and agencies for study and responses by 15 May. At least half
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 427

of the recommendations addressed continental defense; about 16, nuclear

striking power; most of the remainder, intelligence and communications.

DoD wound up with primary responsibility for about 50 and a secondary

interest in another 20. 11 Almost a month before the NSC meeting, OSD

had sent copies of the report to the military departments and asked for

comments, recommendations, and cost estimates. These were to be sent to

Assistant Secretary Quarles and combined into a single DoD reply before

the NSC-imposed deadline. 12

McNeil's office, already working on cost estimates, found that the preliminary figures submitted unilaterally by the services added up to a mindboggling total of $19 billion over the next five years, about $1.4 billion of

it for research and development. The estimates were riddled with duplication and guesswork, particularly for the last three of the five years.

McNeil recommended that the future year estimates be ignored for the

present, and his staff whittled down the totals for FY 1956 and FY 1957

from $5.5 billion to a more reasonable $3.9 billion. In the end it was

decided to shelve the pricing exercise altogether for the present and ask

Congress only for modest increases in the secretary's emergency research

funds and transfer authority. 13

Continental Defense on Trial

In the midst of the activity generated by the Killian panel report,

there appeared alarming news from Western reporters and diplomats

about numerous sightings around Moscow of large formations of advanced

types of Soviet bombers and fighters rehearsing for the annual May Day

flyby (eventually cancelled because of bad weather). Perhaps most disturbing was the appearance of as many as a dozen Bison intercontinental jet

bombers comparable to the American B-52; only a single one had flown

in the air parade a year earlier. This signified an advance by as much as two

years (to 1958) their expected availability in sufficient numbers to mount

a massive attack on the United States, igniting a fire storm of publicity

and causing Wilson to hastily propose and the president quickly to agree

to accelerate B-52 and F-I00 production.*

The Soviet flights provided a backdrop for the latest continental defense progress reports (as of 15 April), which worried officials took under

review in the latter part of May and early June. The Joint Chiefs found that

despite improvements, the nation's defense system, even when completed,

would not "prevent an attack which could cause grave damage to our

* See Chapter XVII.
428 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

ability to fight and win a war." Not ready to propose yet another general

acceleration of continental defense programs, the chiefs left the door

slightly ajar to a selective expansion and noted that recommendations for

improvements in the system were under preparation. 14

When the NSC took up the DoD progress report on 16 June, Robert

Sprague, again officiating as principal gadfly, went right to the point. By

mid-1957 the Soviets seemed likely to have operational 200 Bisons, 650

Badgers, and 150 Bears-a total of 1,000 modern bombers compared with

the November estimate of 750. The first test of a multimegaton weapon

as distinct from a device was expected before the end of the year. Clearly

the basic" policy on continental defense, NSC 5408, should be revised.

Sprague urged, at a minimum, acceleration of 10 specific programs in

order to achieve adequate defense against high- and low-altitude Soviet

attacks by mid-1957, and that this action take precedence even over implementing the Killian report. 15

Sprague's dramatic plea for emergency action wrought no miracle. The

council, clearly impatient to get back to the Killian review, briefly discussed and formally "noted" the progress reports and postponed revision

of NSC 5408 until after consideration of the detailed responses to the

Killian panel's recommendations. Meanwhile, work on key continental

defense elements would go forward more or less at its current already

accelerated pace. Sprague's favored 10 proposals were referred to the

Defense Department for review. 16

Most DoD officials, the president, and especially the Joint Chiefs found

Sprague's proposal a turnoff; they continued to emphasize the concept of

balance. Back in April 1955 the Joint Chiefs, while recognizing the nation's

vulnerability to surprise attack, had implicitly warned against an unbalanced effort to make it less vulnerable, since "offensive-defensive power"

formed a seamless web that contributed in toto to deterring attack and

to destroying enemy power. The chiefs did not discount the possibility

that the Soviets might attack and seriously damage the nation's war-making

capacity and society-'-but they seemed willing to accept the risk. 17

For all the sense of urgency ("without despair") that pervaded the

Killian report, few of its recommendations for action carried deadlines

for implementation. This may have had more than a little to do with the

phenomenal approval rating they received from the agencies assigned to

review them. As of mid-July, 50 of the recommendations on nuclear

striking power and continental defense had been concurred in and only

9 rejected. The general pattern of responses within DoD was to "concur

in principle," declare the recommendation valid, feasible, and indeed

already being implemented, and then list further financial and other

requirements for full implementation. IS
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 429

Dissecting the Timetable

When the Planning Board got around to considering the Killian

Timetable in July, attention focused particularly on the assumption that

Period II, when the balance of military advantage supposedly would most

favor the United States, offered a propitious time for U.S. political and diplomatic moves. Challenging this view, Robert Amory, the CIA adviser to the

board, argued that the Moscow flybys together with recent intelligence on

Soviet nuclear capabilities had seriously undermined the Timetable. The

new estimated figure for Soviet heavy bombers in 1958 was one that the

Soviets were not expected to attain before 1959 or 1960. As for Soviet

nuclear capabilities, Amory noted that the Soviets "almost certainly now

have a one-megaton order of capability," and by mid-1958 could have a

respectable stockpile of somewhere between 115 and 460 weapons of onehalf to one megaton yield. He concluded that the anticipated second

period of overwhelming American superiority might never materialize, or

at best might end by mid-1958. 19

Sprague countered this argument by restating that the critical element

in the definition of Period II, American acquisition of a large stockpile of

multimegaton weapons, together with an adequate delivery capability,

would confer the ability to decisively damage the USSR. Until they too

acquired these weapons in large numbers, the Soviets could not similarly

damage the United States. Vulnerability to surprise attack, which weighed

heavily in Amory's reasoning, actually characterized the posture of both

powers during Periods I and II. Sprague did not challenge Amory's conclusion that Period II (if it materialized at all) might end as early as mid1958. He concluded that, on balance, the Killian panel's recommendation

of an intensive study of diplomatic and political measures to exploit

American military superiority during Period II was a good idea. 20

Amory's salvo against the Killian Timetable also brought rejoinders

from the Army and Air Force planners, who found fault with both the

Timetable and its critic. The Army spokesman on the board criticized the

report for its narrow focus on the technological aspects of national power

and on nuclear air warfare. More particularly, he pointed out, the report's

analysis of the Timetable ignored the probability that each successive

period would see an increase in local aggression and limited wars, especially after Period II, when the Soviets would rely on fear of nuclear war

in the free world to inhibit retaliation. The Air Staff, perceiving only

limited utility in this or any other timetable, still remained confident that

a Period II of significant duration was in the offing-even if the Soviets

achieved a large increase in air-atomic capability during the 1958-60

period. 21 The distaste for the Killian report in the Army and the Air Force
430 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

was predictable, since it touched sensitive nerves in both services-the

Army's belief that wars were won ultimately by the man in the foxhole,

the Air Force's proud conviction that its pilots and flying machines were

the best in the world. On the other hand the prospect of a period of overwhelming American air-atomic superiority, however short, spurred wishful

thinking in both services. Amory's attack on the Killian Timetable received

its coup de grace at the end of August when the executive officer of

aDM's Science Advisory Committee revealed the data that had led the

Killian panel to unanimous acceptance of the Period II hypothesis. As

this official put it, the power advantage inherent in fusion over fission

weapons was really one of kind more than degree. The prospective growth

of the u.S. multimegaton stockpile by 1957-58 would theoretically enable

American bombers to drop 25,000 MT on the USSR-a one-hundredfold

increase over current capacity. The Soviets were expected to have a corresponding capacity in the same period of only 274 megatons. This favorable

ratio-25,000 to 274-would diminish greatly in Periods II and IlIA in

the Timetable, but the United States would retain an edge. 22

During August 1955 the dispute over what the Timetable meant and

how recent intelligence affected it appeared to be diminishing. On 4 August the NSC directed the Planning Board to examine and report on how

this question would affect the forthcoming review of basic national

security policy. In consultation with Sprague, the board readily endorsed

the Period II hypothesis as a general proposition-that is, the prediction

that a period of "relative U.S. military advantage" would occur soon,

probably beginning in mid-1956 and ending about mid-1958. During

this period the United States would possess the capability of mounting

a decisive attack against its adversary; the USSR would not. As the new

Soviet intercontinental bomber force grew and improved, the United

States would become increasingly vulnerable to surprise attack, but the

Soviets would not, in this period, be able to knock out the U.S. retaliatory capability. 23

The board reached these conclusions in the face of indications in

July and August of rapid Soviet progress in developing a long-range

ballistic missile, possibly pointing to a two-year lead over its American

counterpart. Early in September, in fact, the NSC took steps to accelerate

the ICBM program. But by the Killian panel's analysis the advent of a

new Soviet delivery vehicle, however formidable, would not in itself

threaten American overall superiority so long as the Soviets lacked the

additional megatons of explosive power needed to saturate American

defenses and obliterate U.S. retaliatory forces. With no new intelligence

on Soviet multimegaton weapons, the old estimate of mid-1958 as the
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 431

earliest date when the Soviet stockpile of these weapons might attain

significant proportions still held. 24

The Planning Board submitted its final validation of the Killian Timetable to the NSC in early November, accepting the Killian panel's description of Periods III and IV as plausible. If a Period IIIB could be avoided,

the board stated, the United States could maintain a capability from the

beginning of Period II continuously, and indefinitely, through Period IV

"to deal an annihilating blow to the USSR." On 15 November the NSC

noted the board's analysis along with its intent, as earlier directed, to

examine the policy implications of the Timetable in connection with its

current review of basic national security policy.25

The Ballistic Missile Threat

The unexpected apparition during July and August of the prospect of

Soviet long-range missiles before the end of the decade was the second

nasty surprise sprung on American planners in 1955. Like the May Day

revelations, it upset American perceptions of the enemy threat. Back in

January 1955, NSC 5501 had registered the curiously comfortable official

view that assuming an intensive effort, the Soviets might achieve operational intercontinental ballistic missiles by 1963, or, at the earliest, 1960,

and urged that the U.S. program "should approximate this timetable."26

The only American ICBM, the Air Force Atlas, under development

since 1951, was still in its infancy. But during the first three years, Atlas

had remained "a low priority venture, accorded only routine attention,

authorized a minimum of financial support, and beset by tremendous

[technical] problems." New Look budget economies inflicted major cutbacks on all missile R&D programs during the first two years of the

Eisenhower administration. Moreover, ballistic missiles, and indeed guided

missiles in general, were not the favorite weapons of the military pilots

who dominated the Air Force leadership. Formidable technical obstacles

abounded-accurate guidance, design of a small thermonuclear warhead, the trauma of reentry. Solution of the reentry and warhead problems by early 1954 brought the corollary benefit of a relaxed accuracy

requirement. 27

Ballistic missile development reached a turning point with the report

in February 1954 of the Air Force's Strategic Missiles Evaluation Committee (Tea Pot Committee) headed by John von Neumann. The appointment

of the committee the preceding October had been engineered by Trevor

Gardner, Air Force Secretary Talbott's special assistant for R&D, who,
432 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

with Talbott's full blessing, was to be the principal driving force in

strategic missile development for the next two years. As chairman of the

interdepartmental Special Study Group on Guided Missiles ordered by

Secretary Wilson in June 1953 to examine ways to eliminate duplication

in DoD guided missile programs, Gardner had called attention to the brightening prospects for small, lightweight thermonuclear warheads and other

recent developments. At his instigation the von Neumann group of leading scientists studied the long-range missile types being developed by the

Air Force-the subsonic turbojet Snark, the supersonic ramjet aerodynamic Navaho, and the supersonic ballistic Atlas. 28

Gardner's group submitted its report in late January, but its recommendations, essentially an endorsement of the ongoing programs, were

overshadowed by the Tea Pot Committee's report, which followed shortly.

The Tea Pot Committee captured its audience's attention both by the prestige of its membership and its persuasive sense of urgency. It faulted all

three of the strategic missile programs and considered their availability

schedules optimistic. If its suggested changes were adopted the committee

believed there was no technical reason an operational Atlas, in sufficient

numbers to pose a threat, could not be achieved by 1962-63, with a first

successful launching as early as 1960 or 1961. 29

The urgency of the acceleration of all three missiles stemmed from the

belief of most of the members that the Soviets were probably significantly

ahead in long-range ballistic missiles. Although the statement was stricken

from the final version of the report, even the more skeptical members did

not rule out the possibility. Gardner complained to Assistant Secretary of

Defense Quarles a few days later of the poor quality of technical intelligence on Soviet capabilities, citing four "substantially different" estimates

all pointing to a significant Soviet lead. But the whole thrust of the Tea

Pot Committee report spoke to the need to face the real threat of an operational Soviet ICBM by 1960. If, as it appeared, Atlas could not be brought

on line until two or three years after that, Snark and Navaho, poor substitutes though they were, should be hurriedly redesigned and thrown

into the breach as interim weapons. Overstepping its charter, the committee ventured to suggest that "some qualified agency" should examine

the need for a medium-range ballistic missile (up to 1,500 nautical miles)

as another stopgap weapon. 30 Behind these proposals lay the unspoken

assumption that the long reign of the manned bomber, at least as the

backbone of American strategic airpower, was drawing to an end. Still,

any measures to prolong the usefulness of manned bombers deserved

serious consideration. 31
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 433

Gardner made good use of the Tea Pot report in pushing his campaign to accelerate the Air Force's long-range missile development.

Following Deputy Secretary of Defense Kyes's directive in April 1954 to

push Atlas "with all practicable speed," in May the Air Force assigned Atlas

its highest development priority. In April also the Tea Pot group, with a

few changes in membership, was reconstituted as the Air Force ICBM

Scientific Advisory Committee. That summer the Air Force set up a

separate organization, Western Development Division (WDD), of the Air

Research and Development Command (ARDC), to operate the program,

with Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation as the systems engineering and technical director. Subsequent intelligence about Soviet missile progress led

to the October estimate, later written into NSC 5501, that the Soviets could

have an operational ICBM possibly as early as 1960.

Still, because Atlas was only a fledgling, its funding amounted to

peanuts compared to big weapon production programs-$20 million for

R&D costs in FY 1955, and a like amount for the year following. Related

costs for facility expansion amounted to $46 million for FY 1955 and $50

million for FY 1956. Money for procurement would increase from $87.7

million in FY 1955 to $233.0 million in FY 1956. 32 For SAC Commander

General LeMay, not surprisingly, the manned bomber remained the wave

of the present and the future and the nuclear-powered bomber remained

SAC's top priority. At the end of the year the Air Council endorsed that

project along with an advanced subsonic conventionally powered

bomber, both aimed at a 1963 operational date. As for Atlas, top OSD and

Air Force officials apparently agreed that it was moving along about as

well as could be expected; more money probably would not help much

since most of the bottlenecks were technical. 33

The Killian panel recommended strongly that the NSC accord development of the Air Force intercontinental ballistic missile the highest priority,

but its schedule, aiming at a first full-scale test launching late in 1958,

was pronounced "optimistic." Achieving a militarily significant ICBM

capability before about 1965 was unlikely. A Soviet "first" in producing

an ICBM, stated the report, would represent "an even greater jump in

capability" than would a "first" by the United States, since it would largely

erase the geographical advantages now enjoyed by the latter. No other

weapon received comparable treatment in the Killian report. 34

Looking at a possible Soviet "first" in the ICBM contest, the Killian

panel emphasized the Tea Pot Committee's proposal for parallel development of a medium-range (about 1,500 nautical miles) ballistic missile.

Apparently it saw little promise in Snark or Navaho, both by now in

trouble. An intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) from advanced
434 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

land bases could cover a large part of European Russia, and, if ship-based,

a much larger part of the USSR. To the Soviets it would be almost as useful

as an ICBM, providing coverage of Europe, Alaska, Japan, Okinawa, and

the Philippines from bases in the USSR and China-and, if launched from

ships, most of the United States. The panel believed that an IRBM would

be easier to develop, possibly as a by-product of the ICBM, and would

offer greater assurance of success in a substantially shorter time than

the latter. Finally, looking far down the road, the panel recommended a

strong program of research aimed at developing a defense against ballistic missiles-most immediately a radar system capable of providing at

least 15 minutes of warning time. 35

Although long-range ballistic missiles were the most urgent of the

Killian panel's proposed nuclear strike proposals, there were others,

most notably the existing program to develop a nuclear-powered aircraft, which the panel seemed to find especially appealing because of its

unlimited radii of action. Since nuclear propulsion's future was still uncertain, however, the panel conceded the wisdom of continuing to develop

improved intercontinental bombers and also endorsed the development

of high-energy fuels to extend their range and thus reduce dependence

on foreign bases. Even with ballistic missiles, the report warned, "there

will be a continuing need for manned bombers."36

The Tea Pot Committee report was more than a year old by the spring

of 1955 and by then most of the technical obstacles to long-range ballistic

missile development had been overcome or were crumbling. The Air Force

manned bomber "establishment" saw the new Soviet bombers paraded

over Moscow and the ensuing public furor as a kind of reinsurance of its

dominance. The feeling found some confirmation in the haste of Congress

to fund accelerated procurement of B-52s and new interceptors. The Joint

Chiefs promptly applauded the Killian report's proposal to give the ICBM

a top national priority and the corollary proposal to build an IRBM,

noting that the latter was already under development and should be

pushed-initially with the same priority as the ICBM. At about the same

time (28 April) Secretary Talbott, on the recommendation of his new ICBM

Scientific Advisory Committee, approved the development of an alternate

ICBM (Titan). By the beginning of June, the Air Force could claim that it

had anticipated the proposed acceleration of the Atlas program by increasing its planned funding during FY 1955 almost 600 percent. 37

No approved specific program for a 1,500-mile ballistic missile yet

existed in mid-1955 and none would until late in the year. The Air Force

hoped to get one "free," or at least cheap, as a fallout from Atlas. The Army

similarly had hopes of upgrading its Redstone tactical ballistic missile to

medium-range status.38
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 435

Thus far, no specific action to accelerate ballistic missile programs

seems to have been discussed at the highest levels, although the NSC

proposed to consider the matter, along with certain other Killian panel

recommendations, early in July. In the world outside, however, the airpower debate precipitated by the Moscow flybys spread in June to

include the Soviet missile threat, primarily, it appears, because Senators

Symington and Jackson and several administration spokesmen raised the

issue publicly. On 11 June Admiral Radford, with reporters present, spoke

to the Senate Armed Services Committee about the danger in a surprisingly

sober vein, without explicitly denying its possibility or minimizing its

implications, and also describing at some length the intelligence problems

involved. During the Senate floor debate on the DoD budget on 20 June

Symington, asserting that he had "full information," reiterated his charge

that the Soviets might be "well ahead" in the ICBM contest. The next day

Jackson, in a rousing call-to-arms address in Olympia, Washington,

demanded a peacetime mobilization on a wartime scale to push development and production of all the key weaponry of airpower, particularly

the ICBM, which should receive "supreme and overriding importance in

our defense effort."39

The speech echoed a similar theme that Jackson had heard less than

a month earlier from Trevor Gardner in a briefing on the Atlas-Titan

program to the Atomic Energy Subcommittee on Military Application. High

on Gardner's agenda stood assignment of a top national priority and a

separate budget. That they also stood high on Jackson's agenda became

apparent on 30 June when he and his colleague, Sen. Clinton P. Anderson,

chairman of the parent Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, jointly wrote

the president of their fears that a commanding Soviet lead in ballistic

missile development could lead ultimately to atomic blackmail, disintegration of NATO, and defeat in an all-out war. They called for an immediate

presidential directive assigning the ICBM "unique and overriding priority

within the entire defense establishment.,,4o

Eisenhower, backed by Wilson, Talbott, and Gardner, quickly agreed to

consideration of the senators' proposals. Meanwhile, the CIA came up

with revised estimates of prospective Soviet output, which it presented

to the NSC on 12 July. It seemed possible that the Soviet ICBM could be

as much as two years ahead of the American. Jackson informed the NSC

that his subcommittee had reason to believe that the Soviets had a lead in

both ICBM and IRBM development. Earlier in written answers to questions from Jackson's subcommittee, OSD had conceded such a lead for

the IRBM alone. Jackson repeated his recommendation that the ICBM

should be treated as "the single most important project in our entire

defense program."41
436 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

ICBM Priority: Higher Than Highest?

Impressed by the intelligence briefing and the ICBM status briefing

at the NSC meeting on 28 July, the president directed the Joint Chiefs to

war-game "a war in which it is assumed that both sides use significant

numbers of ICBMs." At the NSC meeting on 4 August, the Planning Board

and DoD received the task of preparing recommended council actions

on the Killian report's ICBM proposals. For the less urgent IRBM, Defense

was allowed until 1 December to decide which development proposals

it would implement. 42 In the Planning Board ODM wanted a "unique

highest" priority for the ICBM, prosecuted with "the utmost speed," while

Defense would settle for the "highest" priority, but pursued with "all

practicable speed." The same issue had been debated by the same protagonists the year before in the formulation of continental defense policy.

In defending their low-key approach, DoD spokesmen pointed to the

Killian report, which had not recommended an overriding priority

("highest" but not the highest) for the ICBM. Achievement of an operational ICBM at the "earliest practicable" date had been a DoD objective,

they argued, well before the Killian panel got around to studying the

subject. An "absolute over-riding priority" (as Defense characterized the

ODM proposal) reflected a "one weapon" approach to national security

and was, besides, "not necessarily the most effective way to utilize national

resources." 43

ODM assailed this line of argument in a vigorous and ingenious rebuttal by William Y. Elliott. The key aim of the Killian panel's proposal,

he argued, was national recognition of the Air Force ICBM program as

a unique national program of "highest priority"; no other program

was accorded this kind of treatment. ODM's proposed "unique highest priority" for the ICBM, Elliott asserted, would not be "absolute"

or "overriding" as Defense claimed. Thus far, under the highest priority among Air Force programs, no serious conflicts had occurred. Elliott

seemed to be saying that the ICBM program, in its present infantile state,

was no competitive threat to anyone, whatever its priority. The real need

for a top priority would come later, when the program attained robust size

and had to compete with other major programs. ODM visualized the

impending NSC approval of a high priority for the ICBM program as

only a stopgap. It was not confident, however, that any priority could be

effective enough to recoup the presumed two-year lag behind the USSR. 44

Elliott's alarm bells evidently had some effect. The compromise that

emerged from the Planning Board's discussion on 29 August came, on the

whole, closer to the ODM than to the Defense version. 45 The Joint Chiefs

and Wilson approved it on 2 September, and on the 8th the NSC, with the
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 437

vice president in the chair, reviewed the draft and bought almost all of it.

One significant change in the key priority clause in effect assigned the

unique priority resisted by Defense and the ]CS. When this version was

flown out to the president, vacationing in Colorado, he made some other

small changes, also favoring the ODM position. The final statement,

approved by the president on the 13th, read in part as follows:

(1) There would be the gravest repercussions on the national

security and on the cohesion of the free world, should the USSR

achieve an operational capability with the ICBM substantially in

advance of the U.S.

(2) In view of known Soviet progress in this field, the development by the U.S. of an operational capability with the ICBM is a

matter of great urgency.

(3) The U.S. ICBM program is therefore a research and development program of the highest priority above all others, unless

modified by future decision of the President.

(4) The Secretary of Defense will prosecute the program with

maximum urgency, and all other Executive departments and

agencies will assist the Department of Defense as required .... 46

By substituting the phrase "maximum urgency" for DoD's "all

practicable speed," the president gave a decisive "full speed ahead" to the

priority's implementation. The ICBM now had, in effect, the overriding

priority that the ]CS had dreaded, with the conspicuous and unequivocal

presidential recognition that ODM considered indispensable. At the high

policy level ODM had won and DoD had lost. What this would mean at

the operating level remained to be seen. Still the president was not

convinced that the exotic new technologies would produce a genuine

weapons revolution in the early 1960s. He had little confidence that the

military services could muster the discipline needed to work together in

a coordinated effort, but at this juncture he was sufficiently worried by the

evidence of Soviet progress to support a major acceleration of the ICBM.

The Great IRBM Competition

The most promising hedge against what the president feared, as

the Killian panel had urged in February 1955, was to develop an IRBM

concurrently with the ICBM. Army Secretary Brucker had also proposed
438 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

this course on 6 September, arguing that an IRBM was a "reasonable

extension of existing technology" and therefore a safer gamble than the

ICBM. He was confident that if adequately funded, an IRBM could

be operational in 1960, five years earlier than the date skeptics were

predicting for the Atlas and would cost only one-sixth to one-fourth

as muchY

Defense had under consideration five missile development possibilities in which all three services would be involved. 48 Before the end of

the month the Army formally proposed that it take on the task of

developing both land-based and ship-based versions of aI, 500-mile

missile, using its Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville, Alabama. The Army could

offer impressive qualifications for the assignment. Its tactical Redstone

missile, slated for operational availability in 1958, designed and built by

the same scientists and engineers who had produced the German V-2

rocket in World War II, was the longest-range surface-to-surface ballistic

missile yet flown by the United States (175 nautical miles with a 6,400-

pound payload). Development of the Redstone thus far had been highly

successful. Many of the features, particularly the guidance system, could

be incorporated with little or no modification in the projected 1,500-

mile version, thus offering reduced development time and cost. 49

The Army's bid raised the obvious question of whether it had a legitimate interest in a long-range strategic ballistic missile. Under the basic

functions directive of 1948, the Army had primary interest in all operations

on land, with specific exceptions. Missile responsibilities assigned by the

Joint Chiefs in 1949 gave the Army and Navy control over surface-tosurface and surface-to-air missiles that would "supplement, extend the

capabilities of, or replace" artillery, and to the Air Force and Navy control

over missiles related to aircraft. However, any service might use any

missile for which it could demonstrate a need, and the Joint Chiefs were

supposed to keep on the lookout for unwarranted duplication among

missile development projects. 50

The most touchy feature of surface-to-surface missiles affecting service

responsibilities related, of course, to their range. The Air Force had sought

to limit the range of Army missiles, and the issue between the two

services became more intense as technological advances increased

operational horizons. On 13 November 1954 Acting Secretary Anderson

approved the JCS proposal that the Army be permitted to develop and

employ surface-to-surface missiles for use against tactical targets "within

the zone of Army combat operations." The new formula placed no real

restriction on the range of the Army's tactical missiles, except as implied

by the term "tactical." By the beginning of 1955 the Army, pursuing its
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 439

extension of artillery concept, had already deployed Corporal, a mobile

bombardment rocket of about 75 miles range, and had under development

the 175-mile Redstone and Sergeant; a solid-propellant rocket intended to

succeed Corporal in the early 1960s. As yet, however, the Army had no

missile that approached a range of 500 miles and had none on the drawing board. At the end of 1954 the chiefs had still not decided on service

responsibility for medium-range missile development. 51

Thus, at the beginning of 1955, the Army was clearly a potential contender in the looming competition to develop an IRBM; its Redstone

Arsenal, ready to go into action, possessed a repository of experience

in ballistic missile engineering that even the Air Force could not match.

After General Maxwell Taylor succeeded Ridgway as chief of staff and

Wilbur Brucker replaced Secretary Stevens, three new proposals to OSD

for medium-range Redstone-derived missiles in the 1,000-mile range

quickly.followed. 52

OSD meanwhile was preparing for the 1 December report to the

NSC on IRBM candidates. During the summer Deputy Secretary Reuben

Robertson had set up a Technical Advisory Committee under his chairmanship to examine the problems of coordinating service and supplier

efforts in developing an operational missile. Not unexpectedly the committee soon encountered sharp conceptual differences between the Air

Force and the Army. At one point Robertson was reportedly prepared to

recommend that the Air Force (as the "air" service) be given exclusive

jurisdiction in this field, at another that the task be turned over to a

"super" agency like the World War II Manhattan District. But he and the

committee were finally persuaded by the Huntsville engineers that contrary to the Air Force view, an IRBM probably could not be developed as

a direct derivative of the ICBM and should be treated as a separate

program. They also concluded that the Huntsville team constituted too

valuable an asset to be excluded from. ballistic missile development. 53

A latecomer to the game, the Navy encountered strong in-house resistance to development of a sea-launched ballistic missile. Many doubted the

technical feasibility of firing it from a submerged submarine, and the technology of solid-fuel propellants, generally preferred for shipboard use on

safety grounds, lagged behind that of liquid-fuel propellants. Others, remembering the losing battle with the Air Force over the B-36 in 1949, shrank

from a venture likely to trigger another dispute with the dominant service, particularly one in which the Navy, reversing its role in the 1949

squabble, might find itself again backing an "immoral" weapon inherently

less accurate and discriminating than comparable land-based missiles. In

the Navy internal bureaucratic competition impeded consensus. 54
440 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Late in 1954 the Navy submitted to the Killian panel an analysis of

the potential of a sea-based ballistic missile, which may have influenced

the panel's strong endorsement of such a weapon in its final report.

Senior officers of the old school, however, including Chief of Naval

Operations Carney, continued to oppose a major effort in this field.

Others, led by Rear Adm. James S. Russell, head of the Bureau of Aeronautics, agitated for a high-priority Fleet Ballistic Missile Program, as it

came to be called; Assistant Secretary for Air James H. Smith helped to

win over high civilian officials including Secretary Thomas. The real

turning point, however, came with the advent of Admiral Arleigh A.

Burke, who succeeded Carney as CNO on 17 August 1955. Burke had

been selected for the job ahead of 92 more senior admirals in part because

Secretary Thomas, according to a biographer of Burke, "wanted a CNO

who would promote new technology so that the navy could keep pace

with the air force in innovative weapon systems." In October, Burke, with

Thomas's hearty approval, overrode the formal opposition of a group of

senior admirals: the Navy would pursue a ballistic missile capability as a

major effort while continuing work on other missiles. 55

Each service, however, became more conscious of competing pressures from the other two and of the imminence of preemptive decisions

by OSD. These pressures tended to foster a fragile spirit of collaboration

between the Army and Navy against the front-running Air Force. Navy

officials made informal overtures to Werner von Braun's team at Huntsville looking toward collaboration. On 21 September 1955 Thomas

expressed to Wilson his "unqualified support" for the Army's proposal

earlier that month to raise the IRBM to equal status with the ICBM.56

By mid-October Wilson had decided that the urgent need for the

IRBM entitled it to an equal priority with the ICBM. Wilson had also

agreed with the Robertson committee that the technical differences

between the Air Force and the Army dictated separate and parallel IRBM

developments. 57 This solution would allow development of a backup

weapon with alternate technology and broaden the technological and industrial base of the missile and space effort. The rationale for duplication seemed to come down to unwillingness to choose between two

apparently equal competing capabilities. In retrospect, the assumption of

equality seems questionable given the Army's demonstrated capability to

build operational ballistic missiles, but excluding the Air Force from the

competition was no doubt a political impossibility.

But which services would use the IRBM? While the old principle

still held that a service could use any missile for which it could establish

a valid need legitimized by its assigned roles and missions, the JCS ruling

of 1954 rested on the assumption that normally each service would
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 441

design, build, and deploy its own missiles. For the IRBM this assumption

could not be made with any confidence: the Army had a strong claim to

build it but only a tenuous one to use it; the Air Force was the most likely

prospective user of the land-based version and the Navy the only prospective user of the sea-based version. 58

As a first solution to the development dilemma the OSD staff on

12 October proposed, in effect, to make the Army's Redstone Arsenal

available as a major contractor to the Air Force's Western Development

Division, which would be given development responsibility for the IRBM.

Not surprisingly, the Air Force liked the idea and the Army did not. The

Navy also opposed the arrangement. Instead, it proposed adding a new

twist to the contest-to employ the Redstone Arsenal "in the capacity of

an 'independent contractor' under terms mutually acceptable to the

Army and Navy" -thus signifying that the recently solemnized marriage

of convenience could become a functioning partnership, and incidentally

placing the Huntsville team in the enviable position of being wooed by

the two principal competitors. By the end of October the positions of

the three services had crystallized. All agreed on equal priorities for the

IRBM and ICBM, on the need for two parallel IRBM developments covering both land- and ship-based applications, and on the broad outlines of

a streamlined ballistic missile organization. They also agreed that the Navy

had a valid need for a ship-borne IRBM, but the Army alone supported its

own need for a land-based version; views of the Air Force's requirement

were unclear. Army and Navy presented a solid front on a joint program

leaning heavily on Redstone ArsenaP9

Meanwhile Wilson asked the Joint Chiefs on 20 October to try again

to resolve their longstanding differences on the "contemplated Service

use of the [IRBMJ in relation to assigned Service roles and missions."

The chiefs undertook to advise the secretary on both development and

use. Radford sided with Twining and they were joined by Burke, leaving

Taylor the lone dissenter. The majority held that current roles and

missions "and those which might logically be assigned in the foreseeable

future" warranted assignment of a user responsibility for the IRBM to the

Air Force and the Navy but not the Army. The IRBM program should be

given the same priority as the ICBM, with the Air Force developing the

land-based version and the Navy the sea-based version. Burke's acquiescence in this proposed Air Force-Navy development of the IRBM is difficult

to explain in the light of his previous support for a joint development

effort based on use of Redstone Arsenal. 60

Taylor pointed out that all three services could usefully employ an

IRBM in executing their assigned missions. With capabilities and potential need so widely shared, Taylor implied, assignments of development
442 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

responsibility should turn on more pragmatic considerations than compatibility with assigned roles and missions. He evidently intended this line

of argument to support his concluding point, a recommendation that the

development of the IRBM including the sea-borne version be assigned

jointly to the Army and Navy. Taylor, however, seemed unwilling to assert

that the Army's capability was superior to the Navy's, even though the

strong implication that this was so was an essential part of his case.

Moreover, he failed to address the Air Force's claim to develop its own

land-based IRBM. Taylor's paper seemed, in fact, to have been prepared

as the ]CS reply to Wilson should the other chiefs approve it. Disparaging

references to the other two services would not have been useful, but

the omissions seriously weakened his argument. 61

Taylor had, in fact, already submitted a much stronger paper to

OSD, where the final decision would be made. On 27 October he forwarded to Robertson, in what purported to be a briefing for Brucker, a

vigorous, bare-knuckled attack on the impending (as it then seemed)

assignment of IRBM development to the Air Force. "It appears clear,"

the paper stated, "that the Air Force feels that the control of guided

missiles is essential to survival or at least to the maintaining of their

position as the most glamorous of the three Services." Taylor made a

strong case for Army development of the IRBM as against the Air Force,

particularly Redstone Arsenal as a key asset with the experience to do

the job. By contrast, the Air Force and its contractors had little experience with ballistic missiles. The Army stood ready to begin work on a

1,500-mile missile as the next logical step beyond the Redstone.

Moreover, Redstone Arsenal could deliver the IRBM at a lower cost

than any other development agency. To duplicate the arsenal's facilities for

IRBM development would add greatly to the cost. Finally, Taylor argued,

assignment of the IRBM to the Air Force would effectively hamstring

Army activity in the guided missile field. "The Air Force ... will oppose

initiation of Army ballistic missile developments. The Air Force will use

the identical arguments they have used with respect to the IRBM for any

subsequent development, and, if these arguments are considered valid

now, they must certainly prevail after the Redstone team has been dissipated. The Army will have been forced out of the large surface-tosurface guided missile field.,,62

On 2 November, as Taylor had anticipated, Radford sent Wilson the

previously noted split paper indicating his own concurrence with the

majority Air Force-Navy position. Soon thereafter Wilson also had in hand

the IRBM staff studies prepared for the scheduled 1 December report to

the NSC. It now appeared that a full-fledged "fall out" IRBM using the

second stage of the ICBM rocket would not be feasible-a significant
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 443

limitation on the Air Force's participation in an IRBM program. Another

expectation now confirmed was that a land-based IRBM could be achieved

substantially earlier than a ship-launched version, and a surface shiplaunching capability earlier than a submarine-launching capability. The

options thus narrowed down to a pair of land-based IRBMs (one Air

Force and one Army) and a Navy ship-borne IRBM, which the Army could

derive from its land-based version. 63

OSD Comptroller McNeil summed up the essentials of the problem

and his own views. He saw the central issue as whether the IRBM was

primarily a strategic or a tactical missile. He, at least, had no doubt that it

was the former, and that the Army had no legitimate need for it. "The idea

that the tactical type of targets immediately in the rear of an opposing

land force would be attacked by missiles 1200 to 1500 miles in the rear

of our own forces is patently without foundation." On the other hand,

McNeil pointed out, the Navy-Air Force position ignored the possible

advantages of a dual approach in developing a land-based IRBM and

merely asserted the "fall out" argument to support the Air Force's exclusive claim; it also ignored the value of the Army's Redstone experience.

The Army was the only service, in fact, with actual experience in launching ballistic missiles. "Under any circumstances, therefore, it would

seem that the Redstone and Navy efforts must be combined, and I see

no reason why in such a combination that one of the objectives should

not be the development of a land-based IRBM, even though there was

a decision now that the Army would not use it operationally."64

Wilson's IRBM Decision

Wilson did not linger over his decision. Although the scheduled date

for NSC consideration of the IRBM problem was still three weeks off, on

8 November 1955 he issued a bundle of directives dealing with responsibility and organization within DoD for directing and coordinating

both ICBM and IRBM development. He proposed to recommend to the

NSC that the IRBM have the same priority as the ICBM, but without

interfering with it. Two IRBM development programs were established:

A land-based one (IRBM #1) under Air Force management, the other

(IRBM #2) to be conducted jointly by the Army and the Navy, each with

the same priority. The IRBM #2 would have the dual objective of

achieving an early ship-launched capability and a land-based alternative

to the Air Force IRBM. Redstone Arsenal would develop the basic missile

system for both IRBM #2 versions, with the Navy responsible for modifying the ship-launched weapon system. An OSD Ballistic Missiles
444 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Committee (OSD-BMC) chaired by the deputy secretary of defense would

act as the central DoD management reviewing agency for the ICBM and

IRBM, assisted by an elaborate committee structure. 65

Wilson thus followed McNeil's advice on the IRBM development

issue, although he had probably already made up his mind. The decision

could not have been easy, since it meant rejecting the expertise of the

JCS, formally registered by a top-heavy majority of its members, including Radford, whose views he seldom questioned, and even challenging

the well-known pessimism of the president regarding cooperative interservice ventures. Wilson left unresolved the question of which services

should use the IRBM. He probably agreed with McNeil's rejection of the

Army's claim-a view also shared by the president-but shrank from

announcing it at this particular juncture. 66

Wilson seemed to regard service responsibility for development and

for use of a weapon as separate issues. Also, he may have feared the demoralizing effect on the Army of a decision to deny it the right to deploy

and use its own strategic missiles. As it turned out, the Army did make an

all-out effort to develop the Jupiter, as its land-based IRBM was called, and

in tests during 1956, at least, Jupiter seemed to forge ahead of Thor, its

Air Force competitor. Wilson's decision left the Army still ostensibly a

contender for the ultimate prize, operational use of the "winning" IRBM.

How the Army might have reacted to an immediate decision putting the

prize forever beyond its reach was indicated a year later by Taylor's

bitter comment on Wilson's "fatal" delayed decision giving operational

control of Jupiter to the Air Force. The decision, he assumed, "amounted

to virtually killing the program, because this Army-built weapon has never

appealed to the Air Force." In fact, both IRBMs went into production late

in 1957 and both were subsequently deployed overseas}7

Wilson's 8 November actions all fell within the scope of his authority

but remained subject to review by the NSC and the president. Still, considering their critical strategic implications, it was unusual for Wilson to

take such actions on his own, against the advice of the JCS, without consulting the president. The latter, to be sure, was convalescing from his

24 September heart attack. On 1 December, with the president attending,

the missile programs came up for discussion before the NSC as scheduled.

The council approved DoD's report and actions taken, adding, at Eisenhower's direction, a requirement for monthly reports to him on both

missiles. The council's obvious, though unstated, conclusion was that

anything less than a "first" in the IRBM race would be a losing outcome

for the United States.68

On 21 December, in approving the NSC actions, Eisenhower made it

clear that his sense of urgency had not abated. He reassured Wilson of
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 445

his approval of the 8 November decisions but expressed qualms and

strong doubts about overcoming service rivalry. In approving equal

priority ratings for the ICBM and IRBM, he strengthened them by the

stipulation that any serious conflict between the two should be promptly

referred to the president. He also directed that the following language

be added to the approved actions of the 1 December meeting: "... the

political and psychological impact ... of an effective ballistic missile with

a range in the 1000·1700 mile range would be so great that early develop·

ment of such a missile would be of critical importance to the national

security interests of the United States."69

The Vulnerable Deterrent

"Today the Strategic Air Command," noted the Killian panel in its

February 1955 report, "represents essentially the entire U.S. nuclear striking force." Ultimately long-range ballistic missiles would take over part of

this mission, but meanwhile the threat of a surprise air attack on SAC's

bombers, concentrated on a few poorly defended bases at home and

abroad, was in a sense more deadly than that to the nation's cities and

population. With the SAC bases eliminated, the enemy could at his leisure

overwhelm city and area defenses and dictate terms. The panel estimated

that within two or three years the completion of the DEW line should

offer for all bases a minimum of two hours' warning of any sizable bomber

attack. Prompt reaction to warning was the next essential. With acquisi·

tion of more tankers, use of aerial refueling could eliminate dependence

on advanced bases for a retaliatory first strike. The panel also urged

careful consideration by the NSC of certain emergency measures to reduce

vulnerability, particularly providing SAC with enough additional bases to

permit it to launch its bombers within the warning interval. 70

The DoD response followed the pattern of those to other recom·

mendations: concur in principle, much is already being done, to do more

will cost more. The report noted that the Air Force already had sub·

stantial base dispersion under way, looking to 66 air bases by 1965 in

the United States; in 1956, however, SAC expected to have only 27. Not

only was base expansion extremely expensive, but it raised thorny ques·

tions of balance between the cost-effectiveness of this and other means

of preserving SAC's retaliatory capability-e.g., stronger local defenses,

warning systems, and alert measures-that might reduce the need for

more bases. Moreover, dispersion would lower efficiency, complicate coordination, and increase SAC's burdens in many ways.7l The JCS reported

that as of 30 June operational readiness of some of the retaliatory forces
446 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

had been improved by storing atomic bombs on the SAC bases; within

the coming year most of the bombs required for initial strikes would be

thus dispersed, and the remainder would be available at AEC storage

sites adjacent to the bases. In an emergency SAC planned to use more

than 200 additional airfields, military and civilian. 72

On 4 August the president asked that DoD representatives brief the

NSC at an early date on SAC's ground vulnerability.73 Dress-rehearsed

before the Armed Forces Policy Council in mid-October, the Air Force

briefing focused on the currently planned dispersal plan for a buildup

from 34 to 55 bases. The Killian panel's recommendations for emergency

measures were ignored, major topics were either skipped or skimmed,

and in general the briefing raised more questions than it answered. OSD

found it unsuitable for presentation to the NSC. 74 Secretary of the Air

Force Quarles, agreeing that more dispersion was imperative for SAC's

survival, nevertheless asked for approval to go ahead with the 55-base

program as "the one action we can take immediately without incurring completely unacceptable expenses." Robertson approved this proposal on 23 November, but at the same time directed the Air Force to

make a new and comprehensive analysis (with a 15 February deadline) of

the whole vulnerability problem. The NSC briefing, originally scheduled

for late 1955, was postponed to 1 June 1956.75

The more far-reaching study directed by Secretary Robertson on

23 November involved a calculated risk by delaying most concrete

actions. Only on completion of the Air Force study would it be possible

to develop a comprehensive plan of action. A new OSD study in January

1956 confirmed the findings of the Killian panel that through 1958 at

least SAC vulnerability was not likely to be significantly reduced by

measures now in effect or planned. By the time the DEW line was

completed and most of the gaps plugged in the continental radar net,

the Soviets were expected to have substantial numbers of Bison and

Bear bombers, whose anticipated speed and range would enable them

to reduce warning time to less than one hour for two-thirds of the SAC

bases in 1958. SAC bases, still few in 1958, would invite attack by a

small force with vastly increased chances of escaping detection. 76

The January OSD study sought to clarify the issues, most immediate

of which was the need to increase the warning interval by plugging gaps

in the continental radar net, including the contiguous offshore systems.

To meet this threat, the whole warning system (including most of Eurasia),

moreover, would require continuous upgrading to keep pace with

increases in bomber speeds. The warning interval could also be increased

by locating new SAC bases toward the center of the country and by
Surprise Attack and Nuclear Parity 447

placing aircraft in the interior. Dispersion together with hardening the

most vital base targets would force the enemy to employ a large attacking force, thus losing the advantage of a sneak attack. This would result

in increased warning time. Improved active defenses-e.g., interceptor

aircraft and missiles along the avenues of approach-would also serve

the same purpose. With the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles,

warning systems would require new technologies for detecting incoming

missiles and their launching as well. Defense systems would require new

weapons to intercept the missiles in flight, and vital immobile assets on

the ground would depend for survival on superhardened protection, concealment, or dispersion. Although lacking in precision, the first enemy

ICBMs would strike literally as a "bolt from the blue," and the abrupt

reduction of warning time would throw the main burden of defense on

traditional passive technologies rather than exotic new ones. 77

For the near term, the hope was that the various measures described

would assure a counterattack capability that would "increasingly deter the

enemy from launching general war." A really major program, by ensuring

strategic warning (through better intelligence), would either deter an

attack altogether or dissuade the enemy from committing large offensive

forces to a possibly very costly venture. Accordingly, the report concluded,

"the reduction of SAC's ground vulnerability will remain for several years

the most important single military step that can be taken to deter the

sudden outbreak of general war, i.e., a surprise air attack on the United

States." As a corollary, American awareness of this danger at such a time

might create a strong incentive to strike preemptively. The resulting

scenario could be grim. 78

How much the proposed corrective measures would cost, the report

did not even hint. Firm decisions on preferred measures would have to

await the Air Force cost-effectiveness study directed by OSD the preceding November. Even that could not show how far vulnerability needed

to be reduced-a top-level determination in the context of the overall

national and military situation. But the report left little doubt that the

cost of making SAC reasonably secure against attack, in time to meet the

fast growing threat of resurgent Soviet airpower, would be immense. Why

was the Air Force seemingly content, for the present, with a base dispersal program that would not be completed until 1962? Where was

the sense of urgency? The OSD study apparently found the explanation,

above all, in the fear of calling attention to huge new money requirements

just as the FY 1957 budget was being submitted to Congress. With the

postponement of the Air Force study to June, the burden of vulnerability reduction would fall on the FY 1958 and later budgets. 79
448 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Counting the Costs-For Now

OSD's report on funding Killian panel recommendations, submitted

early in December 1955, asserted that existing programs covered most of

the recommendations in some fashion, making implementation and

funding a matter of determining how much additional effort or change of

emphasis was involved. It listed the increased funds made available for

a number of important R&D projects. 80

By the end of 1955 the large bundle of developmental actions recommended by the Killian report which, in the main, the Defense Department

and the NSC had endorsed without argument, was under way at a cost

of more than $800 million in FY 1956 money.* OSD had a backlog of

unreviewed proposals and the services had more coming. In its funding

report, however, OSD cautiously stated its belief that urgent FY 1956

R&D requirements for additional money could be covered "within the

total funding flexibility available" (Le., Wilson's emergency fund). Therefore supplemental FY 1956 funding would not be required. Looking

farther down the road, OSD set up a similar fund for emergency R&D

projects in the FY 1957 budget. Ongoing Killian-related projects would

presumably be the principal recipients of this money. The department

contemplated no additional funding requests beyond those already

incorporated in the FY 1957 budget. Defense would report again on Killianrelated programs as part of its Annual Status Report on Major Security

Programs as of 30 June 1956. 8 !

* Not specific FY 1956 appropriations, but funds available for obligation in this fiscal year.
CHAPTER XX

Updating Basic Strategy: NSC 5602/1

Implementation of the Killian panel's recommendations represented

a primarily military response to perceived Soviet capabilities, spurred on

by further indications, starting with the Moscow flybys in May 1955, that

the Soviets had still greater capabilities of which the panel had been

unaware. Understandably, most of the recommendations met with a

favorable reception in the Pentagon, since without challenging established

priorities they offered prestigious leverage for increased military spending.

At the NSC level DoD generally called the tune on Killian recommendations. Rather different was the related task of revising basic national

security policy to respond to perceived changes in Soviet strategic intentions, to which the Planning Board had only just addressed itself at the

time the Killian report appeared. This endeavor went to the heart of

foreign policy and engaged the State Department as a principal participant. Ineluctably, it unfolded as a replay, against a markedly changed

international backdrop, of the hard-line vs. soft-line debate between

Defense and State played out in 1954 during the writing of NSC 5501.

Beware the Spirit ofGeneva!

As finally approved in January 1955, NSC 5501 did not win high

marks in the Pentagon. Possibly its only important defender there was

Wilson, who after initially endorsing the strong resistance of the service

secretaries, ISA, and the Joint Chiefs, in the end, nudged by the president,

had reversed himself and in the NSC joined its chief sponsor, Secretary

Dulles, in applauding the final paper. Pentagon critics considered NSC

5501 a cravenly soft-line document which, out of fear that a confrontational

449
450 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

stance toward the Communist powers might lead to defection of allies and

even nuclear war, prescribed a basic policy of deterrence without resort to

force except out of dire necessity, with increased reliance on conciliation

and non-military means of resisting Communist "creeping expansion." The

Joint Chiefs faulted it for failing to "stress the urgent need" of bringing

about, while the United States still enjoyed a marked nuclear superiority,

a state of affairs under which, as NSC 162/2 had warned in 1953, "the

United States and the free world coalition [would be] prepared to meet

the Soviet-Communist threat with resolution and to negotiate for its alleviation under proper safeguards." Instead, they said, NSC 5501 laid down

a strategy of persuasion looking to "mutually acceptable settlements."

Given the basic hostility and recognized aims of the Communist regimes,

the chiefs declared, "it would be illusory to expect that any overtures on

the part of the United States, consistent with United States security interests, would be effective in ameliorating the danger now confronting us."!

Ironically, NSC 5501 became approved policy at precisely the time

that Communist China launched a fresh attack on the offshore islands held

by the Nationalists. The ensuing crisis, through the winter and into the

spring of 1955, brought the United States perhaps closer to war than at

any time since the armistice in Korea. By the end of March Admiral Carney,

to Eisenhower's dismay and anger, was predicting (in a remark promptly

leaked to the press) a full-scale Communist assault on Quemoy in midApril. When that date arrived, however, the crisis was already subsiding;

on the 24th it came to an abrupt end when Premier Chou En-Iai announced at the Bandung Conference that his government wanted no

war with the United States and was prepared to negotiate the Formosa

question. The following August negotiations began at Geneva. 2

Meanwhile, since the death of Stalin in March 1953, there had been

some abatement of the propaganda war. At the beginning of 1955 Soviet

Premier Malenkov made a public statement, Widely reported even in the

Soviet press, that the two superpowers should mutually recognize the

necessity of peaceful coexistence and respect for "each other's legitimate

interests." His government, he said, was ready to settle existing differences,

assuming a like readiness on the part of the United States. The months

that followed brought a significant thaw in the superpower cold war,

largely as a result of conciliatory Soviet responses to Western initiativesnotably conclusion of an Austrian State Treaty by the Big Four in May

guaranteeing that country's neutrality and ending the allied military occupation, a step resisted by the Soviets for nine years. That same month, in

the ongoing disarmament talks in London, the Soviets submitted a comprehensive arms control plan that included for the first time provisions

for reductions in conventional forces and for limited inspection, a major
NSC 5602/1 451

concession to earlier Western proposals. In June Malenkov's successor,

Nikolai A. Bulganin, and the new Communist Party First Secretary, Nikita S.

Khrushchev, visited Belgrade to mend the seven-year breach with Marshal

Tito by acknowledging Soviet responsibility for it. Other Soviet initiatives included the return of the Porkkala base to Finland, Port Arthur to

China, and some lend-lease freighters to the United States. Moscow also

announced a 640,000-man reduction in the Soviet armed forces. 3

The year's most spectacular event, the Four-Power Geneva Summit

Conference in July, represented in some measure a response to widespread

public demand in Europe for a negotiated settlement of outstanding issues

to reduce tensions. The Western powers' agreement late in 1954 to include

a sovereign rearmed West Germany in an expanded Western European

Union and in NATO caused Moscow to create the Warsaw Pact, bringing

together the European satellites in a military alliance with the Soviet

Union and East Germany, also recognized as sovereign. The Western

powers' strong actions surprised and shocked the new Soviet leaders.

They perceived the need for a revision of objectives and a more active

diplomacy aimed at blocking or delaying German rearmament. The Austrian treaty gave a clear signal of Soviet readiness to negotiate outstanding

differences, since Eisenhower had conceded in November that such an

action would be regarded as evidence of Russian good faith. Accordingly

the three Western powers formally proposed to Moscow on 10 May a

heads-of-government meeting for an initial exchange of views, to be followed by detailed negotiations at the foreign ministerial and lower levels. 4

Eisenhower's "open skies" proposal for a system of mutual aerial inspection provided the most dramatic moment at the Geneva Conference,

which took place between 18 and 25 July 1955. Although the proposal was

warmly applauded by the president's Western colleagues and trumpeted

around the world (beginning with an unscheduled clap of thunder just as

he finished speaking), the Soviet representatives, caught off guard, were

not pleased. Bulganin conceded that the proposal might have merit and

promised that it would be sympathetically studied. But Khrushchev, the

real power in the Soviet troika (Marshal Zhukov was the third member),

bluntly told Eisenhower that he did not agree, and, according to Ambassador Bohlen, who was translating, branded the proposal as a transparent

espionage device. Nor did progress transpire toward an understanding on

the German question or other outstanding issues. Overall, the conference

fell far short of Eisenhower's goal "to change the spirit that has characterized the intergovernmental relationships of the world during the

past ten years." Yet the "Open Skies" vision had a profound propaganda

impact both at home and abroad, giving substance to a "spirit of Geneva"

that did not soon dissipate. 5
452 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Even if Eisenhower had no illusions as to the likelihood that Russian

leaders would go along with the plan, he may have hoped that they would

be prodded by a mobilized world opinion into modifying their behavior in

many desirable ways short of that goal. Indeed, even before the conference

ended, there emerged signs that something like this was already happening:

Bulganin offered to contribute to an Atoms for Peace pool and proposed

withdrawal of all foreign troops from Europe. Everyone agreed that a total

nuclear war would be suicidal for both sides. And there was agreement on

the usefulness of future cultural exchanges. 6

To DoD hard-liners-the JCS, ISA's Policy Planning Staff, the service

secretaries and their planning staffs-the developing thaw in U.S.-Soviet

relations during the spring and summer was cause for deep foreboding. 7

The Air Staff, representing the most aggressively pessimistic view, perceived the primary motivation of Soviet policy in the following terms:

"The USSR has decided to buy time by disingenuous diplomatic maneuvers while it consolidates its internal position and engages in a major

armament effort, with the possibility of exploiting its nuclear capability at

a later date."s By contrast, intelligence estimates on the eve of the Geneva

conference, while finding no evidence as yet that Soviet expansionist aims

or the doctrine of ineradicable hostility between the "two world camps"

had been abandoned, showed cautious optimism: "Recent Soviet moves

represent a change from the sterile negativism of Soviet policy in recent

years, and they open up the possibility that the USSR is ready to see the

stalemate on certain issues broken." For both internal and external reasons the Soviets "almost certainly" were looking for a reduction in tensions. 9

In the few weeks preceding the summit conference, Defense planners

lobbied hard to keep the CIA's relatively optimistic assessment of Soviet

motives out of the guidance paper the Planning Board was preparing to

submit to the NSC. It was an uphill battle. The conference was to be a State

Department show with no formal DoD representation (an ISA observer

would be allowed to attend). On the Planning Board the State member

mostly called the tune. State's position, confident and temperate but not

notably "soft-line," was persuasively argued. By comparison, DoD criticisms

tended to come across as narrow and shrill. Accepting the current intelligence assessment that the USSR remained "basically hostile" toward the

United States and the non-Communist world, State nevertheless saw

recent Soviet moves as less rigid than earlier and its agreement to a summit without China as "evidence of greater realism and possibly of a serious

intention to negotiate." The Paris Accords, by paving the way for German

rearmament, had made it likely that Western Europe would become more

secure against attack, giving the Western powers much greater leverage in

the cold war and future negotiations with the USSR. It could be expected
NSC 5602/1 453

that the Soviets would seek to prevent German rearmament within

NATO. In State's view, these developments dictated no change in the basic

national strategy laid out in NSC 5501, especially willingness to negotiate. To disgruntled DoD critics, this give-and-take approach seemed

precisely "the kind of policy which the Soviets would like to write into

this paper for US."10

The Joint Chiefs in their comments did not quibble much over

nuances. Evidently someone had discovered that NSC 5501, once regarded

as soft on the Communist threat, and also a recent National Intelligence

Estimate, actually contained some sonorous hard-line rhetoric. The chiefs

now proposed to lard the current Planning Board draft with long passages from those documents conspicuously spotted at prominent points.

Their paper, with Deputy Secretary Anderson's endorsement, reached the

NSC on 7 July at the same time as the final version of the Planning Board's

proposed guidance (NSC 5524), and the two were considered together.

Given the unimpeachable authority of the sources of the insertions, Secretary Dulles and his supporters on the council evidently found it difficult

to raise serious objections to the changed tone of the document. Of course,

it was redundant and presumptuous to instruct Dulles and his aides not

to "trust" the Russians or be taken in by their negotiating tactics or to

forget their basically hostile aims. The council approved almost all of

the chiefs' proposed changes, but added a statement that since Stalin's

death the power struggle within Soviet ruling circles had created a "confused situation" that, in foreign policy, tended to "produce compromises

rather than clear direction." The amended paper (NSC 5524/1) received

approval "as supplementing but not superseding existing policy."ll

The DoD hard-liners had made their point and could count this a

small victory. But the "spirit of Geneva" remained alive and well and would

not be put down. Early insider reports from Geneva as the summit conference drew to a close portrayed the Soviets as wary, excessively polite, and

offering no concessions-but clearly unwarlike. "One good result of the

conference," noted the president's special assistant for national security

affairs, Dillon Anderson, "is that the Soviets realize that we are not war

mongers. This idea was definitely sold by the President." 12

Nothing had been settled at the summit, but the adversaries had taken

one another's measure, traded ideas, and cranked up the engine of diplomacy with scheduled meetings and agreed agendas. Until one side or the

other brought it to a halt the machine would move ahead under its own

momentum. A few days after the conference ended, Wilson directed the

Joint Chiefs to prepare, by mid-September, a preliminary outline of actions

needed to implement the president's aerial inspection scheme, just in

case the Soviets wanted more details or accepted the plan conditionally. 13
454 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Revision ofNSC 5501 Gets Under Way

Distracted by the attention given the Killian proposals and preparations for the Geneva summit and subsequent four-power negotiations,

the Planning Board worked by fits and starts during the summer on the

revision of NSC 5501. A draft study program launched in May 1955 produced its first coherent scheme by early July. This 8 July Planning Board

paper had a strong hard-line flavor, not even mentioning the current trend

of events toward reduction of tensions. Its origins could be traced to a

DoD draft, but by 15 August the board agreed that the crux of the whole

review rested on the validity of NSC 5501's estimate of the situation. 14

Theoretically, the review of the policy sections of NSC 5501 should have

awaited a judgment as to the validity of the estimate of the situation on

which the paper rested. As a practical matter, each planner formed his

own estimate of the situation and reached conclusions early on as to the

kind of revision NSC 5501 needed. Thus both review and revision of the

old estimate of basic security policy had to march together for lack of

time to march in sequence. 15

Defense planners became increasingly unhappy as the "spirit of

Geneva" persisted in the weeks following the conference. Army Secretary Brucker thought the intensified Soviet peace offensive was "an

ominous portent" and should be so characterized in the revised NSC 5501.

In ISA, Vice Adm. A. C. Davis predicted that the situation of mutual deterrence and nuclear plenty, which seemed to be impending, would require

the United States to devote increasing resources to counter local

aggression, subversion, and paramilitary operations. Navy Secretary

Thomas gloomily pointed out that the American people were evidently

just as susceptible as the publics in allied countries to the new Soviet

"soft line." Especially worried about the possible effects of the president's dramatic overture at Geneva, he saw the new Soviet tactics as

accelerating the growth of neutralism and the erosion of popular support

for NATO in Europe, already threatened by the spectacle of a massive

American continental defense buildup perceived as a harbinger of a

resurrected "fortress America" strategy.16

Remarkably, there emerged a near consensus in the Pentagon that

NSC 5501 remained, as Thomas put it, a "fundamentally sound and

far-sighted statement of basic national security policy," requiring no

major changes. Magically, the lamentations that had greeted the promulgation of that document had faded away. Thus far no one seemed to

believe that the Soviets had significantly altered their policies and aims

as set forth in NSC 5501's estimate of the situation: dissolution of NATO,
NSC 5602/1 455

prevention of German rearmament, forced withdrawal of American and

British forces from the continent, "tomorrow the world."17

Beyond this consensus, most of the DoD responses exploited the

opportunity to promote service or agency interests. The Army, for example,

with some help from the Navy, pressed its case for more emphasis on capabilities for limited war and low-level conflict. Secretary Brucker held that

a national strategy "must provide for the rapid expansion of military

strength capable of fighting either an atomic or non-atomic [general] war."

Ready conventional forces in being were needed both to deter and defeat

local aggression and to perform initial tasks in a general war, especially

in a situation of nuclear standoff. 18

Not for the first time, Assistant Secretary McNeil dissented from mainstream thinking on basic security policy. He criticized NSC 5501 chiefly for

its inadequate treatment of arms control and disarmament. "Events in this

area during the last nine months," he wrote, "have moved far beyond the

range of policy guidance furnished in that document .... President Eisenhower, at the Geneva meeting of the Big Four, introduced an entirely

new concept into the disarmament discussions [with] his plan for mutual

aerial surveillance .... The President has stated that it is but the first

essential step towards eventual arms reduction or disarmament. Our

basic national security policy must now ... reflect not only this essential

first step but also the nature of the succeeding steps and the conditions

under which the U.S. would undertake them."19

The possibility of Soviet acceptance of the "Open Skies" plan raised

profound questions for U.S. security policy, McNeil went on. Would

aerial surveillance in peacetime warrant any reduction or change in U.S.

military forces-say, in the number of SAC reconnaissance wings? Major

reductions might be made in the whole force structure other than continental air defense and retaliatory elements. Beyond the president's plan

lay the broader question of U.S. policy on limitation or reduction of armaments, almost ignored in NSC 5501. McNeil also raised the question of

U.S. policy toward neutrals in the developing world. NSC 5501 seemed to

take the position that U.S. security required de facto alignment, political

and military, of all non-Communist nations not formally allied with the

United States, although a growing number of them clearly resisted alignment with either superpower. Genuinely neutral free nations might prove

to be more of an asset to the United States in the long run than nations

whose compliance with American wishes had to be bought. 20

The State Department submitted that NSC 5501 reflected the international climate at the start of 1955-the beginnings of flexibility in Soviet

policy and a shift from imminent aggression to long-term competition.21
456 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The Soviet Union now seemed to recognize that general war would not

advance its national interests, and its diplomacy might seek to place more

emphasis on "'amiability' and lure than on threat." The Soviets indicated

interest in negotiating on some major issues (e.g., disarmament) but a

hardening on others (e.g., Germany). It was unclear whether the Soviets

viewed detente as a "durable modus vivendi or a short-term modus

operandi." In the West the leading powers seemed to consider Soviet

aggression as unlikely and to dread general war more than ever. As a

result, the drift toward neutralism and disengagement had accelerated

and aversion to military expenditures had deepened. In the years ahead

the Soviet Union would seek "to impair will and capability to resist in the

free world," without reducing its own "offensive capabilities, expansionist

ambitions, and the internal strait-jacketing of its people." Its strategy would

probably seek to "disrupt alliances; promote neutralism; lower political

and military vigor; reduce U.S. influence; and isolate the U.S. from its

allies and from the uncommitted states." The U.S. strategy, essentially defensive, should be to resist Soviet disruptive efforts in the free world,

while seeking to influence the Soviets "to modify their conduct and ...

induce them to reduce their military capabilities."

State proposed certain additions to NSC 5501. An improved military

capability to respond "flexibly and selectively" to Communist moves in

"vulnerable local situations" could discourage Communist opportunism at

this level. Measures to enhance unity and staying power in U.S. alliances

should also receive more emphasis. It behooved the United States, therefore, to support "healthy" nationalist governments to achieve stability. To

open up the Communist world, East-West contacts should be expanded,

making it more difficult for the Soviets to back off from their current

flirtation with detente. Defense planners could hardly object to some

of these proposals; indeed, the encouragement of nationalism might have

come right out of their own book. But they found disturbing State's desire

to press vigorously for mutual reductions in military establishments, as

when State argued that "agreement on effective disarmament is the only

promising approach in affecting the growth of a Soviet capability to

imperil the continental U.S."

Estimate ofthe Situation: Old Wine in a New Bottle

On 1 November, publication of a new overall intelligence estimate

somewhat narrowed the scope of the State-Defense debate, giving the

Planning Board a green light to update the old estimate of the situation.
NSC 5602/1 457

This update had the potential to influence significantly the board's revision of NSC 5501. Most insiders did not expect to be surprised by the

new estimate-nor were they. For the most part it set forth in precise,

guarded terms what was already known or suspected: Soviet air-nuclear

power was steadily growing, as was Communist China's conventional

military strength; there was no sign of significant friction between the

two governments, of any abatement of their basic hostility to the West, or

of renunciation of the goal of world domination. During the 1960-65

period the Soviets would probably "acquire militarily significant quantities of intercontinental ballistic missiles."22

One of the more contentious issues in the drafting of the revision

involved the interpretation of recent Soviet "soft" tactics. DoD saw these

tactics as "in no way" inconsistent with long-term Soviet objectives

inimical to the West; State thought they were "not necessarily" so. Both

sides agreed that to reduce the risk of surprise attack and all-out nuclear

war the Soviets probably favored some sort of arms limitation agreement

without unrestricted inspection. But Defense wanted to make a further

point of continued Soviet promotion of a ban on nuclear weapons, which,

in the absence of unrestricted inspection, would allow the Soviets surreptitiously to build up their own nuclear stockpile. State objected that

intelligence did not support this supposition, arguing further that the

Soviet support of a nuclear weapons ban might be genuine since, if

effected, it would eliminate the West's only offset to Soviet superiority in

conventional armaments. DoD critics found State's position on this split

especially galling because it came verbatim from the current intelligence

estimate, which State's representatives themselves repeatedly cited as

authoritative. Defense planners found equally upsetting State's evident

belief that a reduction of tensions remained, even after Geneva, a Soviet

goal that could be exploited to the West's benefit. In the draft revision

State argued, for example, that a prolonged reduction of tensions "might

also eventually tend to alter the nature of Communist control over the

satellites," presenting problems for the Soviet bloc as well as the West,

language that the Defense representatives found too optimistic. 23

The Debate Polarizes

By the afternoon of 8 November 1955, the "spirit of Geneva" seemed

to be evaporating. Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, who earlier had left

the foreign ministers conference in Geneva to confer with his superiors

in Moscow, returned to deliver what Dulles called "one of the most
458 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

cynical and uncompromising speeches" he had ever heard. It involved,

he cabled the president, "a sweeping rejection of all Western proposals

for European security and German reunification .... There was not in all

of his speech a single phrase which was conciliatory or which gave even

lip service to your agreement at 'summit.'" Dulles believed that the Soviet

position had been taken quite deliberately, "with full recognition" that it

would lead to "a sharp increase of tension and resumption of cold-war

struggle." By breaching the summit directive the Soviets had created a

"condition where no confidence can be placed on agreements with Soviet

Government." Further discussion of other outstanding questions including disarmament would, he feared, "have little substance."24

The "spirit of Geneva" did not totally dissipate. Talks went on, including the United Nations disarmament discussions in London. East-West

contacts at various levels increased: exchanges of trade exhibitions,

among scientists and artists, and reciprocal visits by high officials, including Khrushchev's famous tour of the United States in 1959. For DoD

planners, however, the "spirit" had never seemed other than a naive fantasy

that undermined realistic planning and policymaking. They greeted the 8th

of November with some relief as signifying a failure of the State Department efforts to relax tension. 25

State planners did not share the view of their DoD colleagues that

after the Soviet rebuff at Geneva in November the only prudent course

was to circle the wagons and break out the ammunition. 26 Well before

the foreign ministers conference, they had begun downplaying the "spirit

of Geneva." State's pre-Geneva Conference position had accepted as

probable that the Soviets had stiffened against significant concessions on

most major issues (e.g., the German question) but still wanted some

respite from tensions and, more particularly, had not yet rejected compromise on arms control. The president's "Open Skies" plan and Molotov's

10 May disarmament proposal involving mutual ground inspection of

arms were both still on the table.

State regarded as simplistic the Defense conviction that the Soviet

leopard had changed neither its spots nor, to any significant degree, its

ways. The change in tactics, insisted the State member, was clear for all to

see; the question was, how deep did it go? Of the two kinds of change

envisaged-basic internal and tactical-State saw the former as inevitable

and unpredictable. In turn, it would influence Soviet external conducttactical change-that could also be affected by changes in the external

environment. "Open Skies" did seem to have been especially effective in

creating at least a temporary paralysis of decision in the Kremlin. State

planners hoped that the German question might yet offer opportunities
NSC 5602/1 459

for exploitation. Conversely, failure to develop direct diplomatic relations

with Peiping or to support Yugoslavia's bid for a seat in the UN Security Council had foreclosed other opportunities.

DoD Planning Board representatives took vigorous exception to this

approach, seeing it as a corollary of State's tension-reducing strategy, for

which they had developed a strong antipathy. They preferred pressure

through challenge and confrontation, aimed at keeping the Soviet leadership off balance and on the defensive at a time when, aware of the huge

American superiority in nuclear capabilities, the Soviets had to be more

than normally fearful of going to the brink. 'DoD planners argued that

the recent Soviet bloc (Czech) arms deal with Egypt should have been

promptly challenged as a provocative move likely to invite retaliation.

Soviet leaders might disagree on many questions, but they were more

likely than not to agree on a strategy of challenging the West, especially

when, as in the recent instance, the policy seemed to be succeeding. State,

by contrast, interpreted the Soviet rapprochement with Egypt as a defensive

move responding to what they saw as an effort to organize a West-oriented

bloc [the Northern Tier] on their flank.* Defense advanced its own interpretation of State's "Open Skies" success story: Maybe the appearance of

indecision in the Kremlin meant that the Soviets had not yet fully probed

all of the proposal's implications; maybe they were just "stalling for time."

State viewed the whole pressure strategy as dangerously provocative and

likely to be counterproductive in that it would tend to make the Soviet

leadership suppress their differences. and close ranks.

From the "possibility of change" issue flowed most of the differences

over the strategy and tactics of dealing with the Communists. DoD's

position required approaching all transactions with the Communists as

worst-case expectations of Communist motives, thus limiting prospects of

a profitable outcome to those unlikely occasions on which the Communists lacked bargaining power and were willing to concede what the

United States wanted without a quid pro quo. This left very little room

for classic "give-and-take" negotiations in which both sides would hope

to derive a net benefit by trading demands and concessions. In principle

Defense accepted the possibility of negotiating with the Communists, but

only with qualifications that drained the concession of practical value.

State and DoD positions on basic security policy had thus polarized

well before the foreign ministers conference, lending the debate something

of the tone of the one that Sovietologists perceived in Moscow between

pragmatic nationalists and hard-shell Communists. The abrupt Soviet backoff at Geneva in November accentuated the polarization. State, for all

* See below, p. 462.
460 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Dulles's indignant immediate reaction, found nothing in the Soviet action

that had not been anticipated as a real possibility and therefore no reason

to modify its position. DoD hard-liners felt triumphantly vindicated and

intensified their resistance to State's persisting "soft" line. 27

The Planning Board's draft revision of NSC 5501, transmitted on

13 February 1956 as NSC 5602, reflected the mood of crisis. Most alarming was the prediction that during 1958 the USSR would "almost certainly

develop and maintain" the net capability to strike a crippling blow at

the United States. NSC 5501 had predicted this eventuality only "over

approximately the next five years." Similarly, the prediction of a Soviet

operational intercontinental ballistic missile was now advanced from 1963

to 1960-61, and aI,500-mile ballistic missile with a high-yield warhead was

expected by 1959, a date that the United States might, under its current

accelerated schedule, be able to match. Both NSC documents reminded

readers that there existed, as yet, no known defense against ballistic missiles. The highly publicized Soviet reductions in force levels were "likely

to be offset by improved combat effectiveness of remaining forces, and

Soviet ability to mobilize massive forces rapidly ... [would] be unimpaired." Their submarine construction program had accelerated; their

strategic and tactical doctrine now stressed the advantage of surprise;

and their nuclear and chemical weapons were being integrated in conventional force operations. By 1958 both powers would likely have

operational surface-to-air missiles with nuclear warheads; the United

States would also have nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles, but the Soviets

might succeed in matching this capability. 28

NSC 5501 a year earlier had noted the "approaching" possibility of

total war, which would, if it occurred, "bring about such extensive destruction as to threaten the survival of both Western civilization and the

Soviet system." But the board had then appraised this possibility as highly

unlikely in view of mutual inhibitions against deliberately initiating such

a catastrophe. War would remain a possibility only as a result of miscalculation by either side or a major Soviet technological breakthrough.

In NSC 5602 the board restated this optimistic appraisal almost verbatim,

adding only a warning that "in an era of rapid technological change, it is

always possible that a condition of nuclear stalemate will prove transitory; much will depend upon which side can acquire or maintain technological superiority."29

Similarly challenging, Soviet science and technology had attained in

recent years a level of excellence that posed a dangerous threat to Western

superiority. Some Communist weapons, now becoming operational,

appeared to match the best U.S. counterparts. The Soviets had developed
NSC 5602/1 461

rapid and efficient procedures for translating research into serial production. Soviet output of scientists and engineers already equaled or

surpassed that of the United States; more ominous, the Soviets were producing more teachers and were providing superior primary and secondary

school instruction. In absolute numbers of scientists and engineers the

Soviets were rapidly overtaking the United States and were efficiently

concentrating them on military applications.

The Soviet shift in cold war policies in 1955, the revised draft noted,

from emphasis on violence and the threat of violence to reliance on divisive tactics, enticement, and duplicity opened many opportunities for

enhancing Soviet and undermining U.S. influence throughout the world.

Growing industrialization and advancing technology enabled the Soviet

Union to foster profitable aid-and-trade relations with underdeveloped

Third World countries, exploiting their raw materials and cheap labor.

Participation in the Geneva summit bought the Soviets prestige, acceptance, and some alleviation of the stigma of atheistic barbarism, helping

promote the Communist "peace offensive." In the NATO area, the Soviet

tactics weakened confidence in the United States, nourished "popular

front" movements, fostered neutralism and fears of nuclear war, and

increased pressures for withdrawal of American forces. In the Middle and

Far East they exploited nationalist and anticolonialist feeling and discredited U.S. efforts to build defensive alliances. The NSC believed that

the present structure of U.S. alliances, while in no danger of imminent

collapse, might become less cohesive as a result of these developments. 30

The LocalAggression/Subversion Threat

Early in November, a State-Defense-JCS-CIA working group completed the first of the feeder studies that the Planning Board had assigned

in September 1955. It addressed Communist local aggression and subversionY Many DoD planners, and NSC 5501 itself, considered this the

principal emerging threat in the immediate future. When the problem

had received examination late in 1954, State did not altogether share this

view, while the Air Force and the Navy gave it only lukewarm support;

its chief advocate, the Army, stood to gain increased funds and forces

from its adoption.

Within the working group, the DoD members had to face up to the

embarrassing fact that current intelligence did not fully support their initial premise, even though enshrined in NSC 5501, that the threat of Communist local aggression and subversion was imminent, formidable, and
462 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

growing. In September the State and CIA members underlined the point

in a summary of current intelligence findings and in the section of the

draft report reviewing the area-by-area situation and outlook. Communist

local aggression, stated William P. Bundy, the CIA member, was a serious

and pressing threat in South Vietnam and Laos, which were menaced by

the victorious Viet Minh in North Vietnam-but almost nowhere else. Elsewhere in East Asia, the looming military presence of Communist China

kept all countries in the region psychologically, though in varying measure, "under the gun." But the intelligence community held the general view

that Communist local aggression anywhere, worldwide, was unlikely for

the next few years because Communist leaders were believed to fear that

any armed attack across recognized state frontiers would provoke reactions

that might lead to general war, which they wanted at all costs to avoid. 32

In the Middle East, the only other area where the threat of Communist

local aggression was considered a significant factor, Bundy noted that it

was not "overhanging" as in Southeast Asia, partly owing to the current

Soviet pursuit of coexistence, partly to the fact that nowhere in the area,

since World War II, had communism gained a foothold-this a result of

earlier resolute U.S.-backed counteraction in Iran in 1946 (Azerbaijan

province) and 1953. Through the pro-Western "Northern Tier" (Turkey,

Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan) and of course through its own forces in or near

the area, the United States, Bundy wrote, now had the ingredients of a

persuasive shield. 33 French North Africa (Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria), beyond

the physical reach of the Soviets, was a special case, racked by nationalist agitation, terrorism, and uprisings seeking independence from France.

Tunisia had been granted internal autonomy and negotiations were under

way toward complete sovereignty; here the situation was relatively tranquil. But in Morocco and Algeria the rising tide of terrorism and rural

guerrilla warfare already engaged the bulk of France's armed forces,

and the outlook for peace was dim. Communist agents were assumed to

be involved and Bundy saw no basis for optimism. Trying to avoid the

stigma of supporting colonialism without losing its waning influence

over the French, the United States urged moderate reform in a situation

long since polarized. 34

DoD planners derived no reassurance from the rather calm tone of

this intelligence picture, and their objections evidently proved forceful

enough to bring about a complete rewriting of the working group's final

version submitted in November 1955. 35 The rewrite analyzed only the

two most critical areas-Southeast Asia and the Middle East. It clearly reflected, in the former case, an effort to meet the criticism of over-optimism.

The intelligence estimate's "reprieve" of South Vietnam and Laos from

imminent aggression, it pointed out, extended only to mid-1956; thereafter
NSC 5602/1 463

the situation in those countries would become increasingly perilous. The

Viet Minh, dedicated to the unification of Vietnam under the Communist banner, posed the real and present danger-but they, at least for

the present, were on their own, exhausted by eight years of war and

abandoned by Peiping in the great-power settlement at Geneva in 1954.

For Southeast Asia as a whole, the report estimated what it called the

"persuasive shield" against Communist aggression as "not wholly adequate"

and likely to become less so over time. All in all, this still did not add up

to an appraisal likely to trigger alarm bells. In opposition to this view

Defense planners saw every reason to conclude that compulsive Communist expansionism continued its relentless march, coordinated worldwide from the Kremlin. Unless this outward expansion of the Communist

world by "piecemeal absorption" of countries on or near its periphery

was checked, neutralism would intensify and "force further political and

economic accommodations to Communist objectives," thus eventually

isolating the United States. The immediate threat seemed most serious in

the emerging nations of Southeast Asia and later in the Middle East. 36

DoD planners believed it essential that the free world develop "a

credible will and obvious capability to defeat and punish overt local

aggression without necessarily bringing on general war." They advocated

creation of "an effective and persuasive deterrent" to local aggression in

the form of a composite American initial-action "show window" force,

deployed for qUick and effective response to prospective danger spots and

designed to operate with and in support of local indigenous forces, but in

a primary, not subordinate, role. Local ground forces would make up the

bulk of in-being forces in contemporary Asian countries. The force should

be atomic-capable, without being fully dependent on atomic weapons.

Effective deterrence required that it not be denied any applicable weapona point that allied governments should be willing to concede.

This emphasis on the deterrent function of the proposed system,

likening the deterrence of local aggression to the deterrence of general

war, bespoke its distinctive feature. The mere threat of a nuclear response

would ensure that it would not have to be invoked-provided, of course,

that would-be aggressors themselves believed that it would be invoked.

Communist rulers must be persuaded, in fact, that any resort to local

aggression would surely bring rapid and effective military counteractionby the United States unilaterally if necessary. Moreover, potential victims needed assurance that aggressors, if they persisted, would be punished

without attendant devastation of their victims, and that the latter need

not fear Communist reprisals if they acted vigorously to stamp out internal

Communist subversion and violence. As for cost, the modest resources

required for the proposed deterrent were as vital to national security, the
464 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

study insisted, as those for the general war deterrent. However, the costs

were modest. The intent was not to fight "brush fires" all over the world,

but to minimize the need for doing so by "the investment in a reasonable

insurance premium." Deployment of small initial-action forces would make

fully obvious a "military capability which in large part already exists,"

together with the will to use the capability if necessary. An effective

deterrent to local aggression would, in turn, greatly reduce the risk of

general war. 37

The section of the working group report on internal subversion

and insurrection, prepared by the group's State member and chairman,

Elbert G. Mathews, perceived the threat as distinct from armed aggression, since its tools consisted mainly of organized non-violent measuresi.e., persuasion, manipulation, and propaganda. It could occur far from

the centers of Communist power, for example in Guatemala and British

Guiana, where in a period of detente it could be difficult to combat. In striking contrast to the tone and concept of the Defense members' treatment

of the local aggression threat, Mathews developed the State Department

themes of compromise, negotiation, sensitivity to the needs and feelings

of foreign governments and peoples, avoidance of confrontation, and

adaptation to practical realities. The United States, Mathews cautioned,

must assess realistically what it could and could not do in attempting to

right the wrongs of the world. But in most situations the deterrence of subversion and insurrection was the primary responsibility of local governments, strengthened as needed by the United States.

Controlling Communist subversion and insurrection required strong

and able, not necessarily democratic, free world governments. It was not

essential that they enjoy large popular support; it was essential that they

seek, and be seen to seek, to satisfy popular national aspirations. Weak

and incompetent governments, because they were vulnerable to Communist penetration, posed a serious threat to the whole free world that the

United States could not afford to ignore, and to which it should not hesitate to apply the remedy of forceful removal-i.e., a coup-by "alternative

political forces which it can overtly and covertly assist, support and bring

to power."38

The report on local aggression, insurrection, and subversion thus

turned out to be three separate reports reflecting markedly dissimilar

views. The Defense thesis-essentially Army-developed and authored by

General Bonesteel*-appeared in the first section and dominated the whole.

* Bonesteel was the only one of the three authors who expounded a thesis, essentially

the doctrine of flexible response.
NSC 5602/1 465

The Navy seemed to have little interest in this issue and had no representative on the working group. Neither did the Air Force, but it was far from

uninterested. To the Air Force's leaders the Army's portrayal of Communist local aggression as a current and future threat to U.S. security on

a par with all-out war seemed a flank attack on the primacy of nuclear

airpower, aimed at raising ground forces to equal status with strategic air

and, of course, at bringing about a revolution in funding among the three

services. Col. Robert Db\;.on, Air Force spokesman on NSC matters, argued

that the only way to prepare simultaneously for general and local wars

was to rely on the "most effective military weapons available" for both;

to develop and maintain a long-term dual capability was a budgetary

impossibility. He voiced uncompromising hostility to the whole notion

of a separate "show window" force deployed primarily to deter local

aggression. Let the unified commanders designate suitable elements for

use against local aggression. Most of the "suitable" forces Dixon had in

mind were, of course, nuclear armed tactical aviation. 39

In formulating the overall DoD position on this issue, the Army appeared, in the main, to have come out on top, prevailing over the Air

Force view that the problem should be left to overseas commanders,

using tactical nuclear aviation as needed. The most persuasive deterrent to

Communist local aggression would be ready U.S. forces SUitably equipped

and deployed to act promptly when and where needed. State did not have

a primary interest in the issue, but the board's final revision of NSC 5501's

"ready forces" paragraph showed the scars of a bruising intramural battle

over the Army's concept of a "show window initial action" force designed

mainly for this mission. The revised paragraph stipulated that ready forces

must be included in the total establishment, suitably deployed to deal

with local threats, accepting "some degree of maldeployment" for general

war. Anti-aggression forces must indeed, the board stated (echoing the

working group report), "be sufficiently versatile to use both conventional

and nuclear weapons" and have a "flexible and selective" capability for

such use, since the United States would not deny itself the use of nuclear

weapons. But (rejecting the Air Force view) "such forces must not become

so dependent on tactical nuclear capabilities that any decision to intervene against local aggression would probably be tantamount to a decision

to use nuclear weapons." When confronted by the choice of acquiescing

in Communist aggression or taking measures risking either general war

or loss of allied support, the United States would have to be prepared to

take those risks necessary for its security.40
466 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Defense Tries to Reshape NSC 5602

NSC 5602 met an unenthusiastic reception in Defense almost

matching the disfavor heaped on NSC 5501 a year earlier-but this time

around Wilson took the lead. On 23 February 1956, he presided over the

Armed Forces Policy Council meeting, in effect, as a "council of war" to

devise tactics to toughen the NSC 5602 draft. In his opinion, the paper

was "some small improvement in detail over NSC 5501," but so lacking

in specifics that it could be read to support almost any course of action.

It "might not do any harm, [but] it would not do much good either." He

reported to the NSC executive secretary the unanimous view of the AFPC

that the new paper "does not represent the incisive and clear statement

of the basic U.S. security policies which we believe is needed to meet the

challenge of new Soviet moves."

In the AFPC meeting Radford labeled NSC 5602 "a longer, not so

straightforward redraft of the basic policy paper written in 1953." He

wanted a "more realistic statement of national policy." Wilson agreed and

asked him, along with the chiefs and service secretaries, since he (Wilson)

would not be present, to repeat these views at the NSC meeting scheduled

for 27 February. He added his familiar bromide: a tough defense policy

would not necessarily require spending more money. Bonesteel, the DoD

member of the Planning Board, which had written the paper, expressed

his disappointment in the way 5602 had turned out. 41

Of the service secretaries, Navy Secretary Thomas expressed the

most contempt for NSC 5602. Except for its rather weak statement on use

of nuclear weapons, he saw it as only a "minor revision" of its predecessor

and unacceptable. The paper was defensive, obsessed with enemy strength

and the threat of a crippling attack on the continental United States. It

should rather show appreciation of the "tremendous advantages held by

us and our allies," military, economic, industrial, moral, and spiritual. 42

United in their dislike of the paper for its lack of specificity and clear

direction, the AFPC bickered over rival specific proposals, particularly

over whether, in dealing with local aggression, use of nuclear weapons

should be normalized (Air Force) or reserved only as a last resort (Army).

The council finally agreed to accept as a valid statement of its views the

comments that the Joint Chiefs were to submit to Wilson on the following day. In these, apart from a few substantive amendments, the chiefs had

stressed their principal worry over the "marked deterioration of the Free

World position in the past year, due mainly to a new and more flexible

approach on the part of the Communist Bloc (USSR)." They recommended

that, whatever action the NSC might take on NSC 5602, "a complete restudy of the Basic National Security Policy be made as a matter of
NSC 5602/1 467

urgency." Wilson promptly forwarded the JCS paper to the NSC with a

terse "I concur in these views," and added a reinforcing recommendation of his own for "a much shorter, positive and affirmative statement of

u.s. policy to meet the challenge of the new Soviet cold war offensive."43

On 27 February 1956 the NSC, with the president in the chair, opened

its review of NSC 5602 by accepting virtually the entire 12-page Annex

(Estimate of the Situation). The Joint Chiefs suggested only the addition of

a short sentence, elaborating on a point already made in the same paragraph: "general war might occur as the climax of a series of actions

and counteractions which neither side originally intended to lead to

general war." The new "estimate," then, was essentially its predecessor writ

large, an editorial updating of NSC 5501; it portrayed the cold war arena

in a moderate blend of pessimistic and optimistic colors. 44

The council soon bogged down in a prolonged discussion of a single

five-line paragraph, one of the few new ones in the paper, concerning the

integration of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons. The Joint Chiefs had

proposed to expand it as follows: "Nuclear weapons will be used in general war and will be used in military operations short of general war when

the effectiveness of the operations of the u.S. forces employed will be

enhanced thereby. For such operations, the decision as to specific uses

will be made by the President." Asked to elucidate, Radford explained that

he and his colleagues wanted to correct the Widespread impression that

nuclear weapons were useful only for offense. "It would make a tremendous difference defensively if our U.S. forces could not use nuclear weapons in order to defend themselves."45

The president intervened. Agreeing with Radford from a military

point of view, he called attention to the political fact that world opinion

adamantly opposed the use of nuclear weapons in small wars. But when

Dulles then suggested that the use of nuclear weapons in small wars, but

not in general war, should require advance presidential authorization,

the president backtracked, conceding that a military commander under

direct attack must be expected to use every weapon at hand if needed

to defend himself, and he broadened the point to apply to all available

weapons in any situation involving direct attack on u.S. forces. Secretary

Humphrey then insisted, as on numerous earlier occasions, that the

United States could not afford a different set of weapons for each type of

war. "We have got to use nuclear weapons in ... [any] future war." Apparently, Dulles retorted, "we must choose between having all the military

flexibility we wished and losing all our allies." He agreed with the president, however, that whenever U.S. forces were directly attacked, they

should use any weapons available to them. The president finally decided that the council should suspend action on the nuclear weapons
468 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

paragraph pending further study. Ironically, the final decision some three

weeks later, not discussed by the council, was to revert to the paragraph

as originally written by the Planning Board with the addition of a single

sentence: "Such authorization as may be given in advance will be determined by the president."46

The council made short work of the section dealing with the use of

chemical, bacteriological, and radiological weapons in general war, if

military effectiveness would be thereby enhanced. State wanted to insert

a provision for consulting allies if time permitted; Robertson proposed a

further addition, "and if an attack on U.S. forces is not involved." These

changes were later formally approved, after AEC Chairman Strauss reminded the council that radiological weapons did not yet exist. 47

One of the ]CS proposals adopted by the AFPC and submitted to the

NSC, but not included in NSC 5602, sought to delineate in general terms

the anticipated roles of the Army and Navy in the early stages of a general

war-Le., the Navy to clear the ocean lanes, the Army "to do its part in

meeting critical land situations." Evidently the president was waiting for

this one. The chief task of the ground forces in a general war he suspected would be to preserve order at home, and "God only knew what

the Navy would be doing in a nuclear attack." The matter in question

concerned the decisive role of nuclear airpower in deterring or winning

a general war, not how particular services should deploy their forces at

a particular stage of it. "A basic policy paper," he said, addressing Radford

directly, "is not a war plan."48

No one disputed the president's argument, and he· moved on to the

next point, concerning forces required to meet or deter local Communist aggression. In this context he questioned the validity of the distinction

between general and so-called "peripheral" war, inevitably opening again

the Pandora's box of nuclear weapons. In the future, he said, peripheral

wars must not be allowed to drag out, but must be fought "on the same

basis" as a general war. "Had we not made up our minds that if the Communists renewed their aggression against Korea we would go 'all-out' to meet

it?" Testing the assertion, Dulles asked him what he would do if the Viet

Minh attacked South Vietnam; would he drop atomic bombs on Peking?

Well, perhaps not, the president replied, but "we would certainly bomb

the bases in China which were supporting the aggression." Humphrey

called for a "unanimous decision on what kind of a war the United States

was going to be prepared to fight if it occurred." Harold Stassen voiced

a solitary dissenting note, warning of serious trouble "if the free world

came to believe that the United States was only capable of fighting with

nuclear weapons." Radford made his familiar prediction that the use of
NSC 5602/1 469

these weapons "would become accepted throughout the world just as

soon as people could lay their hands upon them." With the discussion

seemingly headed for the decision that Humphrey had called for, the

president effectively postponed further discussion by invoking the Planning Board's recommendation for a study and presentation of the local

aggression problem. 49 This postponement was, of course, a corollary of

the earlier one concerning integration and use of nuclear weapons. The

Joint Chiefs wanted unequivocal assurance that in any future emergency,

nuclear weapons could be used automatically if militarily desirableregardless of objections by allies, or State, or any other authority below

the president.

On 1 March the NSC continued its discussion of NSC 5602, taking up

the Planning Board's statement on the mobilization base that reflected a

split between the two major views of the kind of war the base would

have to support. A majority of the board wanted to provide for support

of both general war and operations short of general war. The Treasury

and BoB members wanted mobilization base preparations limited to support of general war. The Joint Chiefs generally agreed with the majority

position. Their proposed statement simply called for readiness for hostilities "ranging from local to general war" and asserted that the mobilization base should be "predicated on approved war plans." The brief

discussion had a fatalistic tone, typified by Radford's comment that little

could be done to diminish the total vulnerability of the whole mobilization base. But the practical question regarding the mobilization base

concerned whether allowance should be made for enemy bomb damage

and for provision of support for u.S. allies. Sooner or later, warned aDM's

Arthur Flemming, this problem would have to be dealt with. The president

made no comment. The Joint Chiefs' recommended language was adopted

in the final revision. 50

The circulation of. the amended NSC 5602 and its approval as NSC

5602/1 on 15 March left a mass of unfinished business in the form of

decisions to defer particular issues pending further study. It also left an

even larger residue of discontent, particularly in the JCS, which felt that

the new policy contained too many critical areas open to interpretation,

such as the division of effort and resources for dealing with major and

with lesser aggressions, or the use of nuclear weapons. In an eleventhhour effort apparently to modify the paper or delay its approval, the JCS

had written Wilson on 12 March reiterating the misgivings they had expressed two weeks earlier. Despite the general adequacy of the national

military strategy, they said, "the free world situation is gradually deteriorating," and unless the trend was arrested, the United States would, within

a few years, be "placed in great jeopardy." The leadership problems of
470 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the United States in the free world, they felt, were not military but

political, social and psychological, and centered mainly in the widespread fear abroad that, in a real crisis, the United States might not rise to

the occasion. They urged certain measures calculated to restore the free

world's confidence in American leadership: congressional authorization

for the president to take prompt action in a crisis, including use of troops,

and for expedited expenditure of funds for military and economic aid.

"Over-concern for the acquiescence of allies in major crises," the chiefs

also declared, had been, in its harmful effect on the national interest,

the most objectionable single feature of national security policy during

the past few years. 51

The chiefs' foot-in-the-door effort had no visible effect; it did not

receive any notice when the president approved the amended paper three

days later. Wilson clearly regarded the matter as settled and did not give

the chiefs even the satisfaction of a reply. On 12 April Navy Under Secretary Thomas Gates tried to reopen the issue. NSC 5602/1 was still

deficient, he wrote Wilson, cutting too many corners and, according to

his information, "not satisfactory to the Department of Defense." If so,

would it not be "worthwhile" for the ]CS to start work immediately to

prepare a "better document" for the 1957 revision of the BNSP? Gates's

overture, routed to the ]CS for comment, was effectively quashed in that

forum, which eVidently felt that both the president and Wilson were ready

to call it quits, as was indeed the case. 52 Yet, once again this experience demonstrated the enormous difficulties in arriving at a firm and

explicit statement of national security policy, especially at a time of rapid

and unsettling change in the global environment and subject to powerful

domestic political pressures. The outcome of the labyrinthine, almost

Byzantine, nature of the process as contending interests vied for position

was a juggling act that involved all of the major elements in policymaking-politics, money, strategy, technology, and perceptions of the international scene. This usually guaranteed, as with NSC 5602/1, that the end

product would be much less than the definitive guide to action that it

was intended to be. There was generally enough ambiguity, both calculated and unintentional, to permit interpretations of policy that best

suited the outlook and interests of the parties that helped shape the

document, from the president on down.

A ]CS historian has observed that despite the imperfections of NSC

5602/1, life went on. In the process of preparing strategic plans, for

example, many issues that NSC 5602/1 had left dangling were worked over

further and eventually decided at higher levels, providing a corpus of

"case law," so to speak, that supplemented the basic paper. 53
CHAPTER XXI

Preparing the Last New Look Budget

The unhappy experience of Budget Director Hughes with the late

1954 "add-ons" to the FY 1956 Defense budget was evidently still fresh

in his memory the following spring. On 13 May 1955, with the cabinet

scheduled to discuss the FY 1957 budget as its first order of business,

he came armed with a plan, apparently cleared with the president,

calculated to reduce the likelihood of this happening again.

Hughes's Abortive Budget Exercise

Hughes's review of the budgetary outlook, which opened the

meeting, revealed a tantalizing possibility that the FY 1957 budget

might finally produce a tiny (only $400 million) black-ink balance. To

be sure, the arithmetic behind this figure, to those who took the trouble

to examine it, must have seemed optimistic. It projected receipts of

$62.8 billion (as against $61.5 billion projected for FY 1956)-$3.3

billion more than in the fiscal year almost completed and about

$2.8 billion more than had been projected for FY 1956 in the budget

submitted the previous January. Estimated Defense expenditures

remained at the same rock-bottom figure as the FY 1957 $34 billion

spending "goal," inserted in that document at Hughes's behest and

now widely regarded as unattainable. Hughes's projected surplus

depended heavily on both steadily and rapidly rising revenues and

tightly constricted defense spending-a conjunction of circumstances

not likely to be realized.! Nevertheless, the president and Treasury

Secretary Humphrey both made a strong pitch for a balanced budget

in 1957, and Humphrey, noting the projected three-year (FY 1955-57)

471
472 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

leveling-off of expenditures "in the $62 billion area," urged a major

effort to bend the curve down in FY 1956 and FY 1957 to accommodate a tax cut in the latter year, which he believed the economy

needed. The president demurred on this point, stressing that budgetbalancing came before tax reduction, not vice versa. The action record

noted that after meeting the actual needs of national security and

"necessary and valid functions of government, ... a balanced administrative budget in FY 1957 is to take precedence over other desirable

objectives, including further tax reduction, until such objectives can

be achieved within the context of a balanced budget."2

The cabinet also approved Hughes's proposed change in budget

procedure. In recent years, he recalled, agencies' projected budgets

had tended increasingly to exceed the initial ceilings established by

the president in June or July. "Too many major issues have been

raised for decision in the fall when there is not adequate time to ...

make decisions . . . because of the pressures in meeting the deadline for

the transmission of the budget document to Congress in January."

Hughes proposed to raise and resolve issues earlier in the process, in

May and June. Agency heads would participate more actively in this

stage of the process as well as in the development of their own agencies' ceilings, and BoB would also get into the act, before ceilings were

fixed, "with a view to reaching agreement or identifying areas of difference." The president would thus be in a position to rule on unresolved

issues and take these rulings into account in making his ceiling determinations in June or July. Hughes proposed that agency heads submit to

him their preliminary estimates for FY 1957 by 31 May-Le., within

less than three weeks. 3

Underlying this scheme was the unspoken premise that budgetmaking was a negotiating process between those who dispensed money

and those who asked for it. Wielding theoretically despotic power, the

president could not, as a practical matter, arbitrarily impose budgetary

ceilings on the military services in take-it-or-Ieave-it fashion; he had to

consider Congress and the public, where the services had powerful

allies, as well as the morale of service leaders and personnel. Also, unexpected events could abruptly increase military needs. Realizing all

this, Hughes evidently hoped that by lengthening the negotiating

process and injecting his own agency into it early on, at least some of

the contentious issues could be resolved and more viable ceilings

arrived at. Still, the scheme's fundamental weakness could hardly be

disguised. Agencies competed among themselves for scarce dollars, and

although the administration might favor some over others, all wanted

more than the administration was willing to seek from Congress.
Preparing the Last New Look Budget 473

Hughes followed up his cabinet presentation of 13 May with a

similar one to the NSC on the 19th, to which the president added

the same points he had previously made. 4 Meanwhile, Hughes had sent

reminders to Wilson and other agency heads of the requirement

to submit preliminary budget estimates by 31 May, noting that he

wanted to talk with each of them after reviewing the estimates,

and before recommending ceilings to the president. 5 Despite the

imminence of the deadline, it took some time to crank up the

Pentagon's ponderous budget machinery for the task. Not until the

25th, with the deadline a week away, were service budget officers briefed and instructions sent out to the service secretaries

requesting data showing obligations and expenditures for fiscal

years 1955 through 1957 and new obligational authority for FY 1957.

Apparently the sudden demand for so much information on short

notice did not create the chaos that one might have expected, perhaps

because OSD told the staffs to use the policies, assumptions, and

force levels already approved for the FY 1956 budget; most of the data

may thus have been available off the shelf. Of this phenomenon,

McNeil's subordinate in charge of the operation commented on the 25th

that the services seemed to "have the capacity to provide the data by

the morning of 1 June 1955."6

The Army met the deadline, and when submissions for the Navy

and Air Force reached Wilson's desk a week later he forwarded all

three to BoB on 9 June without waiting to complete his own review.

It was clear from these "flash" estimates that the service chiefs had not

agonized unduly over the injunction to determine "maximum amounts

consistent with" the general budget policy, either for FY 1956 or

FY 1957. Estimated DoD expenditures for FY 1956 rose from the

FY 1955 total of $35.3 billion to $36.6 billion, and for FY 1957 to

$39.7 billion, leaving far behind Hughes's recent goal of $34 billion.

The two highest leapers, the Army and Air Force, projected FY 1957

spending of $1.6 billion and 1.5 billion greater, respectively, than

their FY 1955 levels. Even more dramatic, DoD's new obligational

authority estimates for FY 1957 initially shot up a staggering $13.3

billion over the FY 1955 figure. 7

Hughes was not pleased with the Defense wish lists, which in

fact faded into history as a footnote listing what the military services,

in the late spring of 1955, would have liked to have. At that time, the

practical business of developing official estimates for submission to

OSD in October was getting under way. By August, both in BoB and

the Pentagon, the "flash" estimates of June were apparently forgotten.
474 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Hughes's chief worry at this point, as he wrote Wilson on 11 August,

centered on the upward spiral of DoD spending estimates for the

fiscal year just begun, which would affect the prospects for meeting the

president's goal of achieving budgetary balance in both that year and

the one following. Hughes failed to mention that as DoD spending

estimates soared, so did revenue estimates, responding to an obviously

booming economy. By the middle of September the official revenue

projection for FY 1956 had reached $62.1 billion, $600 million higher

than the forecast Hughes had given the cabinet and the NSC in May.

A balanced budget appeared in sight, brightening the outlook for FY

1957 as well. 8

Guidelines: "Spend Less!"

Of course neither Hughes nor Wilson considered it politic at this

juncture to admit the possibility of a balanced budget. Both were

under heavy pressure from the White House to reduce outlays for FY

1956 and FY 1957, while current and projected military spending was

zooming relentlessly upward. Wilson felt beleaguered, caught between

almost defiant resistance by the services to further spending curbs and

Treasury Secretary Humphrey's public insistence that DoD could, if it

would, squeeze out another billion in savings without harm to the

nation's security. On 14 October Wilson circulated a seven-page "general

guidelines" paper for FY 1956 and FY 1957 which, without mentioning

the word "budget" or a single dollar figure, made it clear that Defense

spending must come down. In the main, the paper listed methodically,

category by category, familiar money-saving measures (e.g., identification of excess military personnel and "promotion of only well

qualified personnel"). The bulk of the measures were humdrum, but a

handful of major procurement and production particulars were

startlingly comprehensive and raised such fundamental policy questions as review of all requirements for conventional weapons in the

light of the availability of more modern ones, presumably including

nuclear weapons, and reevaluation of all outstanding procurement

and production contracts, project orders, and plans for additional

procurement. 9 While perhaps within the competence of a single service to initiate, such far-reaching reforms would ultimately involve OSD,

the JCS, and non-Defense agencies and even go to the NSC for approval.

Whatever their merits, they could not bear fruit in time to affect the

FY 1957 budget.
Preparing the Last New Look Budget 475

The pervasive "spend less!" message of this numbingly bureaucratic document probably should have been read as Wilson's response

to the combination of heavy pressure for economy and lack of specific

direction by the White House and BoB. The FY 1957 budget ceilings

promised for June or July were still not forthcoming. To meet the FY

1956 spending objective Wilson had tried, and failed, to hold the line

at the $34 billion promised in January. Now, in mid-October, his

new fallback position was $34.5 billion, but it too was beginning

to crumble. Meanwhile, the services had substantially completed their

FY 1957 budget estimates, without benefit of ceilings or even of Wilson's

14 October guidance paper, which, to serve its purpose, should have

appeared at least two months earlier. When Wilson visited the president in the hospital in Denver on 17 October, perhaps mindful of the

patient's condition, he said nothing about the new budget estimates

and reported only that he had set a target of $35 billion for FY 1957

spending, conceding that this optimistic figure would be difficult

to achieve. Also FY 1957 would bring big new expenses-the SAGE

warning system, the DEW line, additional Nike installations, the ICBM

program, accelerated production of B-52 bombers and F-I02 and F-l04

interceptors, and other programs. The president showed "no surprise

or disagreement" over the prospective rise in spending. lO

Manpower Targets

If dollar ceilings were still elusive, strength ceilings by now

were fairly firm. On 18 August Wilson had asked the Joint Chiefs

for their recommendations on FY 1957 force structure and personnel

strengths, admonishing them to take into account the implications of

improved design and increased availability of weapons along with

strategic requirements and to justify any proposed changes from the

strengths and force levels approved in January. A week later he notified

Navy Secretary Thomas of his decision on the requested increase in

Marine Corps strength for the current fiscal year from 193,000 to

215,000, which Congress had recently financed by appropriating an

additional $46 million. "For the time being," he told the secretary, he

would split the difference, approving a strength of 205,000 to be

reached by 1 January 1956 pending the president's decisions on

military personnel strengths for FY 1957 in the context of the new

budget. At that time the Marine Corps' end strength for FY 1956

would be adjusted accordingly.u
476 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

In mid-September the Joint Chiefs received from the Joint Strategic Plans Committee (JSPC) the separate recommendations of the services.

The Marine Corps of course still wanted the Congress-supported 215,000

men. The Army sought an increase of 20,750 over its current authorization. The Navy wanted an increase of some 29,000. Only the Air Force

asked no increase, either for itself or for the other services. The major

recommended structural change came from the Army, which wanted

to add 2 mobile divisions within its currently authorized strength of

1,025,000, making a grand total, with training and static divisions, of 19.

The JSPC recommended acceptance of the service proposals; the Air

Force member opposed them, arguing that Soviet gains in military

strength had been offset by superior improvements, especially in nuclear

weaponry, by the United States and its allies. 12

Since the Joint Chiefs tended to share the views of their JSPC subordinates, the inability of the latter to reach a consensus foreshadowed a

similar split among the chiefs, in which a "losing majority," resisting New

Look economies, would finally be overruled by higher authority supporting the views of the "winning minority." This had happened before,

and the chiefs seemed to sense that it would happen again. They concluded and so informed Wilson on 6 October "that the United States

should not reduce the present major forces of the Services through FY

1957," and that their combat effectiveness must be ensured by provision of adequate numbers of trained personnel. They recognized the

services' need for additional personnel resulting from the advent of

complex new weapons, the loss of highly trained personnel to better

paying jobs in the civilian economy, and the demands of new and expanding programs. 13

But JCS consensus dissolved in the face of further proposed

changes-chiefly decreases in proposed additions, except for the Army's

request for a further increase. The impasse among the service chiefs

was broken by JCS Chairman Radford who, as usual, had the final

word. Although the requested increases that emerged were modestabout 48,000-and were not enough to materially affect that year's

budget, on balance he believed that the requested personnel increases

should not be granted at this time, "pending developments within

the next few months." Wilson promptly bought this solution, and

on 7 October approved for preparation of the FY 1957 budget the then approved FY 1956 end strengths-namely, Army 1,025,000, Navy 657,000,

Marine Corps 193,000, Air Force 975,000, for a total of 2,850,000. 14

Wilson reported this decision to the president when he and Radford

visited him in the hospital in Denver on 17 October. The secretary stressed

the interim nature of the decision. Since the proposed increases were so
Preparing the Last New Look Budget 477

small, Wilson said the matter should be reviewed about 1 December, by which time the results of the Geneva Foreign Ministers' Conference would be known. The proposed increases were indeed small,

Eisenhower commented, and "not out of order." He felt that "the Chiefs

should be supported in their request for increases of this magnitude,"

looking to a total strength of "about 2,900,000."15

BoB Dissects the Service Budget Estimates

The FY 1957 budget estimates submitted by the services in October

1955 seemed, at first blush, to have left behind the fantasies of the June

"flash" estimates. 16 They showed an aggregate NOA of $40.6 billion, compared with $42.9 billion in June, and expenditures of $37.6 billion,

compared with $39.7 billion in June, with most of the cuts by the Army.

However, since by now the June estimates had been relegated to the

back files, the more appropriate comparison was with the FY 1956

budget. This comparison revealed the most dramatic figure of all: an

increase in NOA of $6.1 billion. Expenditure projections, by contrast,

were only $1 billion higher than the $36.6 billion now being projected

for FY 1956. The $40.6 billion in new obligational authority for FY 1957

reflected, in part, the deferred needs excluded from the modest FY

1956 budget. 17

The BoB staff took a gloomy view of the service budget estimates.

Although they rated them as "firmer" than in previous years, this

merely meant a more detailed and documented justification of estimated costs. The customary program review alone would not suffice to

reduce the NOA requests to acceptable levels, since the increases

stemmed mainly from new, rather than established, programs. The Air

Force planned to complete its 137-wing force, expand the air defense

system, deploy guided missile squadrons, and enlarge its reserve forces,

all of which pointed to ultimate expenditures of $20 billion a year. The

Navy was "looking forward to a complete new look with atomic ships

and guided missiles," with annual spending of at least $12 billion. Only

the Army, for the present, seemed prepared to live at approximately its

current level of outlays, about $8.5 billion a year. BoB officials worried

about the interaction of rising expenditures and larger influxes of

new money.

Demands for more NOA in FY 1957 were, in part, a response to

heavier outlays in the current year, which reduced the amount of

unobligated funds that would be carried over for spending in FY 1957

and later years. A larger influx of newly appropriated money in FY 1957, .
478 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

in turn, would generate more spending, some in that year but even

more subsequently, resulting in increasing expenditures in 1957 and

later, substantially above Wilson's current fiscal year expenditure program of $34.5 billion. This was a cause for "most serious concern.'>18

FY 1957 spending could be held down to the current FY 1956

target of $34.5 billion without altering the existing structure of forces

and manpower by such practices as stretching out modernization of

equipment and public works construction, selective emphasis in procurement on newly developed items, and reduction or cessation of

production of obsolescent materiel. Of course there were "political

implications," and austerity measures would not be easy to enforce.

Ironically, the BoB analysts seemed to regard the Army's FY 1957 estimates as the most inviting reduction target, even though the other two

departments had submitted much higher estimates. The Army's proposed

FY 1957 budget, they said, simply superimposed on its 1956 predecessor

a variety of more advanced materiel, while also continuing to fund the

older conventional types. "The development and procurement of such

items as guided missiles, rockets, aircraft and related equipment for

airborne operations and nuclear capability will depreciate the effective

value of much of the present equipment very sharply in the relatively

near future." Why not cut back the 1956 budget and its 1957 extension

since the materiel they produced would soon be obsolete anyway? The

Army's budget might also be significantly diminished by a recomputation

of mobilization reserve requirements currently under way aimed at both

modernization and quantitative reductions. 19

The Army Is Different

Overlapping requirements for new and old weaponry performing the same or similar functions in a time of rapidly advancing

technology and tight peacetime budgets, although not peculiar to the

Army, did have distinctive features there. The Air Force already dreaded

the day when it would have to begin phasing out heavy bombers in

favor of ICBMs; soon the ingenious notion of the deterrent Triad* would

spare it this unpleasant necessity, as the Navy would also find good

• Triad would be the term applied, beginning in 1961, to the balanced combination of

long-range bombers, long-range ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched intermediaterange missiles constituting the nation's strategic nuclear offensive forces. In 1956 it still

lacked the second and third elements.
Preparing the Last New Look Budget 479

reasons for building both nuclear-powered and diesel-powered submarines. In the Army, battlefield missiles theoretically competed with

conventional artillery for budget dollars. Yet the two continued to

coexist, for essentially the same reasons that the Air Force retained its

bombers and ICBMs. The two types were sufficiently different and

useful to warrant the additional cost of keeping both. Moreover, in the

main the Army still fielded a conventional force in firepower, mobility,

and basic structure. Significant improvements had occurred, even since

1953, but exotic new weapons-the 280-mm. atomic cannon, the

Honest John rocket, the Corporal and Nike missiles-existed as yet in

such small numbers that they had made hardly a dent in the organization or tactics of the field forces, although active experimentation

was in progress.

Army Chief of Staff Ridgway's arguments against using the growing

availability of increased firepower to justify reducing the Army's manpower were by now widely known. He developed these arguments

further in his memoirs published in 1956. Since it could be assumed that

any major adversary would deploy similar battlefield nuclear weapons,

not to mention those deliverable by air, staggering numbers of casualties would result on both sides. Consequently, Ridgway seemed to regard

the task of developing effective countermeasures, even more than the

development of new, more lethal weaponry, as a prime necessity. He saw

the Army's response to the challenge of the nuclear age mainly in terms

of tactical adaptation of ground forces to the threat of instant obliteration by the new weapons, without impairing their capacity for effective

offensive action. He stressed small self-contained "battle groups" transportable by air within the battle zone and intercontinentally, superior

firepower, and use of aircraft for all purposes related to military operations. "It is obvious," he concluded, "that the Army described above bears

little resemblance to the massed, slow-moving armies of World War II. It

is an Army in the process of evolutionary change."2o

The BoB analysts underestimated both the Army's dedication to

modernization and the obstacles it faced in attempting to modernize.

Ridgway's book made clear his acceptance of the nuclear weapon revolution and the dawning missile age. Both he and General Taylor, his

successor, gave the highest priority to the development and integration

of new weapons into the Army's force structure and tactical doctrine.

Redstone Arsenal's work on tactical ballistic missiles had put the Army

at the forefront of ballistic missile technology. The Army was now contesting leadership with the Air Force in the race to develop an operational

IRBM. Its Nike antiaircraft missile, to which a nuclear-tipped version
480 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

would soon be added, was a pillar of the continental defense system. In

signal communications, armored vehicles, motor transport, short-range

tactical aviation, and other materiel important to its mission the Army

kept abreast of the state of the art.

Since the advent of the New Look, however, OSD, over bitter Army

protests, had kept a tight lid on Army R&D budgets. In 1955 it received only

$361 million, 13 percent less than the Navy, 27 percent less than the

Air Force. In 1956 its R&D budget was further reduced to $333 million,

23 percent less than the Navy's, 42 percent less than the Air Force'sboth of these services receiving more than in 1955. Even so, R&D

budgets usually took a larger slice of the Army's meager total budget

than the other services' as a percentage of theirs. 21 For FY 1957 BoB

proposed to impose on the Army the same level in R&D funding as

in FY 1956. Again the Army balked. If held to this level, it maintained, it

would be unable to undertake any new projects in air defense or longrange surface-to-surface missiles. It would have to stretch out or

postpone work on one or more guided missiles, Army aviation, and

planned improvements in air-transportability of equipment and weapons; current development programs for tanks, guns, rockets, and ammunition would have to be cut back. For FY 1957 the Army asked for $400

million in new obligational authority for R&D. 22

Not surprisingly, the Army did not agree with the BoB analysts'

view that in FYs 1956 and 1957 it was expected to continue buying

the same old-fashioned materiel. It declared its emphasis on "procurement of the most modern combat items at the expense, where necessary,

of increased readiness in the more conventional-type weapons, and

items shortly to be replaced by newly developed materieL" It was not apparent that Army procurement differed significantly from that of the Air

Force in the balance between new and old materiel except in the amount

of publicity accorded it. Both services were cautiously phasing in improved versions of older workhorse weapons while continuing to procure large numbers of the older weapons and postponing the plunge into

production of new models while testing for flaws that could force expensive shutdowns after production had begun to roll. Indeed the Air

Force, not the Army, became the object of strong criticism in Congress

and the media in the summer and fall of 1955 for having earlier

held back production of the latest heavy bombers and interceptors

while Soviet factories appeared to be turning out such aircraft in increasing numbers. 23

In its pursuit of modernization, however, the Army had to make

do with a much smaller budget than the other services. Three quarters

of its NOA for FY 1957 had to go for military personnel and operation
Preparing the Last New Look Budget 481

and maintenance, compared with about 46 percent for the Navy and the

Air Force. Since the Army received no procurement NOA for FY 1957,

it had to rely on diminishing carryover funds for procurement. 24

Through November and into the first week of December the OSDBoB review staff whittled away at the services' budget estimates. From

the outset BoB analysts clearly visualized a more austere budget than

their OSD counterparts, seeking a realistic spending target of $34.5

billion. This was only a half-billion higher than Hughes had proposed

to the NSC six months earlier, and less by the same amount than the

one Wilson had suggested to the president in October. Much of the

problem, the review staff believed, derived from the evident unwillingness of the services to hold FY 1956 spending down to $34.5 billion

(Wilson himself had by now abandoned this target), because the

momentum of increased spending would carryover into FY 1957 and

raise the demand for new money.

The services' requests for NOA in FY 1957 totaled $40.6 billion,

to which they intended to add about $2.4 billion in carried-over unobligated funds to finance their programs. Estimated expenditures were

$37.6 billion. In a preliminary analysis early in November the BoB staff

explored the feasibility of reducing these totals by applying the

"restrictive" interpretation of Wilson's 14 October guidelines mentioned

earlier. This was essentially a reasonable rather than a radical approach

to austerity (for example, they rejected a proposed deactivation of

some 30 less-than-indispensable military installations as not worth the

political uproar it would cause). Hypothetically, this exercise reduced

the $40.6 billion in NOA to $36.4 billion, with associated expenditures

of $35.6 billion. Trying again, and harder, the staff aimed at specific

targets of $34 billion in NOA and $34.5 billion in expenditures. This

would require scrapping the Air Force's plan to build up heavy-bomber

wings from 30 to 45 B-52s in order to accommodate the accelerated production (17 B-52s per month) ordered the previous spring. In addition,

several major continental defense programs would be stretched out; the

expanded guided missile effort would be slowed down; naval shipbuilding would be held to $1.2 billion and naval aircraft procurement to $1.8

billion. Army procurement would be cut another $200 million to $1

billion (prior-year funds) to keep expenditures down, and public

works for all three services would be held to $1.5 billion NOA, against

$1.9 billion in 1956.

The distribution of cuts in this exercise was instructive. Evidently

the BoB staff believed that the Army budget had been so thoroughly

worked over before its submission that little pay dirt remained and only

small downward adjustments were required. Only a little over one billion
482 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

was excised even in the draconian $34 billion exercise. The richer hightech services were harder hit than the Army, especially the Navy, whose

NOA would be cut 21 percent as compared with 15 percent for the Air

Force. The BoB analysts ended their report on a warning note. Given

all the suggested reductions, expenditures in 1958 and 1959 would still

rise substantially with the across-the-board increase in living and

operating costs, higher maintenance costs for modern equipment, and

the necessity to replenish stocks. The only escape would come via

further cuts in strength or reduction in the pace and level of modernization and readiness. 25

Wilson Raises the Spending Target

In mid-November Wilson raised his FY 1957 expenditure target

to $35.8 billion, $800 million over the figure he had given the president

a month earlier. In justification of this target he cited the greater

complexity of modern equipment and generally higher costs of

modernization, higher military and civilian pay (even with fewer people),

and recent new and accelerated programs such as continental defense,

long-range ballistic missiles, heavy bombers, etc. Hughes lost no time in

reporting Wilson's move to the president and in notifying Wilson that

he had done SO.26 Evidently Hughes hoped, by invoking the president's

immediate intervention, to forestall Wilson from offering the services an

eleventh-hour compromise, below their current high budget requests

but above the austere levels reqUired to keep defense costs under control

in FY 1957 and the years beyond.

Hughes's paper listed what needed to be done. The FY 1957 estimates would be reduced in anticipation of a series of measures to be

taken by the services in 1957-58: a general stretchout of such major

procurements as shipbuilding, heavy bombers, naval aircraft, and public

works; keeping B-52 wings at their current size; and holding reserve

training requirements to "feasibility of accomplishment." In many

procurement areas the availability of large unobligated balances from

prior years created a built-in pressure to spend. Even if all these things

were done, "the demands for additional dollars inherent in the current

programs will require that expenditures be increased ... subsequent to

1957" unless modernization was slowed down and readiness skimped,

or personnel strength and force structure were reduced. 27

Wilson did not announce his new spending target to the services

or call for new estimates from them. But word may have filtered out

that OSD might now be a little more charitable to the services, perhaps
Preparing the Last New Look Budget 483

even recognize that the $34.5 billion spending target was negotiable. The

effects surfaced in a comprehensive set of "preliminary" estimates put

together by McNeil's office at the beginning of December, showing the

still tentative status of budget negotiations. The spending total was still

above Wilson's new target, by about $150 million. Clearly the services

were more resistant to cutbacks in their spending projections than to

cutbacks in new money or higher levels of obligational activity. Reductions in spending meant waiting longer for delivery of important new

weapons and equipment, particularly those needed for key sectors of

the continental defense system now nearing completion, whereas postponing NOA requests and obligation of funds for new contracts would

only delay fulfillment of more distant goals. 28

For the Air Force the preliminary estimates meant reasonable assurance of achieving its 137-wing goal on schedule. As usual, the Army had

to sacrifice most. Its 7 percent cut in total planned spending, which

included 10 percent in operations and maintenance and 8 percent in

procurement, offset the skimpy Air Force and Navy cuts, accounting for

most of the 5 percent slash in DoD spending for FY 1957. Army NOA

and planned obligations showed a substantial 10 percent reduction.

Responsive to BoB criticism, the Army pledged significant FY 1957

procurement changes, with emphasis on guided missiles rather than

conventional armament, and no more tanks, presumably pending development of a new model; current contracts would be allowed to run out.

Additional facility expansion and modernization would be deferred

except as needed to support the guided missile effort. The FY 1957 estimates of obligations reflected this emphasis. 29

The President Decides

On 2 December, while the preliminary estimates were still in the

typewriter, Wilson and Radford drove over icy roads up to Gettysburg to

update the president on the budget review. Wilson brought with him

draft directives authorizing the military personnel strengths the services

had recommended and the president, at his meeting with Wilson in

Denver on 17 October, had indicated he favored. Eisenhower readily

approved them, including the transfer to the Army of responsibility for

overseas air base construction and repair, along with 7,500 additional

engineer spaces to perform the function. Previously, the Air Force had

had the responsibility, using Army personnel charged to the Air Force

budget and strength allotment. This would increase the Army's FY 1957

strength ceiling to 1,053,250 and the DoD total to 2,905,985. The Air
484 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Force retained its strength at 975,000, while the Navy and Marine Corps

received small augmentations that raised their strength to 672,000 and

205,735 respectively. The president seemed still worried about manpower and suggested that strict justification of personnel increases

be required. Manpower savings, the president went on, would help to

finance the advanced types of materiel needed, and in the process

would "keep men in industry where they would be producing." He

stressed particularly his desire to push ahead with ballistic missile

development "at the fastest possible rate."

Little time was spent on the budget itself, although Wilson had

come armed with detailed figures and tables. The president did not

argue with Wilson's recommended spending ceiling of $36 billion, but

at the end of the discussion he asked Wilson "to see whether by rigorous

economy the expenditure figure could not be gotten just under $35

billion." Evidently this was more than an afterthought. After Wilson left,

the president asked Radford, who had stayed behind, "personally to go

through the itemized budget sheets . . . take up each item, and justify it

to himself." As one who had worked with all three services and knew

their habits, he explained, the admiral should be able to sniff out areas

"where funds could be saved without hurting the program." Still not

satisfied, after Radford had left he assigned the same chore to his assistant, Colonel Goodpaster. 3o

Still, Wilson could not be sure whether he had been given new

marching orders or not. The president's "just under $35 billion," translated as $34.950 billion, was duly penciled in as a "target" on one of the

OSD preliminary estimate tables. But it smacked of the classic salesman's

trick of pricing an item at 99 cents instead of a dollar, and there was

no indication that it received any publicity or was even taken seriously

in OSD. Wilson himself could not, of course, afford to ignore it, but he

may well have suspected that the president's commitment to it was

less than total.

The same day OSD went public with the current status of the FY

1957 budget. "The Pentagon," according to the New York Times, "will

strive to shave the new budget below $35,000,000,000 [in spending],

but officials are not hopeful it can be done. They are sure they cannot

get down to $34,500,000,000 because each service has just about completed and justified its budget requests.,,31

What the president thought of all this is not recorded, but at his

next meeting with Wilson, on 6 December, with Hughes, McNeil, and

others present, he did not mention the "just under $35 billion" goal.

Wilson talked vaguely of "tightening up" in order to keep expenditures
Preparing the Last New Look Budget 485

below $36 billion; he mentioned a target of $35.750 billion "for existing

programs," and spoke of taking another $500 million out of "forward

programs" (a reference to NOA).32 Wilson's $35.750 billion spending goal

was added to the other penciled inserts in the office copy of the preliminaryestimates.

If the president had decided to give a little, he was not about to

trumpet the gift to the outside world. Press reports over the next few

days reflected a virtuoso performance in what a later era would call

"spin control." Reporting on the 6 December meeting, the Baltimore Sun

announced that FY 1957 Defense expenditures would be "in the neighborhood of $34,500,000,000." Wilson was quoted as commenting, "It will

be pretty tough, but we can make it." The Washington Post on 8 December, evidently fed a slightly different line, provided an alternate interpretation. Pentagon sources, it reported, said the $34.5 billion figure

released at Gettysburg really meant "about $35 billion" in new spending; a

lower figure might crop up in the president's budget message "as a goal

for further reduction through greater efficiency." The president's "figure

fuzzing" strategy became clearer on the 13th, when, at a bipartisan

meeting of congressional leaders at the White House, he announced an

increase of about $700 million in FY 1957 Defense spending to a total

of more than $35 billion. After the meeting some Democrats praised

the prospective budget as well-balanced, noting ruefully that it had

deprived them of one of their best lines of attack in the forthcoming

budget debate; others, however, disagreed. 33

The president himself had already concluded that the budget was

now on track and needed no further massaging by him. His final order

to the troops on the eve of the impending battle with Congress, issued

to the NSC at its afternoon meeting on the 8th, was purely hortatory:

Budget-making time is always difficult and expenses are

mounting. Nevertheless, no official of this Government is

truly performing his duty unless he clearly realizes that

he is engaged in defending a way of life over a prolonged

period and unless he is constantly aware of the weight

of financial burden that our citizens are willing and able

to bear. Our Government could force upon our citizens defense

and other spending at much higher levels, and our abundant

economy could stand it-for a while; but you cannot do it for

the long pull without destroying incentives, inflating the

currency, and increasing government controls. This would

require an authoritarian system of government, and destroy

the health of our free society. 34
486 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The Final Product

On 14 December Deputy Secretary Robertson formally transmitted

DoD's FY 1957 budget request to the Bureau of the Budget. After two

weeks of negotiations the review staffs now had little to show for

their labors. The new expenditure forecast of $35.54 billion approximated what some Pentagon officials had publicly predicted it would

be and much exceeded the ceiling the president had originally asked

for. Overall, the proposed budget looked substantially larger than its

predecessor: almost two billion more in new appropriations requested

than Congress had granted for FY 1956, and a billion more in projected spending. 35

Presumably the final product gave no pleasure to Hughes. Its

NOA total stood six percent higher than the figure he had floated in the

waning days of negotiations. The Air Force and Navy totals, only slightly

offset by the lean Army budget, were seven percent and nine percent

higher, respectively, than his. The president's "just under" $35 billion

spending target had been ignored, evidently with his acquiescence. On

the other hand, a more retrospective view, particularly from OSD's

vantage point, offered some encouragement. During November and

early December the review staffs had deflated the services' October

NOA estimates by almost $6 billion. Half ($2.9 billion) of that amount

was taken from Air Force estimates and a further $2 billion from the

Navy's, while the Army lost just under $1 billion. For projected spending

the reductions-from $37.6 billion to $35.5 billion-were smaller,

amounting to less than six percent for Defense overall. 36 The reductions

were gratifying to the staffs that had wrought them and galling to their

victims, but Congress, the press, and the public at this time knew little

and cared less about how much money the services had asked for in

October. What mattered in this arena, and would be the focus of interest

from now on, was how this budget compared with its FY 1956 predecessor, a complex exercise that would baffle many of the analysts.

Even after formal transmission of the FY 1957 DoD budget to BoB

on 14 December, the game was not quite over. In last-minute negotiations a few days before Christmas, OSD agreed to seek an increase in

the NOA request by $700 million; the largest slice, $335 million, went to

meet a revised Air Force requirement for procurement of B-52s, interceptors, and tankers; higher ICBM costs accounted for another $108

million. The Navy Department's share ($182 million) covered additional

shipbuilding, ship conversion, and money for the recently approved

strength increase in the Marine Corps. The Air Force and the Army also

received small additions for military construction ($50 million and $20
Preparing the Last New Look Budget 487

million, respectively), and the Army was authorized more for procurement of a variety of weapons. On 22 December these requested changes

went to BoB.37

The proposed FY 1957 budget, which the president promptly

approved, was little affected by the eleventh-hour addition. The gross

NOA total thus came to $35.7 billion (including $785 million in construction money to come from service stock funds), and the net sum to

be requested from Congress to $34.907 billion. Estimated expenditures,

which the department was pledged not to exceed, remained at $35.547

billion for FY 1957, and $34.575 billion for FY 1956.38

TABLE 11

President's Defense Budget for FY 1957

($ million)

Expenditures

FY 1956 FY 1957

670.00 665.00

8,510.00 8,582.00

9,435.00 9,565.00

15,960.00 16,535.00

200.00

OSD & Interservice

Army

Navy/Marine Corps

Air Force

For later transmission

Total

New Obligational Authority

FY 1956 FY 1957

666.37 622.32

7,351.20 7,731.42

9,639.60 10,005.80

15,490.05 15,430.00

1,117.45-

33,147.22 34,906.99 34,575.00 35,547.00

• Military construction. Allows for deduction of $785 million to be financed by

transfers from service stock funds.

Source: Budget Of the u.s. Government, FY 1957, 507.

DoD officials preparing for the selling campaign about to begin

in the Congress drafted a presentation for the president to use in

briefing congressional leaders. They had to face up to the certainty

that this budget, regardless of its complexities, would come out larger

than its predecessor, primarily because of the rising cost of everything

in an exploding technology. Operation and maintenance costs continued

to mount, even as military and civilian personnel strengths declined.

Newer and more complex equipment, especially high-speed jet aircraft,

cost more to operate and maintain, and there were more air bases as

well as radar, antiaircraft artillery, and missile sites to support. Major

procurement programs would be about as large as in the current yearlarger for the Air Force and Navy, smaller for the Army; spending for

aircraft would continue at about the FY 1956 level, higher for advanced
488 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

types, lower for older ones, but guided missile expenditures would

increase by about one-third over 1956, doubling those in FY 1955. ICBM

and IRBM development now had the top priority; air defense and

antiaircraft missiles would receive continued emphasis. Spending for

conventional hardware would decline as requirements were met from

prior-year appropriations, but electronics expenditures would have to

rise to meet the demand for electronic countermeasures and continental

defense systems.

Keeping pace with fleet modernization, Navy shipbuilding would

increase slightly to include a sixth carrier of the Forrestal classunfortunately not nuclear-powered as earlier hoped, a feature not yet

feasible for vessels of this size. But there would be additional nuclear

submarines, guided missile destroyers and frigates, and an experimental

nuclear-powered cruiser. Plans called for replacement of conventional

armament on some older ships with guided missiles and conversion of

some to carry modern high-speed aircraft. Military public works construction would continue slightly below current levels, primarily for air

bases, gUided missile facilities, and continental defense. Spending for

reserve forces, under the National Reserve Plan, was rising to meet the

expected larger numbers of reservists in drill pay status and the new sixmonth active duty training program. R&D spending would increase,

particularly for guided missiles, continental air defense, and nuclear

propulsion applications. The FY 1957 budget estimates screened and

reviewed first by the service staffs and high commands, then more

rigorously by the OSD and BoB staffs working together, were "undoubtedly ... the tightest budgets [the services} have submitted over

the past few years." Overall, the budgetary increase simply reflected "the

cost of keeping our forces modern and in a high state of readiness."39

It remained to convince Congress that the DoD FY 1957 budget

would provide the people and weapons that would permit the armed

forces to fulfill their mission at what the administration considered

affordable cost. In its passage through the hazardous congressional

waters the budget would have to brave more than the usual critical

examinations because of the growing concern about the sensational

Soviet progress in the development and apparent deployment of

advanced weapons.
CHAPTER XXII

Military Assistance

One of the longer continuities of American defense policy in the

twentieth century has been the use of the nation's industrial and

financial power to arm the manpower of allies, thereby reducing the

drain on its own. This "weapons-instead-of-armies" policy found its

fullest expression in the lend-lease program of World War II, when

American industry produced munitions far in excess of the needs of

American armed forces in order to help arm the British, French, Soviet,

Chinese, and other allies. Truman and Eisenhower adapted the lendlease concept to the cold war, subsidizing the "free world" contest with

communism by military and economic aid on a global scale. After initial

focus on economic aid, to Greece- and Turkey and the Marshall Plan

countries in the late 1940s, the emphasis shifted to military assistance

during the Korean War years and the rush to rearm Western Europe.

Foreign aid appropriations peaked at more than $8 billion in FY 1952,

and expenditures at $5.72 billion the following year. Three-quarters of

aid appropriations in FY 1952 and 84 percent of expenditures in FY

1953 went to military assistance. Then foreign aid totals dipped as New

Look economies took hold. Economic assistance, in the eyes of some

officials, thereafter deserved an increasing share, although the objective

remained predominantly one of equipping and supplying allied

armed forces.

The incoming Eisenhower administration set about reorganizing

foreign aid even before tackling its funding. Late in January 1953 the

president assigned the task, along with that of proposing organizational

changes in the Defense Department, to the newly formed Rockefeller

Committee. On 7 April the committee proposed several measures for

• Greece also received substantial military aid beginning in 1947.

489
490 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

reorganizing the structure for foreign aid that the president approved

and then presented to Congress on 1 June as Reorganization Plan No.

7. The plan aimed at clarifying and consolidating the "foreign policy

primacy" of the secretary of state, while freeing him from operational

responsibilities, and, within the foreign policy framework, ensuring

the primacy of the secretary of defense in the "formulation and direction

of military policy."* To this end it recommended replacing the Mutual

Security Agency (MSA) with a single agency that would provide centralized direction of foreign assistance and economic operations. Another

agency would be similarly responsible for foreign information activities.

Both agencies would be "subject to foreign policy as determined by

the Secretary of State, and military policy as determined by the Secretary

of Defense." In general, the new foreign operations agency would direct

economic and technical assistance and supervise and direct the administration of military assistance by DoD. 1 Harold Stassen, head of the

soon-to-be-abolished Mutual Security Agency, was named head of the

Foreign Operations Administration (FOA), as it was to be called, reporting directly to the president and sitting on the National Security Council.

The plan went into effect on 1 August 1953. 2t

SqueeZing the Truman Program

The FY 1954 mutual security proposal that Truman left on the

doorstep of the new administration had been inserted in his proposed

FY 1954 budget as a one-line total, leaving to the heirs the task of fighting over the division of the bequest-$7.6 billion in new obligational

authority for military and economic aid combined. On 3 February 1953,

Eisenhower's budget director, Joseph M. Dodge, publicly opened the

administration's attack on all Truman budget proposals in a widely circulated letter that left no doubt that foreign aid on anything like the scale

Truman had advanced was no longer in the cards. The letter precipitated

a wholesale budget review in the midst of which, a month later, Dodge

introduced a more specific proposal in the National Security Council.*

* For the reorganization of the Defense Department, see Chapter II.

t In his message the president noted that the plan provided for abolition of the offices

of special representative in Europe and deputy special representative, to be replaced by

a new U.S. Mission to NATO and the European Regional Organizations, representing State,

Defense, Treasury, and FOA and reporting to the secretary of state. See PRUS 1952-54, I,

pt 1:628-30.

* For Dodge's 3 February letter and discussion of the FY 1954 Defense budget, see

Chapter V.
Military Assistance 491

Promptly approved by the council, it signaled the administration's determination to achieve a balanced budget, not in FY 1954 as Dodge and

Humphrey had demanded, but definitely in the year following. To start

the ball rolling, the plan assigned "illustrative" spending ceilings for all

major programs for the two years-in effect dictating the pace of

retrenchment-and directed each responsible agency to work out, in

less than three weeks, the optimum distribution of its assets to this end. 3

Foreign aid presented the principal target of the "illustrative" spending ceilings. Truman's projected $7.6 billion of NOA in FY 1954 was

slashed by 28 percent, his $7.8 billion for FY 1955 by almost half. DoD's

military assistance allocation was reduced to $4.3 billion for FY 1954 and

to $3.1 billion for FY 1955. 4 For Mutual Security Director Harold Stassen

it was not a happy prospect. The consequences of the reductions, he

told the NSC on 18 March, could well be an end of French efforts to

save Indochina and French refusal to ratify the European Defense Community (EDC) treaties. "Similar grim repercussions ... in other crucial

areas of the free world" in which the United States was thinly spread

could also be anticipated. The timing was particularly unfortunate, said

Stassen, since much of the training and infrastructure of foreign forces

had been completed and materiel was beginning to flow in considerable volume. Similarly, a ]CS report to Wilson, presented to the NSC on

25 March, matched Stassen's gloom. By abruptly halting the steady

expansion in output of munitions during the past three years, Dodge's

ceilings would, the ]CS declared, cripple the whole effort to achieve a

"rapid and sustained build-up of the military strength of the free world."5

The climax of the in-house debate over FY 1954 foreign aid came

during the all-day NSC meeting on 31 March, when it was discussed along

with other basic national security issues. At this meeting, the "Seven Wise

Men" (a committee of distinguished personages, mostly industrialists,

appointed by the president to examine the whole range of basic security matters) served as a chorus backing up Dodge and Humphrey in

their attack on defense spending: the budget could and should be

balanced in FY 1954, they agreed, and foreign aid was a "giveaway" based

on the vain hope of buying friendship abroad. The president and Dulles

vigorously rejected this view. Foreign assistance, Dulles warned, was both

"absolutely indispensable" and a real bargain for the approximately $6

billion per year request. Any sudden and deep cut could cause a panic

abroad in view of the widespread belief that the advent of a Republican

administration portended a return to isolationism. He and the president

emphatically insisted that it was absolutely impossible to withdraw a

single American division from Europe at this juncture.
492 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The president also vigorously challenged some of the special consultants' remarks about buying friendship abroad. Many European

countries "would certainly have gone Communist had it not been for

the money we had spent on them in recent years." In Latin America, too,

he felt that the few millions requested would be money well spent. By

the meeting's end the consultants had backed off. Stassen indicated that

he was willing to reduce FY 1954 expenditures by $1.5 billion and the

appropriation request by a billion, provided spending tapered off

gradually, reaching the desired lower levels by about the beginning of

1954. The president was pleased, and even Humphrey called the proposed reductions "not too bad." On 28 April the NSC adopted NSC

149/1,* which dealt with basic national security policies in relation to

costs; paragraph 11 established target figures for the mutual security program. 6

On 5 May, as congressional hearings formally opened, Eisenhower's

special message on the proposed budget was read to a joint session of

the two foreign relations committees. It stressed the predominantly

military character of the $5.8 billion requested in obligational authority

of which $5.25 billion was "for military weapons and support directly

to the defense efforts of our friends and allies," and only $550 million for

"technical, economic, and developmental purposes, designed to promote

more effective use of the resources of the free nations." The president

explained that the "devotion of so large a portion of this request to

military purposes is a measure of the peril in which free nations continue

to live." He also announced a significant shift of focus: "It is necessary to

do more in the Far East," particularly to help the French in Indochina. 7

The $5.8 billion request corresponded to the target set in NSC 149/2,

but the change in focus and emphasis from the Truman proposal was

dramatic-a 27 percent reduction overall with the deepest cut occurring

in Europe. This cut, together with a smaller one for the Near East-Africa

area, made possible a 34 percent increase for the Far East. Two months

later, after a bitter bicameral wrangle, Senate conferees succeeded in

overriding punitive cuts demanded by their House colleagues. Even so, in

July Congress voted only just over three-fourths of the funds requested. 8

The final FY 1954 Mutual Security Assistance bill-$4.5 billion in new

obligational authority-received a large augmentation when Congress later

made available for reappropriation up to $2.12 billion in unobligated

prior-year funds for a total of $6.65 billion. Military assistance received

$3.18 billion in new money, $845 million less than requested, but with an

* Approved by the president as amended (NSC 149/2), 29 April 1953. See FRUS 1952-54,

II, pt 1:305-07.
Military Assistance 493

add-on of up to $1.93 billion in unobligated old money. Since the fungibility of unobligated prior-year funds was restricted in several ways,

these were not dollar-for-dollar additions to the new appropriations,

but they closed most of the gap. Half of the $1.86 billion in NOA money

allotted to Western Europe was specified to go to the European Defense

Community, when it came into being, or for its potential member nations

if it did not. Earmarked for the Far East was $1.03 billion (including at

least $301 million for Nationalist China), and for the Near East and Africa

$270 million. Only $50 million was assigned to the development of

promising new weapons by U.S. allies. Economic and technical aid received $482.5 million, $427.5 million of it in new appropriations. 9

Aid and the Economy Drive

Although preparation of the FY 1955 military assistance budget had

begun almost simultaneously with the attack on the Truman FY 1954

version, the administration's economy drive took on added emphasis in

October 1953, with parallel efforts to develop a long-haul grand strategy

for dealing with the Communist threat and the formulation of an

affordable budget to support it. On 13 October, when Stassen presented

to the NSC a $5 billion unrefined spending estimate for military assistance (within a larger total for mutual security), he was told to redo his

sums. His pared down revision of $4.5 billion, submitted on the 29th, fared

little better. 10

The administration's concerted attack on defense spending had an

immediate effect on military assistance budget planning. It erased any

lingering idea that military assistance could coast along at about the current or even a slowly rising level, nourished by the rationale that it could

support more allied military manpower per dollar than the same amount

spent on American forces. Although the rationale was sound enough and

often stated, the emerging New Look clearly stood for immediate fiscal

austerity and major force reductions except for airpower and modern

weaponry. NSC 162/2, bible of the new order issued at the end of

October, gave short shrift to foreign aid. It grudgingly conceded a capability "for the foreseeable future" to provide military assistance "in more

limited amounts than heretofore" to essential allies. This implied a kind

of triage in dispensing aid among the many countries dependent on the

United States for security, based not on need but on capacity to use effectively. In Western Europe, Britain, France, and West Germany would be so

favored, at least in terms of priorities; in the Far East, Japan and South

Korea; in the Middle East, Turkey, Pakistan, and perhaps Iran. Elsewhere,
494 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

military aid would be doled out sparingly, economic and technical aid

even more so, "according to the calculated advantage of such aid to the

U.S. world position." Eventually military aid must be reduced; in the near

future economic grants would be phased out altogether and increasingly replaced by 10ansY

As the budget crunch tightened, congressional aversion to "giveaways" also complicated planning. The Senate debate over the FY 1954

budget, in which some of the staunchest friends of foreign aid clamored

for its termination, had sent danger signals. To one State Department official it seemed clear that the target of the Senate attack was not foreign

aid as such but economic aid. This sensibility-widely shared in

Congress-helped produce two new strategies for preserving foreign

aid. First, the State Department became convinced that FY 1955 military

aid should be incorporated into the DoD budget and justified as part

of the total defense effort, an approach endorsed by Dulles and the

president. Second, State broadened the definition of military assistance

to include economic aid "directly related to maintaining the defense effort

of our allies." In practice this meant that much economic assistance could

now be repackaged as critical components of military assistance. 12

With these strategies in place, there remained the question of how

large an aid package Congress could be expected to swallow. Defense

planners proposed as part of FaA's FY 1955 budget a slimmed-down

estimate of $2.4 billion in new obligational authority for military assistance, almost $800 million less than Congress had recently voted for

FY 1954. With some misgivings about the political effects of the cutback

in Europe, State supported the estimate as a rock-bottom figure, which

implied a greater effort in the coming year to use accumulated unexpended prior-year funds to make up for the cut. 13

To BoB budget cutters and congressional budget balancers the

overriding vulnerability of military assistance was that it had been

heavily over-financed in the Truman years. Theoretically, unexpended

funds from previous appropriations would suffice to continue the flow

of materiel to allies for the next two to three years at least, without infusion of any new money. Against this consideration, BoB had to weigh

the serious lag in deliveries and that weapons paid for from unexpended

balances would go to fill past commitments, leaving current and future

requirements to be met from funds not yet appropriated. FaA and

Defense had negotiated the previous $2.4 billion estimate down to $2.1

billion. Accepting this figure as a "reasonable" statement of requirements,

BoB decreed that only $1 billion of new money should be sought in FY

1955, with the remainder financed from unexpended balances and

reimbursed later from future appropriations when the materiel was
Military Assistance 495

delivered. As Dulles's mutual security adviser pointed out, this position

created a double hazard: a future Congress would probably balk at appropriating more funds than requested in FY 1955, and allies would probably

be skeptical of American ability to honor current commitments by future

requests for funds. 14

The president settled the matter in his own fashion. On 18 December

he approved, and on 21 January 1954 in his annual budget message to

Congress for FY 1955 he asked for $3.51 billion in new obligational

authority for mutual security, including $2.5 billion for military assistance

to be appropriated to the Department of Defense and $1.010 billion in

economic aid. Expenditures for the year would be $5.4 billion. 15

The large reduction in requested new money for military assistance,

compared with a slight increase in economic aid, masked a major shift

of emphasis. State's successful effort to incorporate defense-related

economic aid in the military package had brought a radical alteration in

the relative proportions of the two categories. In the FY 1954 budget the

military-to-economic ratio was roughly four-to-one; in the FY 1955 proposed budget it was ostensibly about five-to-two. But because almost a

billion in defense-support types of economic aid was masquerading as

military assistance, the actual new military-to-economic ratio now favored

economic aid about four to three. This transformation-achieved by the

device of changing labels-was, of course, not mentioned in the president's budget message and other public utterances that emphasized the

greater "military" aspect of foreign aid.

On 23 June 1954 the president sent Congress a special message on

the FY 1955 mutual security budget. Sounding the familiar themes of

collective defense-the global threat and purchase of equivalent fighting

power more cheaply abroad than at home-and "the continued ruthless

drive of communist imperialists for world domination," Eisenhower

pleaded with Congress not to cut the proposed funds, especially those

aimed at the crisis in Southeast Asia. The overall request, he pointed out,

culminated a two-year reduction of about 40 percent. Almost 80 percent

of the requested NOA ($2.75 billion) was "essentially of a military nature"-

i.e., comprising core (end-item and training) military assistance plus

defense-related economic and financial aid now labeled "direct forces

support" and "defense support." Economic grant aid, the president said,

was on the way out; in Europe it had virtually disappeared except for a

few local but essentially needed items. He also underlined how the

emphasis had shifted from Europe, where the cold war seemed stabilized and free world defenses relatively solid, to the active hot-war and

dangerously threatened theaters of the Far East, now slated to receive

almost twice as much aid as Europe. 16
496 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Despite the president's plea and the continuing tension during the

spring and summer over the French debacle in Indochina, foreign aid

critics in both houses, for the most part, had their way. In the bill signed

by the president on 26 August the final NOA amount for all titles was

$2.78 billion-more than $700 million below the administration's original request of $3.5 billion. Underlying these figures, however, was a

message which Defense officials were not slow to read. The administration's proposal to use almost $2.6 billion in prior-year unobligated

funds was cut an insignificant four percent, making available for FY 1955

a total of $5.24 billion in new and old moneyY

The Accounting Mess: Partial Cleanup

Considering the importance of prior-year funds to military assistance

operations, other actions taken by Congress had major significance. In the

rush to recess in the summer of 1953 Congress had stopped just short

of instituting a significant reform in the administration of military

assistance, thereby delaying for a full year the fundamental recasting of

foreign aid that the president had promised. Late in April 1953 the General

Accounting Office (GAO) had reported to the House Appropriations Committee a mess of gargantuan proportions in the mutual defense system

for controlling, recording, and reporting obligations. As the comptroller

general himself later described it, existing policies and practices were

"so irregular that the amount of obligations reported to the Congress

were [sic] overstated, distorted and misleading" and wholly unreliable for

serving the intended purpose. Some of the deficiencies, the GAO report

concluded, extended beyond the Defense Department and would require

prolonged cooperative effort by BoB, GAO, and Congress to develop

and implement the necessary remedies. But many deficiencies, happily,

seemed susceptible to cure within DoD through straightforward administrative improvements. Consequently, at the end of April, at the urging of

the comptroller general, Secretary Wilson directed a systematic review

by the military departments of unliquidated obligations for commonitems, which comprised the bulk of the invalid records. IS

The practices associated with the recording of obligations constituted one major difficulty. The other involved the accounting method

used for tracking military items procured for foreign assistance.

Lamenting the disarray surrounding this process, Congress in July 1953

directed Defense, MSA, BoB, and the GAO to reform the procedure. Nine

months later, in April 1954, BoB informed Congress that the task had
Military Assistance 497

been completed. The proposed plan envisaged procurement of commonitems for military assistance from regular DoD appropriations and

vendors-a merger of military assistance and Defense funds-and also

that military assistance funds would be accounted for solely on the basis

of delivery of materiel to recipient countries. The new proposal stipulated that the allocated funds would be "programmed and earmarked" by

OSD after coordination with State and FOA and would remain unobligated

in a master account in OSD until needed for reimbursement to applicable

regular DoD appropriations when deliveries occurred, normally in a

year subsequent to the one when procurement was initiated. To ensure

uninterrupted procurement, the plan also provided that funds in the

master account could be obligated when applicable Defense funds were

not available to finance lead time. Under this plan, both initial obligations

and expenditures would be charged to one source of funds (the pertinent

appropriation of the military department). Since the appropriation would

be reimbursed only upon delivery of the end-item to the recipient country,

usually in a later year, the plan contemplated no-year appropriations of

military assistance. The plan was duly enacted as Section 110 of the FY

1955 Mutual Security Appropriation Act (PL 778), which the president

signed on 3 September 1954. 19

The other piece of legislation passed at about the same time addressed the lack of a precise definition and categorization of obligations.

The House Appropriations Committee report on the mutual security bill

late in July 1954 had devoted several blistering paragraphs to the phenomenon of "June buying," the rush to obligate unexpended "hot money"

just before the end of the fiscal year in order to ensure its availability in

the following year rather than have it revert to the Treasury. Various factors

prevented the orderly spreading of the obligation of military assistance

funds over the fiscal year-delayed appropriations, protracted negotiations with recipient governments over force levels and aid requirements,

the complexity and time-consuming details of preparing the new aid

budget, to name a few-resulting in the bunching of obligations in the

closing months and weeks of the fiscal year. What made this bunching administratively feasible was the looseness or absence of official

definitions, which allowed harried officials pressed for time to open the

floodgates and certify as legal obligations a variety of written commitments and understandings reflecting various stages of the contractual

process. "For decades," OSD Comptroller McNeil confessed later in

retrospect, "there had never been a statutory definition of what constituted an obligation of the United States. The practice had been ...

approved by everybody, including in some cases the Comptroller General,
498 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

that once you thought a transaction would be a liability to the Government, it was to be posted as an obligation."20

In an otherwise tersely written report, the House Appropriations Committee exploded in outrage over the "questionable practices, involving

substantial sums," that its staff, working with GAO, had uncovered in an

extensive survey of obligating practices of the military departments. They

ranged from simple clerical errors ($47.8 million) to exceeding limitations specified in letters of intent not yet converted to definitive contract.

All this, the report concluded, underlined a need that happily had already

been recognized in the supplemental appropriation bill then pending

for a "clean-cut definition of obligations." In Section 1311 of the Supplemental Appropriation Act of 1955 (PL 663), for the first time Congress

specified what could be recorded on the books of the government as

an obligation, although it was both more and less than a clean-cut definition. Section 1311 required "documentary evidence" of at least one of

seven different types of listed activities, such as an agreement properly

executed in writing between the parties or a valid loan agreement

showing terms of repayment or "any other legal liability of the United

States against an appropriation or fund legally available therefor." As

McNeil later observed, the new law prescribed only broad criteria and

certain procedures, stating in effect that when there was a transaction

between two parties and documents were properly executed and had a

certain degree of specificity, it could be considered an obligation. 21

These two elements of legislation were acclaimed as needed and

well-conceived reforms, long overdue, in a system that had seemed to be

teetering on the brink of administrative chaos. They were not, however,

a quick fix. As yet they were only laws that would remain verbiage until

implemented by appropriate internal policies, regulations, and procedures, a process that promised to be long and fraught with missteps. Some

of the existing problem areas, moreover, seemed to lie beyond the reach

of the new legislation. Section 110 of the FY 1955 Mutual Security Appropriation Act (PL 778) gave the secretary of defense authority to integrate

the financing of military assistance with other military programs, and,

within the former, to institute a relatively simple accounting and reporting basis for performance in terms of deliveries and services rendered.

Section 1311 of the 1955 Supplemental Appropriations Act (PL 663) defined

obligations more precisely and prOVided criteria for a more rigorous

policing of the obligating process. These reforms, even when implemented, were not likely in and of themselves to correct the pervasive and

ingrained ills of existing accounting systems and obligating practices. "The

unreliability of fiscal data flowing therefrom," declared the House
Military Assistance 499

Appropriations Committee, "has become legendary and ... cannot be

permitted to continue." Most members of the committee no doubt suspected it would. 22

The FY 1956Program

On 3 December 1954, Stassen and Assistant Secretary of Defense

(lSA) Hensel jointly presented the proposed FY 1956 mutual security

budget to the NSC. The total request came to $3.4 billion. On the 6th

McNeil notified Budget Director Hughes that military assistance would

require "as a minimum" and under a long list of assumptions $1.4 billion

in new obligational authority.23 When the president approved the funding proposal a week later, DoD's foreign aid empire had grown to include

responsibility for direct forces support, which would appear as a separate

$630 million item in the new budget, and the total NOA had grown to

$3.53 billion. As of mid-December, the FY 1956 mutual security budget

shaped up as follows: 24

($ million)

New Obligational Authority

Military assistance

Direct forces support

Other MS programs

Total

Estimated Expenditures

Military assistance

DoD

Other agencies

Direct forces support

Other MS programs

Total

1955

2,675

(2,500)

(175)

550

1,075

4,300

1,400

630

1,500

3,530

1956

3,075

(3,000)

(75)

600

1,025

4,700

The president included these principal totals in his annual budget

message on 17 January 1955. It was an inconspicuous item in a large,

complex package. The $3.1 billion expected to be spent for military assistance in FY 1956, the president pointed out, was about midway between

the amounts expended in FY 1954 ($3.6 billion) and those anticipated

in FY 1955 ($2.7 billion). He said that these ups and downs over the threeyear period should not be taken as an indicator of probable deliveries in
500 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

FY 1956, which were expected to remain, as in the two preceding years,

at about $3 billion. The projected increase in spending actually reflected

the shift of military assistance procurement financing from mutual

security to Defense appropriations. Most of the FY 1956 spending would

be for materiel and training already funded in earlier appropriations. The

$1.4 billion new money would permit advance financing of certain new

and continuing activities in Asia, such as support for Korea (hitherto

financed in the DoD budget), Formosa, and Japan. Direct forces support,

for which Defense was now responsible, was aimed at a few selected

countries, mainly in Asia, with projected spending of $600 million. 25

With its overall dimensions and thrust thus determined, Hensel lost

little time filling in the blanks of the budget request being sent to Congress.

Normally the next step would have been to ask the JCS to update the

foreign force ceilings, but Hensel had something different in mind. Acting Secretary Anderson told the Joint Chiefs on 15 January that FY 1956

military assistance would be explained to Congress as reflecting "the

broad concept of the needs of strategic geographic areas throughout the

world, rather than by the presentation of detailed illustrative programs on

an item-by-item and a country-by-country basis as in prior Congressional

presentations." The chiefs were asked to flesh out and update their program guidance, "so that ... a comprehensive International Security Plan

may be prepared." The list of desired information was elaborate and

detailed, adding up to an informed look ahead at the likely shape and size

of MDAP-supported forces two-and-one-half years down the road. 26

After the chiefs balked at releasing information of such sensitivity for

congressional scrutiny, they were asked merely to recommend allocation of

the money expected to be available for the materiel and training program

from FY 1955-56 appropriations. Between the four geographical regions

(Europe, Near East, Far East, Western Hemisphere) the chiefs recommended a 52-17-29-2 percentage split. They remained stubbornly Euro-centered

when considering the allocation of a hypothetical additional $500 million

even though at the moment Chinese Communist armies seemed to be

readying for a major assault on Quemoy and the Matsus, islands in the

Formosa Strait, and on 28 January the Senate had authorized the president

to take whatever measures he deemed necessary to defend Formosa, the

Pescadores, and related positions. 27

After weighing this and other advice, the president on 20 April 1955

(by which time the Formosa Strait crisis had somewhat abated) sent to

Congress his special message on FY 1956 mutual security assistance. It

reflected, he asserted, "the greatly improved conditions in Europe and ...

[provided] for the critical needs of Asia" where "the immediate threats to

world security and stability are now centered," and where most of the
Military Assistance 501

funds requested would be put to work. The assistance package aimed to

accelerate cooperative development of the region's nations, leaving them

with most of the responsibility since "foreign capital as well as foreign aid can only launch or stimulate the process of creating dynamic

economies." He asked for $712.5 million in economic programs, with

more than half specifically for Asia. Another $100 million was set aside

as a contingent fund for the president. Defense support-economic aid

labeled "military" since its purpose was to enable needy countries to

support larger military forces than they could otherwise afford-claimed

$1 billion. By including this in the "military" portion of the budget,

officials could show that the "nonmilitary" part, which to many congressmen meant "economic," amounted to only 23 percent of the whole, even

though defense support was administered not by DoD but by FOA, along

with the other economic and technical aid. In reality, economic aid added

up to $1.8 billion, slightly over half the total. Like the FY 1955 budget,

this budget was aimed at the congressional client. 28

The remaining $1.7 billion was for military assistance and direct

forces support. The geographical distribution remained to be determined

but substantial amounts, the president said, would go to combat the

threat of Communist aggression and subversion in Asia, beef up the

defenses of Formosa, and support Korean and Japanese rearmament.

Stassen had stated earlier, and an aid official confirmed at this time, that

about $2 billion would go to Asia, split evenly between economic and

military aid. Overall the requested FY 1956 appropriation now came to

$3.53 billion. 29

In his message the president also noted the congressional mandate in

the FY 1955 Mutual Security Appropriation Act to terminate FaA as of

June 1955 and transfer its aid functions to a new semiautonomous State

Department unit, the International Cooperation Administration (lCA). He

planned to ask an extension of FaA's life for six months to permit an

orderly transition. Direct forces support responsibilities were assigned

to Defense. 3o

CongressionalActions

The president's efforts to "hide" his big economic-aid-for-Asia package inside the military aid portion of the budget reflected administration

fears of an unfriendly reception in Congress. Almost a month earlier, in

March 1955, the two most powerful members of the House Foreign Affairs

Committee, John M. Vorys (R-Ohio), the second-ranking Republican, and

its chairman, James P Richards (D-S.C.), reporting on an IS-nation trip to
502 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the Far and Middle East the previous autumn, had warned that in those

regions economic aid carried the odor of colonial paternalism to nations

still suffering from colonial or post-colonial exploitation. Military and technical aid, on the other hand, including even some "defense support" aid,

might be helpful, particularly if based on agreements for joint planning

and action. Although Eisenhower clearly heeded the warning in framing

his aid proposal, it drew lightning on Capitol Hill even before it could be

formally considered, with calls ranging from a half-billion-dollar cut in

economic aid to total elimination. Further critical comments, particularly

on the economic aspects, emerged during a bipartisan meeting of congressional leaders at the White House on 3 May. 31

At the opening session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

hearing two days later, Dulles was the administration's point man in

explaining the mutual security proposal and selling its unpalatable Asiaaid package. Since the small purely economic aid portion of the bill

focused mainly on Asia, Dulles sketched a somewhat lurid picture of

economic development in Communist countries. American economic aid

would be provided to free Asian countries in measured amounts, without

pressure, to help them along the path of genuine, long-term, self-propelled

economic development suited to their capabilities, culture, and resources.

The Marshall Plan, brilliantly successful in reviving the industrial economies of Western Europe, did not offer an appropriate model for Asia,

where only Japan and to a lesser extent India had ever experienced sustained, large-scale industrialization. 32

In executive session it became clear that most of the authorization

committee members supported the administration bill, its economic aid

provisions notwithstanding. Even so, the committee added an amendment

offered by Sen. Mike Mansfield that limited to $200 million the amount

of unobligated and unreserved funds that could be carried over into the

next fiscal year. The committee bill reported out on 27 May emerged

without a scratch from three days of sometimes bitter debate and was

resoundingly approved by the full Senate on 2 June by a vote of 59 to 18.

By now, moreover, most senators and representatives seemed to feel

that fierce debate over authorizations was not worth the likely damage

to personal relations and were inclined to leave the bloodletting to the

appropriations committees. 33

The House Foreign Affairs Committee opened hear.ngs on 25 May.

Action there and in the full House eventually trimmed the administration's authorization request by $145 million in military assistance. 34

In conference on 6 July the Senate members accepted the House cut.

The conferees expressed shock at the flood of "reservations" made by
Military Assistance 503

DoD in the last few days of the fiscal year in the effort to avoid losing

unobligated funds. Urging "prompt study and action" by both the executive and legislative branches to stem the annual eleventh-hour rush to

obligate, they also recommended that mutual security legislation be

submitted to Congress earlier each year. The $3.285 billion authorization total was about $245 million less than the president had requested.

Congress passed the authorization bill on 7 July and Eisenhower signed

it the next day. 35

The appropriations hearings did not go nearly as well as the

authorization hearings because of a dispute between OSD and key House

members, including the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee chairman,

Rep. Otto Passman (D-La.). The conflict involved a contested arrangement

negotiated in June between DoD liaison Maj. Gen. Robert S. Moore and

Reps. Passman, John Taber, and Richard Wigglesworth. The representatives believed a binding deal had been struck to reduce the ensuing

fiscal year's carryover funds by $420 million. Moore subsequently challenged that understanding, the funds in question were not forfeited, and

the House furor precipitated by the disagreement resulted in a slashing

of the administration request. 36 On 11 July, after a day of debate, the House

approved, 251 to 123, the appropriations committee bill. Cuts in military assistance, direct forces support, and economic aid brought the final

mutual security total down to $2.638 billion, a 24 percent reduction from

the president's request. The reduced amount of $705 million for military

assistance and the $305 million for direct forces support brought DoD's

portion of the mutual security bill to $1.0 11 billion, representing a large

cut in the president's requestY

Even before the debacle in the House the administration had written

off the outcome in that inhospitable forum and now hoped to recoup its

losses in the traditionally friendlier Senate. The hope proved well-founded.

As the Senate Appropriations Committee began hearings on the bill in

the week following the House action, several Republican senators rushed

into print announcing their intention to attack the House cuts. After only

two or three days of hearings the committee, as predicted, reported out

a markup on 19 July that virtually restored the status quo ante. The House

cuts in military assistance and direct forces support were eliminated, as

were most of those for economic aid. The recommended mutual security total, $3.205 billion, was $566.6 million higher than in the House bill.

All but $100 million of the unexpended balances were continued available through FY 1956. After some huffing and puffing over the issue of

snowballing end-of-the-year obligations, the committee lowered the ceiling

on them during the final two months of a fiscal year from 25 percent to 20
504 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

percent of total appropriations but added a further provisiOn that the

president could waive the restriction in an emergency. After a sometimes

sharp debate the full Senate voted its approval on 22 July. 38

The showdown conference on 27 July was swift and anticlimactic.

With remarkably little fuss, the conferees eliminated the military assistance funds that the House had cut from the original bill and the Senate

had restored. This was not quite the abject senatorial cave-in that it

seemed. Out of the blue the Air Force reported that during its review of

old accounts it had surfaced a long-buried credit to MDAP of $302 million

representing a reimbursement in 1950 for military assistance equipment

diverted to Korea. Rather than require return of these funds to the

Treasury, the conferees agreed that they should be made available for

military assistance as originally intended, thus partially offsetting the conference cut of $420 million. In the House, the compromise was viewed as

a technical adjustment not really related to the vindication of the House

on the issue. The conferees also voted the full request of $317.2 million

for direct forces support and restored some of the House cuts in economic aid. Since the $302 million Air Force windfall was not included in

the bill passed by both houses on 28 July, the president received only

$2.765 billion, a cut of more than $700 million from his original request

of $3.53 billion. Including the windfall, however, he received more than

$3 billion in spendable new money, enough to induce him on 2 August to

sign the bill without protest. 39

The FY 1957 Program

Assistant Secretary Hensel undertook to reduce the influence of

the Joint Chiefs over military assistance requirements by going directly

to the unified commanders in the field, asking them to submit their

real needs for FY 1957. In memoranda signed on 13 April by Deputy

Secretary Anderson, informing them of what the chiefs had already

recommended, he asked them to make their evaluation "realistic" since

the secretary required a "frank and detailed analysis of the practicability

of seeking to attain the JCS force objectives" for 1956-1958. 40

It was a good try but doomed to fail. The men on the ground were

unlikely to disagree with the JCS pronouncements. The results of

Hensel's scheme did not reach OSD until after he had left office on

30 June, but when they were tallied by his successor Gordon Gray in

September 1955 it was apparent that the effort to induce field commanders and staffs to "think small" had failed. The commanders estimated that

to outfit, train, and maintain allied forces of the size proposed would
Military Assistance 505

cost more than $7 billion in FY 1957, substantially as recommended by

the chiefs the year before.

Under a December deadline to send the estimates back through

channels to their regional authors for revision, Gray turned the task over

to the ]CS, who in a sense had created the problem. He asked them to

review the figures with the aim of presenting, under a $2 billion ceiling

(induding fixed charges and previous commitments amounting to almost

half this sum), a "sound" FY 1957 MDAP budget "reflecting realistic requirements" that could be justified. Asked to comment on the national security

implications of such austere funding and to perform a similar exercise

with a $2.5 billion ceiling, not surprisingly the chiefs balked. On 4 November they protested to Wilson that the $2 billion ceiling would not

"permit satisfactory progress" toward approved objectives and reminded

him that the Military Assistance Advisory Groups (MAAGs) had already

submitted "confirmed requirements" of over $7 billion. Rejecting the Gray

guidelines, the ]CS submitted a new proposal, priced at $2.717 billion

for materiel and training alone. They characterized this proposal as still

dangerously austere and full of crippling deficiencies. As for the $2 billion ceiling, it was an invitation to disaster.

Without lingering over the ]CS position, on 15 November Gray

submitted his own budget request for $3.104 billion in new obligational authority, cleared with Assistant Secretary McNeil and International

Cooperation Agency Director John Hollister. Of the $2.480 billion

earmarked for materiel and training-only $237 million less than the

]CS proposal-more than 90 percent went to Europe and the Far East.

This budget proposal rested mostly on "no change" assumptions: persistence of the Communist threat, continued prosperity at home, no

major free world setbacks abroad, and continued reluctance on the part

of recipient countries to pay for larger forces. An important additional

assumption was that in FY 1957 the new Federal Republic of Germany

would launch a rapid buildup of forces with no further military assistance

beyond the FY 1950-56 programs. The United Kingdom was also dropped

from the recipient list. The relative prosperity of both countries had

already permitted major cutbacks in their aid benefits. An eleventh-hour

addition to the program provided $80 million for four Baghdad Pact

countries-Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan-over and above amounts

already induded. 41

Hollister's proposed appropriation request for non-military aid

totaled $1.9 billion. He called to NSC attention that five recipientsKorea, Pakistan, Turkey, Formosa, and Vietnam-"countries with poorly

developed economies in which military force goals are far in excess of

those which can be maintained ... out of their own resources" -would
506 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

receive almost half of the total. In such countries the economy required

support "in direct relationship to the size of the force goals. Only a reduction in these goals will permit a substantial reduction in the amount

of economic aid necessary if collapse is to be avoided." On 6 December

the president, at a meeting with Wilson, Budget Director Hughes, and

others, approved Gray's MDAP totals but seemed mainly interested in

economic aid, for which he said he needed "some elbow room" for the

inescapable increases looming ahead. 42

At the end of October 1955 the NSC had launched a major review

of foreign aid. An interagency committee, established by the Operations

Coordinating Board (OCB)* and including representatives from State,

Defense, ICA, and Treasury, was charged with examining coordination of

military and economic aid programs and the relationship of military and

economic aid to overall political, economic, and military considerations.

Gray represented Defense. Chaired by the State member, Deputy

Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Herbert V Prochnow, the committee

also undertook to examine "special country situations where U.S.-supported

military programs might impose undue burdens on the economy of the

country." The strongly implied aim, in spite of recognized congressional

opposition, was to find reasons for shifting emphasis from military to

economic aid. The committee was asked to study 13 countries-most

notably Turkey and Pakistan-where large additional infusions of economic aid had become necessary to attain both economic and military

objectives. The other 11 candidates were: Greece, Spain, Japan, Korea,

Formosa, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Iran. The

proposed modus operandi was to establish an interagency working group

for each country to conduct detailed studies and pass recommendations

on to the parent committee, which would in turn make its own recommendations to the OCB. 43

While the Prochnow committee prepared its report the NSC Planning Board completed an analysis of foreign aid that it presented to the

council on 29 November. It painted a depressing picture of a program

that had developed reactively to Soviet moves and pressures rather than

as U.S. initiatives and that now manifested powerful built-in tendencies to

perpetuate itself and expand. A country program usually emerged from a

country's economic inability to support the U.S.-proposed forces, and

this weakness tended to persist. The decision to build up indigenous

forces usually generated requirements for additional dollar aid such

• One of the two principal arms of the NSC (the other being the Planning Board), OCB

was charged with coordinating the actions flowing from NSC decisions.
Military Assistance 507

as direct forces support and defense support. The country soon became

accustomed to and dependent on the flow of aid and expected it to

continue and even increase. With this pattern in mind, the Planning

Board proposed at the council's meeting on 8 December that it consider

reduction of the Prochnow committee's list of "problem countries" by

about half (leaving only Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Vietnam, Formosa, and

Korea) and that these countries be urgently studied by an appropriate

group. A majority of the board also proposed following up on the president's idea to ask Congress for a discretionary or contingency fund of

several hundred million dollars over and above specific foreign aid

appropriations. BoB and Treasury representatives objected to requesting

additional discretionary funds, while the JCS adviser objected to both

proposals. The chiefs confirmed this position to Secretary Wilson, arguing that an earmarked contingency fund might endanger the funding of

an orderly buildup toward worldwide objectives; they would agree to it

only if Congress were also asked to support their proposed $2.7 billion

military assistance package. As for the listed "problem countries," they

disapproved of the whole approach. 44

At the NSC meeting on 8 December, Admiral Radford restated the

JCS position. Individual countries should not be singled out for special

scrutiny because the force levels maintained by recipient countries

"derived directly from the national security policies of the United States,"

and not from their own particular needs and capabilities. If the resulting burden of support was more than the United States was prepared to

bear, then the policies themselves must be changed. Radford abandoned

the JCS corporate rejection of a presidential contingency fund but came

down in favor of an additive fund superimposed on appropriations for

specific aid. Also, it would be hard to convince countries like Korea,

Formosa, and TUrkey that they could be adequately defended by reducing

the forces which, their American patrons up to now had insisted, were the

minimum needed. Dulles agreed; the unwillingness of many countries to

rely on the deterrent power of the United States, he said, was the biggest

single difficulty in administering the aid program: "what they wanted

were visible military forces on their own soil." The ensuing discussion of

the matter ended when the president assured Wilson, who had erupted

in protest against using operating funds to increase the contingency

fund, that he would not press the issue. 45

With the decision to scrap the additive fund, the FY 1957 aid budget

reverted to its status quo ante. The more substantive issue of what to

do about the "problem countries," not one that could be solved overnight,

devolved on the Prochnow committee, whose labors could affect only
508 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

later budgets. To participants, the outcome of the council debate may

have looked like a successful hold-the-line effort by the president against

pressure, mainly from the Joint Chiefs, to raise the budget ceiling on the

eve of its submission to Congress. In a broader perspective, however, it

appeared rather different. During the late summer and fall, the administration had seemed to be leaning toward what one newspaper editorial

termed "pennywise" retrenchment in foreign aid. Hollister in November

floated the idea of withholding up to 20 percent of appropriated funds

to provide an emergency reserve. At the end of the month he and Dulles

publicly announced that the administration had no plans to increase

foreign aid as a counter to Soviet economic initiatives. 46

In fact, Gray and Hollister had already submitted to BoB a FY 1957

aid budget almost twice as large as the one Congress had recently voted

for FY 1956, with a military component almost three times as large. The

appropriations totals for the two budgets were as follows ($ billion):

FY 1956 FY 1957

MDAP 1.02 3.03

Non-military 1.68 1.90 -- Total 2.70 4.93

It was the biggest aid request in four years, and it is reasonable to

assume that Hollister had received his marching orders from the White

House. In economic aid, his own bailiwick, the increase was a modest

13 percent. The huge increase-for military assistance-from $1.02 billion

in FY 1956 to $3.03 billion-was a coup for Gray, who had successfully

argued that during the past two years the program had subsisted largely

on accumulated pipeline fat, spending far more than it received in new

money. In consequence the pipeline carryover of unspent funds, both

military and economic, had shrunk from $8.6 billion on 30 June 1954 to

$6.3 billion a year later and was expected to be about $4.7 billion at the

end of June 1956. Now it would be prudent to build it back up somewhat in order to finance the long lead-time materiel that consumed a

disproportionate part of the money. 47

New Weapons

In his budget message on 16 January 1956, the president mentioned

a new consideration in the effort to refill the military assistance

pipeline-a recently asserted requirement, mainly from NATO, for modern

weapons-jet aircraft, missiles, electronic systems-that involved long
Military Assistance 509

procurement lead times and disproportionately high costs. There was, of

course, more behind this than met the eye. Earlier, in September 1955, the

JCS, responding to a request from Gray, had provided a list of modern

materiel for NATO forces-mostly Army conventional weaponry that

might conceivably be programmed in FY 1957. The chiefs, however, made

it clear that they had no enthusiasm for making these weapons available

to NATO. Fundamentally, they contended that the "MDA programs

should furnish a readily available medium which supports and enhances

our own military readiness." As more advanced weapons became available

for operational use by u.s. forces, "the less modern counterparts should

be released to appropriate allies, especially ... where such release would

improve over-all allied readiness.,,48

In November the question of moderniZing NATO forces acquired

greater urgency and sharper focus. General Alfred Gruenther (SACEUR)

asked Secretary Wilson for immediate re-examination of military assistance aimed primarily at remedying NATO's most critical weakness-air

defense. This had become more pressing because of the appearance of a

new Soviet attack fighter capable of operating from grass runways and

the apparently synchronous building of several hundred unpaved satellite

air strips. More generally, Gruenther worried that the improvement and

expansion of Soviet attack capabilities provided an ominous backdrop to

the current Communist peace offensive that he feared was eroding the

willingness of Western European governments and peoples to pay the

heavy costs of increased defense preparations. A recent SHAPE study had

indicated that a modest infusion of new defensive technology-antiaircraft missiles and guns, early warning systems, and interceptor missiles

and aircraft-would pay substantial dividends in improved defensive

capabilities along the entire 4,000-mile front from Norway to Turkey.

Remarkably, Gruenther would accept reductions or deferments in

scheduled deliveries of more conventional materiel if Washington would

respond favorably to his request. 49

At the December 1955 meeting of the NATO Council of Ministers,

Dulles and Wilson discussed NATO's air defense needs with their allied

counterparts and how recently developed u.S. weaponry could improve

NATO's defense capabilities. The president's message to Congress on

16 January clearly signaled that Gruenther's appeal had been heard.

Wilson appointed an ad hoc committee representing the JCS, SACEUR,

/ USCINCEUR, and the military departments to look into providing advanced weapons for European defense. From its study there emerged in

February a priority list of weapons deliverable in 1958-60 if initial funding could come from the FY 1957 MDAP. For about $450 million applied
510 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

to the priority list, SHAPE could obtain F-84 atomic delivery kits, early

warning equipment, surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles, Matador missiles,

and Honest John rockets. 50

The Joint Chiefs had misgivings, fearing that some or all of the cost

might be taken from other MDAP allocations; consequently, they recommended an allocation of only $140 million for NATO modernization,

the amount Gruenther had said could be squeezed out of his existing

program for that purpose. They also raised the question of needs for

advanced weapons by other commands. On 2 March they urged Wilson

to consider carefully where this new course might be leading since

requests for new weapons were "constantly being raised by our Allies" as

well as by u.S. commanders and government officials. They recommended

the issuance of a policy statement to the military departments "embodying the major considerations in this field."51

In their grudging concession that new weapons might under certain

circumstances be released to allied forces, the chiefs were no doubt

prompted by Wilson's announcement the previous December 1955 at

the meeting of the North Atlantic Council of u.S. intention to provide

such weapons to NATO countries able to maintain and use them

effectively. Moreover, Gray had moved early in 1956 to preempt the

JCS, concerting with McNeil on issuance of a suitable policy statement.

At the end of February McNeil sent Wilson a draft statement, concurred

in by Gray, pointing out in a covering memorandum that the "considerable reluctance in certain military quarters" to provide new weapons to

NATO allies stemmed from fear of restriction of their own acceSs to

these weapons if they could not '''unload' their obsolescent material

through the Military Assistance Program, and use the reimbursements

freely for their own purposes." The policy statement issued by Wilson

on 9 March warned against using the MAP as a dumping ground for

obsolescent weapons. 52

Whatever the chiefs' fears, the president ignored them. His special

message to Congress on 19 March 1956 promoting the FY 1957 mutual

security budget gave special mention to helping allies develop more

effective defenses. The program would provide "advanced weapons

systems, including missiles, now being procured for our troops" -purely

defensive weapons, he assured the legislators, no threat to peaceful

neighbors. Of the $530 million requested for advanced weapons, NATO

would receive $195 million, with the remainder distributed later where

it could be effectively employed. 53
Military Assistance 511

Through the Congressional Wringer

The FY 1957 bill submitted to Congress requested authorization of

$4.672 billion and an appropriation of $4.860 billion.* Following the

tactic of the two preceding years, the actual magnitude of economic aid

was obscured by grouping defense support with military assistance and

direct forces support in an ostensibly "military" Title I, labeled Mutual

Defense Assistance, with a requested appropriation of $4.1 billion,

although ICA still administered defense support along with the other

economic and technical aid, while DoD administered only military

assistance. This arrangement left less than $800 million burdened by

the invidious label "economic," although, this year even more than the

last, actual economic aid was the main focus of the president's concern.

Thus, while the ostensible ratio of military to economic aid was 85 to 15,

actually it was 62 to 38. 54

During two months of hearings beginning on 20 March the House

Foreign Affairs Committee heard persuasive arguments from many

administration blue-ribbon spokesmen for the needs of the three major

geographical areas competing for the $3 billion in requested military aid.

Especially alarming was General Gruenther's grim description of NATO's

primitive and uncoordinated national air defense systems (possibly

effective as long as enemy bombers operated in daylight only from 8 to

4 o'clock daily,S days a week, and no higher than 20,000 feet!). It soon

became apparent that for most committee members the real obstacle was

the size of the authorization request-far larger than in FY 1956-and

the unconvincing rationale for it, the alleged need to refill the pipeline.

Moreover, the proposed distribution of the new funds reflected a continuing priority on Europe that many considered outdated. 55

The committee killed a proposed amendment for a huge cut and

ultimately reported out on 23 Maya bill authoriZing only $1.925 billion

for military assistance, a billion less than requested, and took another

$109 million from economic aid, a total cut of more than $1.1 billion.

The House proceeded to vote down an amendment to restore all the cuts

by so large a margin that no count was called for. The crucial (not the

final) vote, rejecting an amendment to restore $600 million, was a stunning defeat for the president, aligning a majority of both parties against

him, the first time gallery veterans could recall that the House had

refused an appeal from the president and the leadership of both parties.

• The request for an appropriation larger than the authorization was explained by the fact

that certain requested appropriations (e.g., NATO infrastructure)' were continuing programs authorized in prior years.
512 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Administration strategists saw in the Senate their only hope of forcing

a more tolerable compromise. 56

The action now shifted to the Senate, where on 13 June the Foreign

Relations Committee, its own hearings completed, began to mark up

the House bill. The auguries were not good. Two days before, members

of the Appropriations Committee had heard a sensational briefing by

SAC Commander General Curtis LeMay on his new requirements for

bombers, tankers, bases, etc., to meet the resurgent threat of Soviet airpower. Estimated FY 1957 costs came to many billions. The senators

remained deeply divided on restoring all or part of the cuts, and some

wanted deeper cuts. In the authorization committee most members

leaned toward some restoration of the House cuts, but a large minority

supported the House bill in full. An amendment restored to DoD the $600

million the administration had failed to obtain from the House. 57

On the Senate floor the authorization bill passed by a comfortable

majority on the 29th. Secretary Dulles promptly but prematurely declared

victory, subject of course to passage by the appropriations committees

and full House concurrence. On 7 July conferees of the two houses

ritually sliced precisely in half the $600 million difference between the

two bills and compromised on a $2.225 billion authorization for military

assistance, $800 million less than the administration's request. 58

Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee began work, having

decided not to wait for an approved authorization bill. Rejecting the administration's contention that unexpended funds from past appropriations

were too firmly committed to be applied to FY 1957 and later requirements, the committee staff noted that the unexpended balance was

probably adequate to cover two years at the FY 1956 spending rates.

Weighing all this, the committee on 4 July voted a larger appropriations

cut-$1.265 billion-in military aid than the $1 billion cut in the House

authorization bill, while making small additional cuts in economic aid.

These excisions brought the military assistance appropriation down to

$1.735 billion, 42 percent less than requested and the total requested

appropriation down to $3.425 billion, 30 percent less than originally asked.

Without serious opposition, the House, on 11 July, passed the committee

bill, 284 to 120.59

In the Senate Appropriations Committee the pendulum swung in

support of the foreign aid bill. After hearing final pleas from Dulles and

Radford to restore the cuts inflicted by the House, the committee moved

swiftly on 13 July to bring the appropriation in line with the recently

passed authorization, voting 13 to 8 for an appropriation of $4.105

billion, including $2.3 billion for military assistance. Although well above
Military Assistance 513

the House figures, these amounts still fell far short of the administration's

original and now tacitly abandoned requests. 60 After a sometimes bitter

floor fight the Senate approved the bill on 24 July. The conference report

with the customary fifty-fifty splits was sent to the two houses the next

day. It provided $2.017 billion for military assistance in a total of $3.766

billion for all security assistance-about $1 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively, under the president's requests. The Senate went along without

a murmur. In the less complaisant House some representatives lamented

the indignities inflicted on the president's requests and pronounced the

outcome "a very serious calculated risk." After final House passage on

26 July, Eisenhower approved the bill on 31 JUly.61

Foreign Aid Prognosis: Poor

The deep congressional cut in the president's FY 1957 aid request

was half of a double dose of bad news. The other half was the almost

simultaneous arrival at the end of July of an unrelievedly gloomy report

by the Prochnow committee on the six "problem" aid-receiving countriesIran, Korea, Pakistan, Turkey, Formosa, and Vietnam. These countries, which

in FY 1956 had received 54 percent of all of the mutual security and 58

percent of the military assistance money, suffered from the unlucky circumstance that they were strategically important but economically poor.

Regarded as indispensable to the defense of the free world, they seemed

to require inordinate and increasing infusions of American military and

economic aid to achieve and maintain even a precarious, probably

inadequate defense capability. Could the dilemma be resolved or mitigated by a different balance and phasing of military and economic aidideally by a heavier emphasis on relatively cheap economic aid and a

sharp reduction in relatively expensive military aid?62

For FY 1956 the six countries accounted for $1.7 billion of the $2.7

billion of foreign aid appropriations, plus $400 million carried over

from prior years. In the FY 1957 administration proposal, $2.1 billion of

the almost $4.9 billion requested was earmarked for them. Looking

ahead, the committee estimated that the six would require American aid

of $1.6 billion to $2.5 billion annually through 1960 to support their

existing forces along with minimum economic development. Without

American aid none could sustain an effective military force. They would

be unable to complete the buildup now under way or, indeed, to prevent

its rapid deterioration. This outcome could be averted only if their governments imposed austere consumption standards and reduced public
514 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

services. Such measures clearly were not in the cards, and on other

grounds some of them were not even desirable. 63

The committee made no explicit recommendations but offered several

options: continue assistance along current lines, increase or reduce economic development (as opposed to budgetary) aid, or reduce military aid.

An increase in military aid was conspicuously omitted, but the analysis of

the no-change option was laced with warnings of rising costs and possible

additional requirements such as modern weapons and support for the

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) or the Baghdad Pact that

implicitly stigmatized it as unviable. A cutback in military aid seemed

fraught with dire political and military consequences and likely to produce negligible economic benefits. Reduction in economic aid, similarly,

would retard economic growth and ultimately lead to retrogression,

while creating domestic instability, weakening resistance to Communist

penetration, and undermining confidence in American promises and

professed aims. In the long run, even without a reduction in military aid,

the capacity to support military forces would be sapped. 64

Prochnow's personal report on 27 July to his boss, Secretary Dulles,

omitted the ambiguities of the committee report and presented his own

conclusions. Writing as deputy undersecretary of state for economic

affairs rather than as committee chairman, he had no doubts as to the

correct course of action. The current outlook was bleak and the military

objectives were "beyond the capacity of the countries themselves to

develop or, with the possible exception of Iran, to maintain .... In general, we are supporting the budgets and balance of payments of these

countries." The national military establishments thus supported were a

heavy burden on them. Budgetary support, a large part of military aid,

was difficult to reduce without provoking severe adverse reactions. This

was especially unfortunate since the military programs showed little sign

of having been modified in recognition of changing conditions such

as the advent of new weapons or moderating Soviet bloc policies.

"The longer we support budgets and balance of payments the greater

would seem to be the problem of reducing our aid, since our support

will tend to be more and more built into the budgets of these countries

as anticipated income." Prochnow recommended "a negotiated adjustment downward in military aid" along with greater emphasis on economic

development financed from the resulting savings. This was the solution the

committee had, in effect, been created to justify, but Prochnow's enthusiasm for it was tempered. 6s

The NSC took up the Prochnow committee report late in October.

Prochnow's personal report to Dulles remained private, and neither he
Military Assistance 515

nor Dulles alluded to it or its contents during the meeting. Prochnow

presented the alternative courses of action the committee had defined:

continue the program unchanged, reduce or increase economic development aid, or cut military aid. Finally, coming to the brink of his own

recommendations to Dulles, he posed the principal issues that seemed

to emerge: (1) Had the premises underlying the original program been

modified by later developments? (2) Did the concept and execution of

the program tend to "force us into a posture of inflexibility?" (3) Had

we achieved "the best possible balance between our military and our

economic assistance programs?,,66

In the ensuing discussion, the report drew faint praise and blunt criticism, although the absence of substantive comment suggested that few

of those present had read it. Gray (who obviously had read the report)

called it a "step forward" toward a solution that was not yet in sight, but

he thought the committee "had neither the competence nor the authority to evaluate much more than the budgetary implications of the courses

of actions which it had analyzed." He considered the individual country

approach faulty to begin with; he hoped the president would direct that

the whole foreign aid picture be considered in any decisions on aid to

particular countries. Dulles agreed with Gray that only the NSC could

make the big decisions on foreign aid. 67

The discussion left the Prochnow committee report far behind as a

narrowly focused study of limited application in the complex world of

foreign aid. The thrust of the report-toward a shift of emphasis from

military to economic development aid-seemed not to have been fully

grasped; Dulles did not mention Prochnow's personal proposal to this

effect and the question of striking a proper balance between military

and economic aid, one of the "issues" listed by Prochnow in his introduction, did not come up. Nevertheless, the idea of restructuring foreign aid

in some way as a means of reducing its cost was not far below the surface.

Winding down the discussion, the president said the Joint Chiefs should

report the minimum level of indigenous forces needed to meet U.S.

security demands in Pakistan, Turkey, Formosa, and Iran (Korea's force

levels were already under study); in this way it might be possible, he

hoped, to "gradually approach" an answer to foreign aid. The council

directed the Planning Board to recommend revisions in the aid program

for these four countries and Korea. 68

What remained unanswered but must have been in every mind was

the domestic dimension of the issue, the deepening resentment and disenchantment felt by the American public toward foreign aid. For months

the "revolt against foreign aid" had been a leading topic of journalistic
516 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW. LOOK

comment-"by far the most significant phenomenon," wrote the Alsop

brothers in July, "of the otherwise dull session of Congress now drawing

to a close." Its most direct and accurate reflection was, of course, the

speeches and votes in Congress. The House, for the first time in memory,

had said "no" to the president and to the majority and minority leaders

by voting crippling cuts. Analysts pointed to various probable causes,

recalling that even in the glory days of the Marshall Plan popular support

had been lukewarm, and members of Congress had always received mail

complaining of foreign "giveaways." The mystique of the Marshall Plan

had faded as the countries it had helped to salvage in the aftermath of

the war recovered and prospered. Communism had become a global and

not merely a European threat, demanding both defense and foreign aid

outlays that dwarfed those of the early postwar years. Voters, resentful

of countries that demanded more and more aid, criticized American

policies and suspected American motives. Aid spokesmen warned that

the current Soviet "peace campaign" was fraudulent and a mask for old

sinister designs, that the threat had not diminished.

In the Marshall Plan days, the Alsops declared, "the need for foreign aid

was at least defended with zest and conviction, whereas this year [1956]

the defense has been about as formal, dispirited and inept as it is possible to imagine. Meanwhile the need for any real effort abroad has been

consistently undercut by official protestations that every day in every

way everything is getting better and better. Under the circumstances, it

is surprising that the revolt has not cut deeper than it has.,,69

This unduly harsh judgment did not do justice to the efforts of

Eisenhower and Dulles. They remained committed to the need for foreign

aid to countries facing actual or potential threats to their existence and

staunchly defended the policy against attacks from within the administration as well as from without. In the continuum of foreign policy from

Truman to Eisenhower and succeeding administrations throughout the

cold war, foreign aid remained an essential pillar of U.S. strategy for combating the Communist threat.
CHAPTER XXIII

Indochina: Roots of Engagement

As late as January 1953 the "other Asian war," France's grueling sixyear-old conflict in Indochina, had only casual interest for the American

public, not yet an American war nor a significant burden on the American

taxpayer. Ho Chi Minh's revolution against French colonialism in Southeast

Asia and the portents of recent bloody battles in Vietnamese jungles were

shunted to the back pages of American newspapers, behind reports of

ongoing hostilities and truce negotiations in Korea. Within weeks this

would change dramatically.

The American Dilemma

Two conflicting strains pervaded U.S. policy toward French Indochina

after World War II: dislike of European colonialism and fear of aggressive

communism. The anticolonial strain engendered sympathy with the

nationalist revolution in Indochina, or at least inhibited support for

French efforts to quell it and dictated conditions for that supportprimarily pledges from the French that they would accelerate the granting of independence to the Indochinese. Anticommunism, on the other

hand, fostered suspicion of, and antipathy toward, the revolution because

its top leaders were Communists, who clearly controlled its policy and

administration. Ardent anti-Communists thus tended to discount the

nationalist aims and motivation of the insurgent Viet Minh and to equate

support for France with resistance to a Communist conquest of Southeast Asia.!

The French returned to Saigon in 1945 with American acquiescence

though not active support. The following spring they were back in Hanoi,

517
518 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

by agreement with the occupying Chinese forces and the Viet Minh

leader, Ho Chi Minh, who in 1945 had ejected the Japanese puppet ruler,

Bao Dai, and proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV).

The French recognized the DRV as a free state within the French Union,

but the agreement soon broke down. Open hostilities erupted in December 1946.,

While clamoring for American help, the French fiercely resented

American efforts to win concessions for the Vietnamese nationalists.

Their most effective weapon, then and later, was exploitation of the growing American fear of communism, not only in Asia but of more immediate

concern, in Europe, where the French Communist Party was a powerful

political force. With the onset of the cold war in the late 1940s, U.S. foreign policy increasingly took on the character and motivation of an

anticommunist crusade, perceiving the Kremlin as the nerve center of

the threat, with Europe its prime target. By 1953 Europe seemed for the

present relatively secure. In China, by the end of 1949 Mao Tse-tung's revolution had driven Chiang Kai-shek with the remnants of his army to offshore Formosa, and Mao's Communist armies stood on the border of

Indochina. A third of humanity was now "lost" to the enemy, placing

illimitable power at the disposal of the master-strategists in the Kremlin.

Indochina appeared the likely next victim, with Thailand and Burma just

beyond, and in June 1950 North Korean Communist armies invaded their

southern neighbor. In June 1952 the NSC warned that Chinese Communist efforts to control any of the countries of Southeast Asia would, if

not promptly countered, "probably lead to relatively swift submission to

or an alignment with communism by the remaining countries of this

group."2 The "domino theory" thus became official, and the lingering anticolonial bias in Washington was increasingly submerged by this growing

sense of peril.

Ruling out any alignment with Ho Chi Minh, Washington pinned its

hopes on the so-called "Bao Dai solution" as a means of building native

barriers to communism while avoiding the stigma of propping up an

archaic colonial regime. In 1949 the French had installed Bao Dai, former

emperor of Annam, as ruler of an autonomous Vietnamese state compriSing Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina, in an Indochinese federation with

the French Union. France retained control of the new state's armed forces

and foreign policy and much of its administration as well. Washington

formally recognized the three Associated States of Indochina-Vietnam,

Laos, and Cambodia-on 7 February 1950, soon after Moscow and Peiping

recognized Ho Chi Minh's government and the French National Assembly

ratified the agreement setting up the Bao Dai regime. The first U.S. aid
Indochina: Roots of Engagement 519

survey mission left for Indochina that same month, and on 1 May President

Truman approved $10 million in military assistance for the federated states,

the first droplet of a flood that by the end of 1952 had swelled to almost

$335 million in shipped war materieP

Bao Dai was, unfortunately, no solution, and after three years hardly

anyone so regarded him. He was the antithesis of his adversary, the ascetic

and iron-willed Ho Chi Minh-indecisive, excessively shy and given to

chronic depression, afflicted with a liver ailment, recurrent malaria, and

poor vision, but nevertheless something of an athlete and fond of the

fleshpots. Many of his most trusted associates had grown rich from the

vice and corruption of high colonial society; he himself enjoyed a substantial income fro)ll the same sources. Genuine patriots like Ngo Dinh

Diem refused to serve him. In short, Bao Dai was totally unfit to capture the

imagination and win the allegiance of the Vietnamese people. He so distrusted his own people that he feared an expanded Vietnamese army

might go over en masse to the Viet Minh.

The United States, having reluctantly endorsed Bao Dai, saw no practicable alternative to supporting him. As time passed and the flow of

American dollars and materiel expanded, the "slippery slope" of deepening involvement grew steeper. The parallel, but much larger, American

involvement in Korea enabled France to claim the role of deserving and

needy partner in the widespread war against Asian communism, along

with that of indispensable ally in Europe. The United States supported

Bao Dai essentially because France did, and the supposition was that

France had to be supported in this, as in other matters, lest the French

abandon the effort altogether and leave the United States to face the unwinning choice between taking France's place or allowing the Communists to sweep over all of Southeast Asia. 4

Western political rhetoric portrayed the three ongoing conflicts in

Korea, Indochina, and Malaya* as a single East Asian front, directed on

the Communist side from field headquarters in Peiping and masterminded

in the Kremlin. 5 Yet each was very much its own kind of war, and the one

in Indochina was probably the most complex of the three. Without fixed

fronts or even a clear distinction between front and rear, it was waged over

immense, trackless distances and forbidding terrain-a war of maneuver,

ambushes, patrols, and long overland movements, a war of small engagements without number and occasional bloody, protracted battles involving

concentrations of division size on both sides. The French exploited their

monopoly of airpower and superior firepower with isolated forward

* The British fought and defeated Communist insurgency inMalaya between 1948 and 1954.
520 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

airfields, air- and riverine-supply, wire-and-concrete field fortifications,

and artillery bases; the Viet Minh used to advantage their manpower,

off-road maneuverability, and popular support. 6

For the duration of the war, the French and loyal Indochinese forces

outnumbered their adversaries. In the spring of 1953 the French Expeditionary Corps (FEC) numbered 171,500, of whom almost one-third were

native Indochinese, backed by 126,000 regional troops, against an estimated 123,000 Viet Minh regulars and 62,000 full-time regional forces.

But any numerical superiority was nullified by dispersion of French

forces, partly a consequence of the futile attempt to dominate territory,

partly also of a defensive strategy and psychology. From a half to twothirds of the FEC was tied down in static defense duties, mostly in the

Red River Delta. 7

For the French, even as their military capabilities had increased, the

war had gone mostly downhill since some victories in 1951. Jean De

Lattre de Tassigny was the first and last really effective top military commander the French dared to put at risk in the Indochina morass, perhaps

fearing that even their best might not survive a contest with the redoubtable Viet Minh commander, Vo Nguyen Giap.* De Lattre died of cancer in France in January 1952. Most of the major battles and campaignsdefeats and a few expensive victories-cost the French as heavily as the

enemy, and the infiltration of the Delta continued. By the end of 1952,

outside the Delta the French held only isolated outposts and a few forward airfields and coastal enclaves.s

In 1953 the flow of American aid to Indochina, already substantial

in 1952, accelerated still more. In September 1952 DoD had raised combat requirements to a Korea-level priority, partly as a result of wasteful

French maintenance procedures. Overall, deliveries in 1952 totaled slightly more than 300,000 tons for the year, compared with about 239,000 tons

from the launching of the program in 1950 to the end of 1951.

In 1953 the total of ocean-borne shipments reached 367,000 tons for

the year, virtually eliminating materiel shortages among French Union

forces. American materiel shipped to Indochina, valued at $334.7 million

at the end of 1952, had grown to $616.8 million a year later. The

cumulative total of shipments by the end of 1953 included 1,359 tanks

and combat vehicles, 21,842 trucks, 169,508 small arms and machine

guns, 4,100 artillery pieces, over 275,000,000 rounds of small arms and

artillery ammunition, 309 naval vessels, and 375 aircraft. 9

• Giap, a law graduate of Hanoi University and later a leader of the Indochinese Communist Party, fled to China and joined Ho Chi Minh at the beginning of World War II. As a

Vietnamese patriot he had an abiding hatred for both the Chinese and the French,

enhanced in the latter case by the death of his wife and her sister in a French prison.
Indochina: Roots of Engagement 521

The Letourneau Plan

The changing of the guard in Washington in January 1953 caused no

significant break of continuity in the handling of the Indochina crisis.

President Eisenhower came to the White House already oriented toward

the Far East by a party platform and campaign rhetoric castigating his

predecessor's alleged neglect of that region, and with impressions freshened by his highly publicized recent visit to Korea. Secretary of State

Dulles, a veteran diplomatist and student of foreign affairs with long

experience in the Far East, was well qualified to take on the Indochina

problem. In Defense, where neither Secretary Wilson nor his deputy Roger

Kyes could claim expertise in foreign affairs, they quickly immersed

themselves in budgetary and internal management, leaving Assistant

Secretary Frank Nash, one of the leading holdovers in OSD, to conduct

DoD international matters virtually without interference.

The president's State of the Union address on 2 February linked the

Korean War with the ongoing conflicts in Indochina and Malaya and the

beleaguerment of Formosa in the worldwide struggle against communism. 10 Early in February, Dulles and the new director for mutual security,

Harold E. Stassen, met in Paris with French Premier Rene Mayer and

Foreign Minister Georges Bidault. Discussion of Indochina was brief but

pointed. Mayer reminded his visitors of a recent NorthAtlantic Council resolution favoring NATO support of France's effort in Indochina. American

assistance there, added Mayer, would help France make a military contribution to NATO sufficient to prevent her from being "submerged" militarily

by Germany in Europe. 11

Dulles now regarded the Indochina crisis as more menacing than

the Korean, since the consequences of losing that area to communism

could not be localized. The word from Paris was that Mayer would present

large new requests for aid for the expanding armed forces of the Associated Indochina States., which, along with an unreinforced FEC, were

expected to be the principal instrument of French strategy in that area

during the next three years. Under the program launched by De Lattre

and Bao Daiearly in 1952 the Vietnamese army had expanded to a nominal

100,000 regulars plus about 50,000 suppletifs (auxiliaries), with a unit

strength of 40 battalions. The projected grand total for all forces by 1955

including Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and the French Expeditionary Corps

(army, navy, and air force) of about 180,000, with 104,000 suppletifs, came

to almost 557,000 menY

Seizing the initiative at the opening meeting with visiting French

Premier Mayer on 26 March aboard the Navy's yacht Williamsburg, the

president advised him to emphasize, in any public speeches he might make
522 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

during his stay, that the struggle in Indochina was "not merely a French

colonial effort," which regrettably many Americans thought it was. Until

the American public was convinced that the Indochinese would win

political autonomy in the present struggle, it would "be extremely difficult to do more than we are doing at present to help the French in IndoChina.,,13 Now on the defensive, the French presented their national armies

proposal as the core of their political policy and military strategy. Independence already granted to the Associated States in principle was "now

being completed through the development of national armies." Popular

support for the Bao Dai regime in Vietnam, they said, was visibly growing,

as demonstrated by the heavy turnout and the rejection of Communist

candidates in the January local elections and by the large numbers of

volunteers, including officer candidates, for the army.14

The French minister for the Associated States, Jean Letourneau, then

outlined a broad strategic concept designed to defeat the Viet Minh in

1955. It included force and operational data and estimates of added costs

for calendar years 1953-55. The grand total of additional aid to be assumed

by the United States through calendar 1955 came to $730.1 million. 15 At

a farewell plenary meeting with the French at the White House on the

28th, the president declined to make a commitment to support the

Letourneau plan but stated that this did not mean a refusal. Understandably, Mayer was taken aback. During the closing ceremonies, Mayer

remarked that since military requirements for the Letourneau plan were

not yet firm, perhaps the details could be worked out in Saigon with

U.S. military officers sent by the Pentagon for the purpose. Whether or

not he so intended, the French premier seemed to be proposing what

successive French governments had heretofore rejected: American participation in French operational planning. 16

Laos:A New Theater?

The French visit did not change understandings concerning the

prosecution of the war-the Americans dissatisfied but resigned, the

French anxious but defiant. Post-mortems during the week following the

talks reflected the feeling on the American side that, despite its imperfections, there was really no practicable alternative to supporting the

Letourneau plan. The only alternative was to accept a stalemate, which in

the long run would favor the Viet Minh. 17

On 9 April the Viet Minh launched their expected spring offensive,

striking south from Dien Bien Phu into Laos and west and southwest
Indochina: Roots of Engagement 523

toward Thailand and Burma. During most of April the French high

command seemed to regard the Viet offensive as a relatively limited foray

without ambitious objectives. Only late in the month did the convergence

of three divisions on the main centers of resistance in northern Laos

precipitate a confused and panicky redeployment of reserves to oppose

it. On 7 May, facing stiffened French defenses, Giap ordered the bulk of

his forces back to Tonkin. 18

At the height of the crisis in late April many American officials, including Admiral Radford, commander in chief Pacific (CINCPAC), and others

presumably as well informed, feared the worst. The president confessed

that his former confidence in ultimate French victory had "now been

shattered" by the demonstrated failure of the French to win the support of

the Indochinese people. A convinced domino theorist, he feared that if

Laos were lost, "the gateway to India, Burma, and Thailand would be open."

Radford urged renewed pressure on the French to reinforce the FEe. 19

However, the only tangible American response to the crisis was to extend

the loan of 13 C-47 transports and to lend 6 of the much larger C-119

Flying Boxcars.2o

In their formal evaluation of the Letourneau plan on 21 April, as

the Laotian crisis was approaching its climax, the Joint Chiefs criticized

it as insufficiently aggressive, strategically oriented south instead of

north, and too reliant on small-unit operations. Although they felt the

French lacked "determination and vigor," they thought the plan "workable."21 Uncertain whether all this added up to "yes" or "no," and since

Dulles and Wilson and other top officials were already in Paris for the

NATO meetings, State Department Director of Policy Planning Paul Nitze

asked the JCS to review the bidding. The meeting surfaced strong opinions but still failed to produce a clear verdict. "JCS views suggest

caution," Acting Secretary Bedell Smith cabled Dulles; the Joint Chiefs

were unlikely to approve the plan unless the French amended it to meet

their reservations. 22

Dulles had come to Paris prepared to take a sympathetic view of

France's financial difficulties in the context of NATO problems, and

perhaps even to offer some concessions on aid in Indochina. But after

receiving Nitze's cable from Washington with its inconclusive "maybe"

verdict, he reminded the French that the aid program for Indochina would

have to be defended before Congress, which would be strongly influenced by U.S. military experts who were "not ... wholly satisfied" with

the Letourneau plan. In his closing remarks Dulles echoed the theme the

president had stressed in the Washington talks: the war effort "must

commend itself to the Congress and the American people."23
524 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The French aid proposals were treated more gently. Dulles accepted

the need for additional assistance and offered up to $560 million in aid

for FY 1954 that would underwrite more than 40 percent of the current

annual costs of the Indochina war. But the blank left for the financing of

the Letourneau plan remained unfilled: the United States would finance

an unspecified "moderate" portion of a "mutually agreed additional

French effort."24

As the Laotian crisis moved toward its climax and abrupt resolution, Eisenhower made a determined effort with Premier Mayer to

promote the replacement of General Raoul Salan as commander in

Indochina. He proposed two candidates who were either unavailable or

unacceptable. On 7 May Mayer publicly named Lt. Gen. Henri Navarre to

replace Salan as commander in chief in Indochina. Navarre was not one

of France's more distinguished senior generals and had never served in

Indochina. Regarded as weak, indecisive, and reclusive by many U.S. officers in NATO who had known him, he was widely perceived as a "tame"

sacrificial offering by his government in a doomed overseas post. Mayer,

on the other hand, had known him in Germany and Algeria, and regarded

him as a "strong leader who will see things objectively."25

The First O'Daniel Mission

The advent of a virtually unknown commander of French-Vietnamese

forces did little to relieve the gloom in Washington. It was now evident

that Premier Mayer could not command or induce the consensus at

home needed to deal effectively with France's domestic and foreign difficulties. On 21 May the Mayer government fell and Letourneau departed

with it, marking the end of a phase in the Indochina problem. 26

Congressional displeasure with the magnitude of the FY 1954 aid

request for Indochina and newspaper reports of blatant corruption in

Indochina, together with charges that enough American war materiel

had found its way into the hands of the Viet Minh to arm 40 battalions

over a period of 14 months, led OSD to consider a proposal to send a

"high-level State-Defense survey group" to Indochina to consult with

General Navarre and assess the situation. Nash applauded the idea and

advised that the mission be given a broad charter to include political

meetings with high French officials in Paris. 27

Premier Mayer's ambiguous offer at the end of the Washington talks

to permit American technical participation in operational planning for

the Letourneau plan offered the opening to send such a mission. The
Indochina: Roots of Engagement 525

State Department proposed to send a high-level military group with

State representation to seek to determine how "American assistance can

best be fitted into workable plans for aggressive pursuit of hostilities

under present circumstances," aiming at assuring a "firm prospect ·of

reversing current military trend by beginning of next fighting season."

Although the Mayer government fell before the proposal could be discussed, State approved it with little delay on 2 June. By the 10th, Lt. Gen.

John W ("Iron Mike") O'Daniel, u.S. Army commander in the Pacific, a

"soldier's soldier" and veteran of three wars, had been named to head the

mission, reporting through CINCPAC to the Joint Chiefs. It would have

two officers each from the Army, Navy, and Air Force and a State Department representative. Two days later, Secretary Wilson approved the terms

of reference, drawn up by the Joint Chiefs in collaboration with State.2&

According to a Mutual Security Agency official who talked with

O'Daniel soon after his appointment, the real purpose of the mission was

to determine to what extent the United States "should have some say in

how this effort is to be directed." The American visitors would most want

to learn what had been so difficult to pry from Mayer and Letourneau

during the Washington talks-the current state of French planning for

the conduct of the war. O'Daniel was to seek detailed knowledge of

French military plans, the chances for and timing of final victory, and "the

adequacy of coordination of programmed aid with military p1anning."29

Fact-finding did not require the skills, or even the presence, of a threestar general. O'Daniel's mission was really somewhat broader and more

delicate. He was expected to persuade the French of the need for more

aggressive strategy and tactics, early initiation of guerrilla warfare, a

modernized and expanded training program, prompt transfer of leadership responsibility to the Associated States, and accelerated training of

native military leaders. Finally, he was to urge the French, once again, to

issue at the appropriate time a "clear and well advertised enunciation"

of their future position in Indochina. 30

O'Daniel arrived in Saigon with a small entourage on 20 June and

plunged immediately into intense briefings and discussions with Navarre

and his staff. Navarre and O'Daniel seemed to get along well together.

O'Daniel's initial report on 30 June confirmed that Navarre's strategy,

while resembling the old Letourneau plan, had improved the timetable

somewhat by providing for aggressive local actions in the Tonkin area

followed by a strategic offensive there about mid-September. 31

After three weeks O'Daniel wrapped up the mission and departed.

His final report, dated 14 July, sustained the optimistic tone of the earlier

one. The Navarre Plan, characterized as a "new aggressive concept,"
526 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

comprised four features: (1) starting immediately, a series of mostly

guerrilla actions-outside the Delta perimeter, in northern, southern,

and western Annam; (2) launching, by 15 September, a three-division

offensive in Tonkin; (3) formation of a battle corps from forces recovered

from quiet areas; and (4) development of the Associated States' armies,

with greater native leadership responsibility in the conduct of operations. Two new divisions were to be requested from French forces outside Indochina to reinforce the FEC, adding weight to the fall offensive. 32

O'Daniel's appraisal of the Navarre plan reflected a curious mixture of

optimism and pessimism. He still believed that the forces already available

to Navarre could win, if properly led and organized into regiments and

divisions. But he conceded that this was improbable, since the French

were unlikely to undertake the required but admittedly risky force redispositions planned, and probably were incapable of the psychological

adjustments that would also be required. He made a strong plea for

American support of Navarre's request to Paris for a short-term loan of

two divisions, but hastened to add there was "no deficit of force in Indochina." He thought that the new command would decisively defeat the

Viet Minh by 1955. Two more divisions from France would "expedite"

that outcome. 33

When the chiefs questioned O'Daniel in person on 17 July he told

them that Navarre considered the two divisions an absolute prerequisite

for "an all-out attack this fall." Without them, the campaign would be set

back six months to a year. This statement amounted to a revision of

O'Daniel's three-day-old report in which he had unequivocally predicted

a decisive defeat of the Viet Minh in 1955, even earlier if the FEC were

reinforced. Now O'Daniel said that unless Navarre was reinforced, victory

would be delayed for up to a year. 34

Still, O'Daniel remained confident that, with or without reinforcements, the French would ultimately win. Having failed to convince Navarre

that he should squeeze a five-division (or larger) battle corps out of his

available scattered forces in order to seize and retain the initiative in

Tonkin through the 1953-54 campaigning season, O'Daniel seemingly had

concluded that with only a three-division force Navarre could perform

the same feat against the enemy's undiminished eight-division battle

corps. With two more divisions from France, the 1953-54 offensives would

presumably be bigger and better and final victory would come sooner.

A State Department position paper on the eve of the foreign ministers'

talks with the French in Washington in mid-July warned that the twodivision reinforcement was indispensable. 35
Indochina: Roots of Engagement 527

New Team in Paris

By this time the revolving door of French politics had brought a

new government to power in Paris. On 27 June the National Assembly

invested Joseph Laniel as prime minister. Laniel was a comparative

unknown and, perhaps for that reason, he won acceptance by an overwhelming majority (398-206). On 3 July, the government announced that,

with recognition of the independence of the Associated States in the 1949

accords and subsequent development of a brotherhood of arms and civil

governmental institutions, there was now a basis for "perfecting" their

independence and sovereignty. In Saigon the reaction was skeptical. 36

In France, the public demand to end the war, sharpened by the

prospect of an armistice in Korea, had become "almost uncontrollable."

Satisfaction of Navarre's demand for more troops was "out of the question."

In ministerial talks in Washington, 10-14 July, the crucial issue was the

French demand that the expected peace negotiations in Korea be broadened to accommodate a negotiated settlement of the Indochina war in a

comprehensive Far East settlement. Dulles would not oppose it, but he

thought it unlikely that the other participants would be receptive after

a conference dominated by "Korean problems and personalities." Foreign

Minister Bidault offered the simple imperative that the French people

were fed up with the war and "want the same for Indochina that is being

achieved in Korea."37

Dulles reminded him that negotiations, in whatever form, must be

from strength not weakness. The best way to end the war, he advised,

was as the Americans were attempting to do in Korea-"to make the

other side want to end it" -and he recalled the thinly disguised preparations in the spring to use atomic weapons in Korea.* The Navarre

plan might serve the same purpose. That, Bidault retorted, might cut both

ways; it would be easier to send Navarre the troops he needed "if the

people in France see a possible end to the war ... through negotiations."

Also, there was a difference between a threat of atomic destruction and a

threat to send more troops to the theater. Bidault could only insist that "a

way to do something about Indochina" must be found. Conclusion of the

mid-July foreign ministers' talks left all the important issues still hanging.

On 29 July Laniel divulged to U.S. Ambassador Douglas Dillon his response

to the crisis. Now determined "to win the war," he had decided to grant

Navarre about 9 of the 12 battalions he had requested. t Coming to the

* It was agreed that the discussion of the American threat to use atomic weapons in

Korea would not be released to the press.

t The reduction of the original two-division request had occurred during the past two

weeks of negotiation. As late as the 17th the JCS were still talking of two divisions.
528 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

point, he said the whole plan would collapse if his request for additional

aid were rebuffed. The government or its successor would have no choice

but to withdraw from Indochina. He had instructed Navarre to prepare a

plan for this eventuality. 38

Laniel's overture brought a prompt response from Washington in the

person of Douglas MacArthur II, counselor to the State Department, who

arrived in Paris on the 29th as the president's personal emissary. Reporting to Washington on the ensuing tense discussions, Dillon and MacArthur

stressed that, without the requested help, Laniel's "chances of lasting

much beyond October are not bright, and he will probably be replaced

by a government which will be willing to let Indochina go down the

drain." State now moved promptly, bringing the proposal for additional

support before the National Security Council on 6 August for tentative

approval after clearance by the Joint Chiefs and FOA. The additional budgetary help required for FY 1954 would bring the total of American aid to

France for that year to $829 million, about half of the total budgeted cost

of the war. The NSC recommended that the French proposal be explored,

and if it looked promising, implemented. 39 Pronouncing Navarre's program sufficiently promising to warrant providing the additional aid

requested, Radford, for the JCS, supported it in a memo to Wilson on

28 August with mild reservations. 40

Laniel and Bidault had been told emphatically, as had Mayer and

Letourneau before them, that there would be no commitment of additional American aid until the French provided full information on the

military plans, forces, and costs it was to support. Finally, on 3 September

Laniel informed Dillon that execution of the long-awaited Navarre plan

would get under way after assurance of availability of additional American

aid funds. Reinforcements for the FEC totaling 7,200 men were expected

to reach the theater by the beginning of November. 41

The principal theme of French strategic and operational plans was

reassuring: to seize the initiative and take the offensive. Less so was the

reluctant admission that this probably could not be done immediately, or

even soon. First it was essential to build up a numerical preponderance,

especially in elite units favorably positioned to annihilate the enemy's

battle forces, and this would take time. The expansion of native forces

would be vigorously pursued, even in the face of expected enemy offensives. In other words, the enemy would again be allowed to strike first,

forcing the French, in the now familiar pattern, to react in piecemeal

fashion. Navarre had, in fact, submitted a new timetable on 1 September

that cancelled the 15 September offensive. It was evident that the modest

reinforcements coming from France were intended primarily to help
Indochina: Roots of Engagement 529

Navarre contain the expected Viet Minh offensive in the fall and winter,

when most of his mobile forces would still be dispersed. 42

The evaporation of Navarre's promised fall offensive evidently disturbed neither the ]CS nor State officials meeting on 4 and 9 September

for a final review of the situation before the upcoming NSC meeting. There

prevailed a feeling of relief that the French had finally agreed to send reinforcements to Indochina, had submitted a formal, documented request

for aid, and were, to all appearances, now ready to proceed. Ridgway's

was the only sour note: "Do we just give the French $385 million and

then sit back and hope that they meet our conditions?" The administration's nervousness was palpable. Dulles reported that the president,

vacationing in Denver, had suggested a possible supplemental request.

The clear consensus reflected the conviction that the Navarre plan must

not fail. 43

The discussion of the French aid request in the NSC meeting on the

9th was little more than a formality. State pushed for prompt action to

meet the request and, as conditions, stipulated "no basic or permanent

alteration" by France of NATO force programs and no more aid requests

in 1954. Finally, the United States retained the option of terminating aid

should France prove incapable of fulfilling its undertakings. Radford gave

his expected resounding endorsement of the Navarre plan, but most of

the discussion in the NSC concerned the technicalities of finding and

providing the $385 million without asking Congress for a supplementaL

With no dissent and very little discussion the NSC approved State's

recommendations. 44

Negotiation of the final agreement in Paris consumed two weeks,

culminating ina formal exchange of letters between Foreign Minister

Bidault and Ambassador Dillon on 29 September and a perfunctory joint

communique the next day. The total of budgetary aid for FYs 1953-54

came to $1.070 billion. Negotiations almost bogged down over French

insistence that the communique not explicitly rule out the possibility of

a negotiated settlement. The French won that point, but not the explicit

sanction for negotiation that they would have preferred. 45

The signing of the FY 1954 $385 million French budget-aid agreement

at the end of September was an important diplomatic event, but it had no

visible effect on the Indochina crisis. The French had made it abundantly

clear that granting their demands would merely enable them to continue

the struggle at its current level.
530 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

O'Daniel Tries Again

On 6 November the O'Daniel mission arrived in Saigon for its second

visit, announced as a progress reporting exercise flowing from the original mission in July. Its upbeat report, submitted on the 19th, informed

the JCS that in a series of operations during the summer and fall

French Union forces had made "real progress in implementation of the

Navarre Plan." Actually, most of these were of modest scope and low risk,

yielding unimpressive returns for the effort expended. Overall, American observers gave the limited operations moderately high marks as

"time-gaining manoeuvres" that had probably delayed a major Viet Minh

effort against the Delta.46

The U.S. Army attache in Indochina, reporting at this time, suggested

that while some progress had been made under Navarre, "the French still

have a defensive strategy." He did not think that French Union forces

could take "decisive action to win the war in the foreseeable future." The

Army's assistant chief of staff, G-2, commenting in Washington, said

that the attache's views conformed with those of other "high U.S.

military officials" who thought General O'Daniel's report was "somewhat

over-optimistic.,,47

In December, in a letter to the MAAG chief in Indochina, Navarre

raised an old issue, challenging the basic principle of American military

aid administration-the screening of requests and their justification. He

reviewed points he made in an earlier letter-the need both to avoid

modifying his requests for aid and to expedite deliveries to enable him

to build up his forces. Navarre said he could not understand reductions

being considered in American aid for his ground, air, and naval forces.

He asked for assurances that within the next three months "an actual

effort will be made taking the form of extensive deliveries."

In some respects Navarre's complaints were a transparent mask for

defects in his own staff that he considered unimportant or of which he

may not have been aware. By American standards, French staff work

was inefficient and uncoordinated. Repeatedly the MAAG, in screening

requests, uncovered discrepancies which, when shown to the French, they

readily conceded. The careful screening to which the MAAG subjected

French aid requests was a legal requirement imposed by Congress. The

French considered it unreasonable to expect them, during an all-out war,

to apply strict accounting procedures to the formulation of aid requests;

in war waste was unavoidable, and for a wealthy country like the United

States the waste entailed in the Indochina aid program was a trifling

price to pay given the vital ends. It was a point of view some Americans

were beginning to share. Sloppy accounting, moreover, did not necessarily

or always result in waste. The practice, for example, of requisitioning
Indochina: Roots of Engagement 531

new items instead of repairing old ones or searching for replacements

already in the system but difficult to find, sometimes paid off, especially

in the high-pressure environment of an active theater. It was already institutionalized, to some extent, in the American system itself, particularly in

the provision of spare parts. 48

Navarre had shrewdly taken the measure of his American adversaries

on this issue. The threat that cuts in his requests might force him to

"reconsider" his operational plans for 1954 set alarm bells ringing in the

Pentagon. He was assured, in general, that all of his deliveries were being

expedited, that Indochina requirements had the highest MDAP priority,

and, most important, that henceforth his critical needs would be considered, to the extent possible, on an emergency ad hoc basis. To this end,

the French staff would be invited to work with the MAAG in drawing up

lists of critical items for submission to Washington, where they would

receive priority attention. Navarre was even promised delivery of urgently needed FY 1954 items in time for use during the current dry season. 49

Reportedly, Navarre was pleased by the flurry of action his initiative

produced in Washington. He said no more about changing his operational plans. The handling of French requests by the MAAG became

markedly more accommodating after December, on the principle that in an

active theater of operations requests to meet changes in the situation were

to be expected. The essential features of the system, however, remained in

place, including especially the key role of the MAAG as the first stage of

the screening process. The MAAG staff continued to insist that French

requests be justified by essentially the same criteria as before. Navarre,

for his part, had not changed his views; he continued to employ endrun tactics on occasion, and manifested increasing impatience with the

whole screening procedure. 50

Navarre's grand design, outlined in O'Daniel's report, aimed at securing possession of the whole country south of the 19th parallel before the

end of the summer. He would be ready by October 1954 to launch his

final offensive north of the 19th parallel in North Annam and areas north

and west of the Delta. This was not merely a goal; it was also a deadline,

since the minimum required political support both in France and Vietnam

was not expected to endure longer than eight months. American aid,

O'Daniel warned, must be concentrated and timed with a view to being

most effective within that period. 51

O'Daniel's sanguine report in November 1953 was complemented on

8 December by an almost equally glowing version written in the State

Department, exuding praise for the high command's "new offensive spirit."

That the author could write, at this late date, as though Navarre still held

the initiative attested to the lack of perception in official thinking. In

reality, for the past six weeks Giap's elite divisions had been on the move,
532 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

watched at first languidly then anxiously by Navarre's intelligence, and

French Union forces were once more reacting defensively. The objective

of the Viet Minh movement remained unclear. Navarre hesitated for a

few days, awaiting clearer signals; then, on 20 November, he set in train

his countermove, the reoccupation of Dien Bien Phu.*52

This objective was inherited, like most of his strategy, from his predecessor, for whom Dien Bien Phu was to have been a base for offensive

operations. Navarre's aim was defensive-to bar a Viet Minh thrust into

northern Laos. To that end Dien Bien Phu would be heavily reinforced

with up to nine battalions and fortified as an airhead, capable of withstanding a major attack and siege, inflicting crippling losses on the

attackers, and serving as a northern anchor for forces defending Laos and

for forays into the surrounding area. The reoccupation was carried out

without difficulty on 20-22 November by a surprise airdrop of five battalions of French and Vietnamese paratroops. But in the next few days

three more Viet divisions were on the move southwestward, presaging

that an invasion of Laos impended, with Dien Bien Phu's five battalions

(less than 5,000 men) standing squarely in their path. On 3 December

Navarre made the momentous decision to hold Dien Bien Phu, reinforced

and fortified, "at all costs." It would replace the Delta as the firepower

magnet that would attract and decimate the Viet Minh forces. 53

Meanwhile, there were important diplomatic developments. On

27 November Moscow had accepted a Western offer of a four-power

conference and proposed Berlin as the venue. This matter and othersFrench foot-dragging on EDC, and the known Soviet intention of proposing a five-power conference (i.e., with China)-occupied Eisenhower,

Churchill, and Laniel at Bermuda during the first week of December.

During this conference, it became clear that the Laniel government still

considered negotiations in an international forum as its best hope for an

honorable extrication from the war. But, as the conference drew to a close

on 7 December, the French somewhat defiantly reserved their optionsto negotiate a cease-fire and an armistice when and if the opportunity presented, or to promote the creation of an international forum in which

a comprehensive peace settlement could be negotiated for Southeast

Asia, whether independently or as part of a broader Far East settlement. They expected these options to open, moreover, possibly as early

as the spring of 1954, when they hoped to be in a position to negotiate

from strength. 54 And by that time the crucible at Dien Bien Phu had

created a crisis of confidence that dashed any high hopes of success

that remained.

• Dien Bien Phu, eight miles north of the Laotian border, was on the historic invasion

route southward into the Mekong basin.
CHAPTER XXIV

Dien Bien Phu and After

The beginning of the fateful year 1954 saw the stage set for the

climactic act of the Indochina war at Dien Bien Phu. In four months of

masterly maneuvering Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap had forced

the French to abandon the concentration concept of the Navarre plan

and to disperse their mobile reserves in fortified advanced airfields all

around the theater. By late December 1953 Dien Bien Phu was so tightly

ringed that French patrols were being thrown back a half-mile from the

outer defenses. A month later Giap had concentrated his main battle

force-five divisions and more coming-to engulf the French Union troops

deployed to bar an invasion of Laos. 1

Yet few observers seemed seriously worried about Dien Bien Phu.

From late November until mid-March a stream of high-ranking officials,

French and American, visited the camp. One of the most influential in

shaping official opinion in Washington, General O'Daniel, delivered the

flat verdict on 5 February, after inspecting the position, that the French

could "withstand any kind of an attack that the Viet Minh are capable

of launching," and certainly were "in no danger of suffering a major military reverse." Eisenhower forwarded O'Daniel's view to Dulles, then in

Europe, with the remark that it was "more encouraging than that given

you through French sources."2 But behind this official optimism there

lurked the realization that a sudden shift in the delicate military balance

could overnight compel a prompt decision on whether to intervene

militarily in Indochina. 3 Late in 1953, Army planners, no doubt remembering the nightmare of June 1950 in Korea and worried about the

requirement for ground forces that might grow out of an initially limited

air and naval intervention in Indochina, had suggested a "reevaluation of

533
534 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the importance of Indochina and Southeast Asia in relation to the possible cost of saving it.,,4

On 8 January the NSC discussed the question of intervention at

length. Secretary Dulles, who had assured the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee only the day before that the Navarre plan offered good prospects of success, now declared that the French position in Indochina was

so critical that the United States might be forced to intervene. Eisenhower

avowed his aversion to intervention, French colonialism, and the French,

who wanted "to involve us secretly" in a war that would "absorb our

troops by divisions!" The key to winning it was to get the Vietnamese to

fight. He wanted no deployment of U.S. ground forces "anywhere in

Southeast Asia" (except possibly Malaya), and no U.S. replacement of

French forces in Indochina. Still, the president entertained suggestionsorganizing a large U.S.-directed training program, providing the French

with more B-26s, or sending American military mechanics to service

American-built aircraft. Radford offered the boldest suggestion, that would

carry his signature-a carrier-supported air strike against the forces

besieging Dien Bien Phu. 5

This was too much for Secretary Wilson. A decision now to intervene,

said Wilson, would amount to "an admission of the bankruptcy of our

political policies re Southeast Asia and France." The French, with American help, could win in 1955. The council supported him, and on 16 January

the president approved as a comprehensive policy for Southeast Asia NSC

5405, which saw the fundamental danger as more political than military.

NSC 5405 reaffirmed continued U.S. aid to France, but only in the unlikely

event of Chinese armed intervention would the United States provide

naval, air, and logistical assistance for a "resolute defense of Indochina"-

including, if necessary, direct action against China, preferably in a United

Nations action or at a minimum in conjunction with France and Great

Britain. Intervention with ground forces received no mention. *6

At a meeting in Berlin, foreign ministers of the three major Western

powers and the USSR agreed to include China in a follow-on conference

on Southeast Asia at Geneva in the spring. Secretary Dulles fought a losing

battle with his own allies to deny China a place at the great-power conference table. Dulles reluctantly agreed on 18 February to the convening of a five-power conference on Korea and Indochina, beginning on

26 April, where, as he later tried to convince a skeptical Senate Foreign

Relations Committee, China would be "called before the bar of justice"

as an aggressor. 7

• The president ordered that the annex to NSC 5405, a closely held analysis of the

alternatives and hypotheses of intervention, be withdrawn "for destruction," and henceforth be discussed only orally. Actually it was only shelved and retrieved for further

discussion some weeks later.
Dien Bien Phu and After 535

The Agony ofDien Bien Phu

By early March official Washington felt deep unease; both the French

and the Viet Minh seemed to be leaning toward a cease-fire. Reviewing

on 12 March the several possible courses of action on Indochina mentioned earlier by the secretary of defense-continuation of military action

to seek a victory, a cease-fire, establishment of a coalition government,

partition of the country, and self-determination through free electionsthe Joint Chiefs argued that all but the first one would ultimately result

in Communist control. A few days later a subcommittee of a special committee the president had established on Indochina stated that "no solution

to the Indochina problem short of victory is acceptable." It recommended that the NSC determine "the extent of u.s. willingness ... to commit

U.S. air, naval and ultimately ground forces to the direct resolution of the

war in Indochina."8

In Paris, following a French National Assembly resolution on 9 March

demanding early negotiations with the Viet Minh, the government sent

General Paul Ely, chairman of the chiefs of staff committee, to Washington

with the specific mission of eliciting a written guarantee that if the

Chinese should intervene by air, a threat the French were wholly unprepared to deal with, the United States would promptly come to the rescue. 9

During February the French had already been given 22 B-26 bombers,

with more to come, and the loan of 200 mechanics for B-26 and C-47

maintenance. Ely was instructed to seek more aid and to sound out American reactions to an increase in Chinese aid to the Viet Minh, particularly

if it involved the introduction of ground forces. 1o

At this juncture, on 13 March, Giap launched his expected all-out

assault on Dien Bien Phu. In four days the Viet Minh human-wave attacks,

preceded by devastating artillery barrages, overwhelmed two of the

outlying strongpoints and part of a third, leaving the main airstrip in full

view of enemy gunners. The violence of the attack, particularly the

volume and accuracy of the artillery fire, exceeded all expectations. ll

Ely had instructions not to request American intervention, that option

remaining contingent on a Chinese air attack, still regarded as the paramount threat. The president instructed Radford, in Ely's presence, to give

top priority to all urgent French requests. Moreover, the United States

would formally warn Peiping not to increase its support of the Viet Minh,

and would initiate planning for prompt U.S. counteraction should the

Chinese intervene. 12

The Washington conversations reflected the current tensions of

Franco-American relations. Dulles told Ely bluntly that the United States

could not invest its prestige in high-risk military operations not involving
536 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

vital national security interests. He suggested more French "partnership"

in burden-sharing than in the past.

Radford had confidence that intervention would lead to the Americans

eventually taking over the actual running of the war, but for the present

that seemed a remote prospect, unwanted by either party. The French,

fixated on the threat from China, seemed less moved by the prospect of

losing Dien Bien Phu, while the president had told the NSC on 25 March

that he could not approve intervention in Indochina, even if formally and

urgently requested, unless as part of a coalition and United Nations effort

and with congressional support. Radford and Ely on 26 March discussed

the possibility of an air strike against Dien Bien Phu. Subsequently each

attributed the initiative to the other. 13

Radford had in mind a modification of a contingency plan developed

by the French and American air staffs in the theater, code-named Vulture

(Vautour). In its new version it envisaged a night raid by 60 B-29 heavy

bombers from Luzon escorted by 150 fighters from Seventh Fleet

carriers, against Viet Minh troop concentrations and artillery emplacements around Dien Bien Phu. Radford described it as a limited, one-shot

effort and doubted that the Chinese would regard it as cause for open

intervention. As he cautioned Ely, however, Paris would have to formally

request the operation, but he seemed confident that the president would

support it. Ely remained noncommittal, remarking that his government

might fear Chinese retaliation. Navarre's prompt affirmative settled the

question. On the night of 3-4 April Laniel requested "immediate armed

intervention by U.S. carrier aircraft at Dien Bien PhU."14

Dulles's Grand Design

Radford's confidence that the president would approve an air strike

seemed well founded. On 29 March Dulles made a landmark speech blasting Western defeatism and hopes for a compromise settlement at Geneva.

He catalogued expanding Chinese and Soviet assistance to the Viet Minh.

The West should deal with this Communist threat to all Southeast Asia by

the "United Action" of a coalition, led by the United States and including

the free nations of Southeast Asia plus Britain, France, Australia, and New

Zealand. Dulles left unexplained the kind of action he had in mind. 15

Radford, meanwhile, polled his JCS colleagues in an effort to win their

support for air intervention at Dien Bien Phu should the French ask for

help. To no avail. Spearheaded by Ridgway's emphatic no, the Joint Chiefs

lined up almost solidly against the chairman, only Twining giving a qualified assent hedged by conditions the French were sure to reject. When
Dien Bien Phu and Mter 537

the NSC on 5 April discussed whether the United States should intervene,

Ridgway again said no, arguing that air and naval forces alone, even using

tactical nuclear weapons, could not decisively prevail. I6

Pursuing Eisenhower's strategy of testing congressional waters

before making a major commitment, Dulles set up a secret briefing of

legislative leaders for 3 April. The day before, in an apparent showdown

meeting with the president and Radford, he bared his differences with

Radford's positions. He intended a proposed resolution to serve as a deterrent to strengthen his hand in United Action negotiations by demonstrating that the proposed pact had congressional sanction. Radford

envisioned any U.S. strike in Indochina primarily at Dien Bien Phu, but

he thought that an outcome there was imminent and that the situation

did not call for any U.S. participation. Dulles presented a draft congressional resolution giving the president a mandate to use naval and air

power "to assist the forces that are resisting aggression in Indochina."17

Dulles, State, and DoD officials met with the legislators on 3 April.

Dulles argued that Indochina was the "key" to Southeast Asia. If the

Communists gained Indochina, in time all of Southeast Asia would fall,

thus "imperiling our western island of defense." Radford analyzed the

situation at Dien Bien Phu; he thought it too late for airpower to save

the fortress. Radford did not deny the possibility that American ground

forces might be needed. Would the Chinese be likely to intervene? Dulles

thought they would back down. Finally, Radford had to admit that the

other military chiefs had all opposed the plan. Dulles admitted that he

had not lined up allied support. That, apparently, was the key point. The

congressional attendees were unanimous in stating that "we want no

more Koreas with the United States furnishing 90% of the manpower."

And no blank check. An air strike would be only the beginning; ground

forces would ineVitably follow. The legislators stipulated as keys for their

support of any intervention in Indochina formation of a IO-power coalition including the free nations of Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and

the British Commonwealth, all committed to participate; a firm French

undertaking to accelerate independence for the Vietnamese; and French

agreement to keep on fighting. IS

These conditions left Dulles and Radford with little wiggle room for

negotiations. When late the next evening, 4 April, Dillon reported from

Paris the French request for an immediate air strike, Dulles promptly rebuffed the plea, listing the r~quirements that would have to be met to

permit such an operation. Reading the message, Foreign Minister Bidault

said he understood the U.S. position but declared that "the time for

formulating coalitions has passed as the fate of Indochina will be decided

within the next ten days at Dien Bien Phu." France would fight on alone. 19
538 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

On 6 April the NSC met to discuss intervention. In the three weeks

since the first assault, Dien Bien Phu's garrison had lost 4 of its 12 battalions and replaced 3, and was low on food and ammunition. For the past

two days radio contact with the garrison had been lost. Resumption of

mass attacks was expected within a few days.20 Even if Dien Bien Phu

should fall, declared the president, the loss would not really be a military

defeat in view of the slaughter inflicted on the enemy. At the same time,

Eisenhower stated emphatically that "there was no possibility whatever

of u.S. unilateral intervention in Indochina." Dulles told the NSC no

"irremediable military disaster" during the next 30 days was likely. He

then launched into an exposition of his effort to organize such formidable regional strength before the Geneva conference that military intervention might prove unnecessary. Wilson and Radford were skeptical, but

the president was clearly not receptive to contrary views. 21

Following up on his plan for coalition building, between 10 and

15 April Dulles engaged in shuttle diplomacy. He went to London in a

quest for British adherence to coalition action: Churchill and Eden

emphatically rebuffed his overtures. In April's final weekend, with Navarre

warning that the fortress might capitulate within 72 hours, and a distraught Premier Laniel pleading anew for an emergency air strike, Dulles

offered Laniel a new deal-a souped-up version of the old Vulture plan

with limited British participation, to be carried out within Navarre's 72-

hour deadline. The price? French acceptance of American strategic

command in the theater and exertion of friendly persuasion upon the

British to formally participate in a regional coalition. Laniel, grasping at

the straw, reportedly gave his tentative assent. But the plan fell apart

before it could be executed. Radford, distrusted by the British as a hawk

thirsting for a war with China, had been assigned the role of selling the

plan. The British turned the proposal down forthwith, foreseeing large

new ground force requirements and other risks. Britain, Churchill caustically remarked, was alive and well despite the loss of India; France could

be likewise without Indochina. Eden was especially annoyed by Dulles's

back-door effort, as he viewed it, to buy French advocacy in persuading

the British to endorse a joint allied declaration. The whole episode left

sour feelings on both sides. 22

Meanwhile the French at Dien Bien Phu were enduring the tightening noose of Giap's encirclement. Under intense and sustained pressure the

perimeter steadily diminished and the garrison dwindled. On 23 April

Bidault told Dulles that only "massive air intervention" could enable the

garrison to hold out for the few weeks remaining before the monsoon

rains. Eisenhower, unwilling to act unilaterally, rejected the plea. Radford

continued to urge an air strike, but no viable or acceptable plan emerged. 23
Dien Bien Phu and After 539

At the end of April Dien Bien Phu had only a week to live, and the

diplomatic effort to save it ground to a halt. On the 28th the Associated

States signed a preliminary independence agreement with France, to take

effect in two months. In Geneva Dulles was still bickering with Eden over

the British refusal to encourage the French to keep fighting. 24

The Debate Continues

On 7 May, after a final bloody melee, Dien Bien Phu's defense collapsed, signaling the end of French dominion in Indochina and redefining the dimensions and challenge of intervention. The following day at

Geneva, as the Indochina phase of the conference began, Bidault called

for an immediate cease-fire, with political negotiations to follow. On the

13th Pham Van Dong, the Viet Minh representative at Geneva, proposed

concurrent military and political negotiations. Other "reasonable" Viet

Minh provisions, such as respect for French cultural and economic

interests in the postwar settlement and amnesty for collaborators, sug~

gested an effort to outflank Bidault by appealing to his peace-at-any-price

opponents at home. 25

Earlier, on 9 May, feeling his foundations crumbling, Laniel asked

Washington under what conditions the United States would intervene in

Indochina. For Dulles the request posed a dilemma, since the NSC had

decided on 8 May that the United States ought not to associate itself with

any cease-fire in advance of an acceptable armistice agreement, including international controls. If the French were told now-as they had

been told twice in April-that military intervention could be had only as

a coalition undertaking, they might well refuse. 26

Dulles decided to risk a refusal. The response delivered by Ambassador Dillon on 14 May provided -for a formal coalition of intervening forces

(air and naval only for the United States) that must not be offset by

French withdrawals. There were other preconditions that constituted a

clear warning to the French not to expect an armed coalition, or even

preparations for one, to materialize in time to affect the negotiations at

Geneva. 27 Indeed, as Eisenhower later admitted, even if the French had

accepted the offer, he felt no commitment to follow through with a request for congressional authorization to intervene. But the French were

not about to reject the American offer out of hand. Rather, as soon became

apparent, they wanted to keep alive the threat of American military

support as a factor in the Geneva bargaining. Also, Bidault was reasonably sure by now that the Soviets and Chinese wanted an early termination

of the war. 28
540 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

An end to the war was far over the horizon. Meanwhile, as the military situation worsened, Paris increased the pressure on Washington to

reconsider unilateral intervention. Early in June, Lt. Gen. Jean Valluy,

French representative on the NATO Standing Group in Washington, gave

a detailed and alarming report to Radford, and subsequently the members

of the Five-Power Military Conference. The impact in Indochina of the loss

of Dien Bien Phu had been catastrophic, creating a crisis of public morale

and confidence, plunging the government into administrative disarray,

and the whole military structure seemed to be on the verge of paralysis

and disintegration. 29

Valluy's warning, not altogether unexpected, had the air of a lastchance plea. In Saigon and Geneva American officials generally agreed

with Valluy's gloomy assessment, as did the Joint Chiefs. The JCS doubted

that limited American intervention-Le., air and naval only, and only

within Indochina-could be decisive; they still believed that the only

effective way to deal with Communist aggression in Indochina was to

strike at the source, China, with whatever force was needed, including

atomic weapons. 30

Geneva and Manila

France's last-chance effort to induce the United States to intervene

in the war ran out of time. On 12 June Premier Laniel finally lost his

majority and stepped down. His successor, Radical Socialist Pierre MendesFrance, an able and realistic negotiator, proposed a four-week "contract" to

a skeptical Assembly to salvage at Geneva an honorable settlement from

a recognizably unwinnable situation. With the Geneva conference deadlocked and formal negotiations suspended until 14 July, British and

American leaders at the end of June traded British agreement to work

toward a regional Southeast Asia defense pact for American acceptance, in

principle, of a partition settlement in Vietnam. Dulles refused MendesFrance's request that he head the U.S. delegation as a visible symbol of

Western solidarity. Instead, he assigned Under Secretary Bedell Smith to

head the U.S. delegation with instructions to playa helpful but passive,

non-guarantor role. In a statement on 11 July, Dulles announced that the

United States would "respect" and not oppose an agreed settlement, but it

would not be a "cosignatory with the Communists," or "acknowledge the

legitimacy" of Communist control over "any segment of Southeast Asia."3!

The Geneva conferees reached a final consensus early in the morning

of 21 July. The concessions that dissolved the impasse came from the Viet

Minh's (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) great-power sponsors, the USSR
Dien Bien Phu and After 541

and China. Fearing American intervention and a renewal of hostilities, they

imposed on their junior partner moderate settlement provisions on several

key issues: e.g., a provisional partition line between North and South

Vietnam at the 17th instead of the 13th parallel.; all-Vietnam elections to

be held in two years rather than in six months; and withdrawal of Communist Pathet Lao and Free Khmer "volunteers" from Laos and CambodiaY

In their Final Declaration on 21 July the conferees "took note" of these

and other armistice agreements between the DRV and the three Associated States. Dulles went along with all but one proviso, an agreement to

consult with the other conference participants on measures to "ensure

respect for the agreements" when necessary, which he refused to recognize because he thought it would "imply multilateral engagement with

Communists." His opposition to giving formal approval to the agreement,

backed by the preSident, precipitated the remarkable result that the Final

Declaration wound up with no signatories and thus no collective obligations. 33 Instead, the participants issued unilateral statements defining

their respective positions on specific issues. Vietnam's del.egate refused to

endorse either provisional partition or future el.ections likel.y to perpetuate it. Bedell Smith's unilateral declaration also warned that the United

States would view any aggressive violation of the settlement as a threat

to international peace. The warning could be interpreted to give the three

free Indochina states a permanent unilateral American guarantee instead

of the vitiated collective one. It would, in part, provide the basis for

President Kennedy's commitment in 1961 to defend South Vietnam. 34 In

Eisenhower's press conference the same day the president slid quickly

over the topic, explaining that the settlement contained "features which

we do not like, but a great deal depends on how they work in practice."35

Having opposed Geneva as a recipe for disaster, Dulles now looked

to a collective defense pact for Southeast Asia. The proposed version of

the pact came before the NSC on 12 August as part of NSC 5429, a review

of U.S. policy in the Far East. Secretary Wilson objected to backing into a

war over Indochina, where, unlike in the Philippines, the United States

had never had vital interests. The president'S only serious reservation

was that the provision characterizing any attack on the treaty area,

especially by China, as a threat to vital national interests, would be read

as giving the president a legal basis for retaliating militarily "without need

for further Congressional action." He wanted the "constitutional processes"

proviso to remain, and he wanted no reference to bypassing Congress. 36

On 6 September representatives of the United States and seven other

nations met in Manila to negotiate the proposed Southeast Asia security

treaty. The pact that emerged two days later, threatening an aggressor
542 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

with "constitutional processes" retaliation, made a mockery of Dulles's

rousing call to arms, leaving the area, as Vice Adm. A. C. Davis, deputy

assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, reported to

Wilson, "no better prepared than before to cope with Communist aggression," and serving "more a psychological than a military purpose." Only

three Asian nations, Thailand, the Philippines, and Pakistan, had dared to

antagonize Communist China by enlisting in the regional coalition, the

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

All the signatories except the United States had wanted the treaty to

present a solid front against any aggressor, Communist or otherwise, but

Dulles insisted on a clause stipulating that the United States was obligated to act only against Communist aggression or subversion. The other

parties to the treaty did not feel particularly threatened, indeed expected

to coexist with China to their mutual profit. In the end, only a shred of

Dulles's original concept remained: a separate protocol to defend the

three Associated States (whose only likely enemies were Communist).

SEATO in fact remained a never-invoked dead letter. 37

Making Do with Diem

"Retained" Vietnam was especially vulnerable to a Communist

takeover-economically ruined, ravaged by eight years of civil war, deluged by a massive influx of refugees from the North. Defeat and partition

had left the army disintegrated as a fighting force and of dubious value to

the government. Throughout South Vietnam, meanwhile, Viet Minh cadres

were busily gnawing at the foundations, preparing for their expected takeover in the July 1956 scheduled elections. Since 7 July the government, a

beleaguered enclave in this postwar landscape, had been headed by Ngo

Dinh Diem, a reclusive, ultranationalist Catholic mandarin from the north,

reputedly of "high moral character," obsessively loyal to his family, politically agile but not astute. During travels and residence abroad he had

made important political connections, especially in the United States. One

circumstance particularly favored him-the support of Dulles, attracted

by Diem's passionate nationalism and anti-Communism. Dulles backed

Diem unswervingly through the trials that followed. 38

Immediately after Geneva Mendes-France reaffirmed his predecessor's formal recognition of Vietnam's independence, but France had

no intention of uprooting its economic and cultural ties with Indochina,

or of permitting secession of its member states, above all Vietnam, from

the French Union. In August General Ely, the new high commissioner,
Dien Bien Phu and After 543

arrived in Saigon with sweeping powers to execute the mandates of the

Geneva Accords and promote economic and political development.

For the time being, the United States and France were partners in

Indochina, but their basic difference-France wanted to remain in Vietnam as a permanent, though non-military presence, the United States

wanted her to leave as soon as feasible-undermined the relationship.

U.S. guidance called for direct dealings, including military and economic

assistance, with the three Indochina states rather than through France,

along with continued pressure on France to "promptly recognize" them as

sovereign nations. The impracticability of this bypass-the-French policy

became evident, however, with initiation of preparations for an Americandirected training program for the disorganized Vietnamese army. Back in

July, General O'Daniel, head of the Military Assistance Advisory Group in

Saigon, had pleaded for the wherewithal to initiate a comprehensive training plan. With typical "hen-and-egg" reasoning, as Dulles termed it, the JCS

prescribed unrealistic "preconditions"-e.g., a "reasonably strong, stable

civil government in control" and early withdrawal of the French Expeditionary Corps-that precluded even a beginning. 39

The Vietnamese army, the JCS assumed, would be expected to maintain internal security, and to repel an invasion, if only temporarily. The

chiefs had in mind creating a 234,000-man army at a cost of $420 million

for FY 1955 alone. Dulles considered this excessive, but the chiefs stuck

to their original force estimate. As for the training function, they feared

"it would be most difficult to do a satisfactory job of building up and training the Vietnamese native forces in the absence of a stable government."

They recommended "from a military point of view" that the United States

should not participate in the proposed training program unless political

considerations were overriding, which by late October they were. 40

During that month strong opposition by U.S. Ambassador Donald H.

Heath prevented two planned coups by the deposed army chief of staff,

Nguyen Van Hinh, to overthrow Diem. General Ely loyally, if reluctantly,

supported Diem, but the French, both in Vietnam and Paris, were

antagonized by his unrelenting hostility toward them. 41

At the end of September the continuing threat to Diem's survival

had prompted a more explicit U.S.-French agreement to work together.

Washington undertook to help defray the cost of maintaining the French

Expeditionary Corps in Vietnam until the Vietnamese army could take

over, while the French grudgingly agreed to the funneling of American

aid directly to the Associated States rather than through French channels.

In mid-October State and Defense were directed to prepare guidance for a

U.S.-directed military training program. The NSC's Operations Coordinating
544 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Board overrode JCS opposition, directing on the 20th immediate launching of a crash Vietnam training program. The NSC decided that O'Daniel

should be authorized, working with Ambassador Heath, to develop an

"urgent program to improve the loyalty and effectiveness of the Free

Vietnam forces;' or, if they proved resistant, to organize a separate national

constabulary.42

A principal weakness of the plan was its dependence on French cooperation. Mendes-France himself told Dulles candidly that while he was

prepared to support Diem until his government became "hopeless," a

ready substitute was needed to replace it "when and if it failed." In Saigon,

General Ely appeared to try in good faith to carry out the agreement, but

many of his underlings, the Americans believed, had never accepted it.

"[We should] ... get out of Indochina completely and as soon as possible,"

grumped Wilson; "these people should be left to stew in their own juice."43

The Collins Mission

By the end of October 1954 Diem was more unyielding than ever.

Dulles and the president decided that they needed a high.ranking troubleshooter on the spot who could be given broad authority to act without

fielding every decision to Washington. The assignment went to former

Army Chief of Staff General J. Lawton Collins. With the title of special U.S.

representative in Vietnam, and ambassadorial rank, Collins was given a

temporary mission of up to 90 days with "broad authority to direct, utilize,

and control" all American agencies and their resources in Vietnam. 44

The Vietnamese premier, Collins found, measured up to advance

notices: "a small, shy, diffident man" who seemed to have "an inherent

distaste for decisive action" - hardly the leadership qualities the country

needed during this critical period. Despite covert French resistance,

however, Collins and Ely succeeded in drawing up a comprehensive program for restructuring and reforming Vietnam's government. 45

By mid·November Collins had produced a draft report proposing to

reduce the 170,000-man army to less than 78,000 under Vietnamese

command and control by July 1955. Collins recommended cutting back

funding for the French Expeditionary Corps in FY 1955 by two-thirds,

with no commitment beyond, while turning over Vietnamese Army

(VNA) training (still under overall French command) almost immediately

Oanuary) to the MAAG and phasing out the French trainers by midyear.

On 13 December Collins and Ely signed a formal understanding covering these arrangements, subject to review in Paris and Washington. The

homeward redeployment of the FEC accelerated rapidly, impelled by
Dien Bien Phu and After 545

reduced U.S. funding and the rising demands of North Africa. The last

units of the FEC departed in spring 1956.46

Meanwhile, there remained the more intractable problem of dealing

with the obstruction of Diem. Collins, too, had had enough of Diem. On

16 December he recommended that Bao Dai be brought back from

France to dismiss Diem and head a new government; failing that, he saw

no better option than withdrawing from Vietnam to a new defense line

farther west. 47

By January 1955, however, Diem's future looked brighter. Along with

a new army effort to contain Viet Minh infiltration, Diem was now vigorously pushing political and social reform, notably preparations for a

national assembly and land reform measures. Impressed, Collins again

changed his tune, declaring Diem the best available man for the job and

his government reasonably likely to succeed. More important, Collins

had decided that the United States should go all out to ensure Vietnam's survival. 48

In an oral report to the NSC on 27 January Collins attempted to come

to grips with the problem of French foot-dragging and suspected doubledealing. He urged a showdown with the French government "once and

for all." But the Planning Board shrank from a confrontation, and Dulles

suggested that "we will ... have to live with the problem." The president generally approved Collins's other recommendations: the reforms

launched by Diem at his urging, and, in principle, U.S. aid programs for

the three Indochinese states, aggregating about $327.3 million in 1955

and $196.6 million in 1956. Finally, the president and council reaffirmed

the policy statement (NSC 5429/5) calling for all feasible measures to

save Vietnam. Commented the president, "it was a good deal like repeating the Doxology."49

By the end of April Diem had attracted enough support to establish

him in a firm leadership position. On 7 May Dulles, who had considered

dumping Diem, reversed course and told Premier Edgar Faure, who had

succeeded Mendes-France in February, that Diem had "the best chance

of anyone of staying on top of revolution and keeping it within 'tolerable' limits."50

At the May trilateral (monthly U.S.-French-British) meetings in Paris,

Faure declared it was time to speak frankly, asking: "What would you say

if we were to retire entirely from Indochina," thereby laying to rest the

nagging "colonialism" issue, pacifying and neutralizing Diem and the

nationalists, and repatriating the FEC? Startled, Dulles responded with

appropriate civilities and made a counteroffer of U.S. withdrawal, which

incidentally, he noted, would save $400-500 million in aid. Faure's offer
546 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

looked like a veiled advance notice, even an ultimatum, aimed at transforming a forced withdrawal into a negotiation over terms. For the United

States it promised to break the impasse with France over Diem and

France's shady dealings with the Viet Minh. 51

When the three ministers met again on 10 May, Dulles came armed

with the views of the JCS. Withdrawal of French forces now or any time

soon, they said, would have disastrous consequences. For the present and

some time to come capable outside forces were indispensable, but the

Geneva Accords barred the United States from providing them. The

current crisis, the JCS urged, required "the utmost in cooperation and

energetic action" by all three principals; Washington, Paris, and Saigon,

and they believed Diem's regime offered the best promise of stability.

General Collins in Saigon also judged that French withdrawal would have

adverse military, political, and economic consequences. 52

The JCS analysis proved conclusive. Dulles proposed as an interim

arrangement that the French support Diem until a national assembly could

establish a new, more legitimate government, with or without Diem. But

when Faure attempted to bargain, Dulles rebuffed further discussion: he

could not impose Faure's conditions on Diem, the head of a sovereign

state and not an American puppet. After four days of discussion in Paris,

Dulles indicated that the United States intended to state its own policy

openly and pursue it independently, and hoped that France would do

likewise. Faure agreed. 53

Exit French Indochina

Thus ended nine months of troubled and abrasive Franco-American

"partnership" in Vietnam. The two former partners now had to deal

independently with an increasingly self-confident and assertive South

Vietnamese government. The principal issue was Diem's refusal to consult with his Viet Minh enemies on the July 1956 all-Vietnam elections,

as called for in the Geneva settlement, which he had refused to sign.

That decision, he insisted, must await the election of a national assembly.

Diem's stance placed France, responsible under the Geneva Accords for

carrying out the elections, in a dangerous position, since the DRV, if

denied the elections on which it counted to complete the conquest of

Vietnam, might reopen hostilities. The British joined the French in pressing Diem to negotiate with the Viet Minh, but Diem remained determined

not to talk to the Viet Minh or to commit himself to all-Vietnam elections. 54

In pursuit of complete sovereignty and independence for South Vietnam, Diem sought to eliminate all vestiges of Vietnam's colonial past.
Dien Bien Phu and After 547

France must abolish the high command and withdraw the ground components of the FEC (leaving, under Vietnamese command, its air and naval

elements and logistical support facilities for the VNA), and make other

important changes recognizing South Vietnam's sovereignty. Diplomatic '

bickering over these matters continued for months.

Late in 1955 Diem abruptly terminated the 1954 financial and economic accords with France and withdrew his representatives from the

French Union Assembly. Subsequently, he agreed in principle to respect

the Geneva settlement, but with U.S. backing and no serious objections

from British and Soviet sponsors he persisted in his refusal to hold allVietnam elections. In October, backed by a 98 percent vote of confidence

in a well-managed (Le., more votes than voters) national referendum, Diem

abolished the monarchy, established Vietnam as a republic with himself

as president, and created a commission to draft a constitution for submission to a future national assembly. France gave up, formalized her

relations with Saigon as a coequal government, and accelerated the withdrawal of the expeditionary force-completed the following spring. 55

The Training Program

By stages the JCS had become convinced that without American help

the French could not create a loyal and effective native army. As late as

March 1954 General Ely had rebuffed an American offer to take over the

training mission, reflecting the longstanding French hostility to American involvement, which they perceived with some justice as a foot in

the door for intrusion into their operational and strategic planning. But

in April General O'Daniel, recently appointed to head the MAAG in Saigon,

brought his forceful and persistent advocacy to bear. In June, following

the fall of Dien Bien Phu, Ely formally requested that the United States

take over the organization and training of Vietnamese forces. In American

eyes, the rather sudden French interest in a U.S. training role at this juncture looked very much like a ploy to draw the United States into the

ongoing conflict without having to fulfill the conditions for intervention.

Dulles decided it would be too risky to commit personnel and prestige to

an undertaking that might collapse before it was well under way. He instructed Ambassador Dillon on 10 June 1954 to tell the French that a

training mission could be discussed only in the context of operational

plans for intervention after fulfillment of stipulated conditions. 56

There the matter stood for a few months, although efforts to revive it

continued. By August, in the aftermath of Geneva, Dulles was eager to take

over the training. The JCS, wary of Vietnam's chaotic political environment
548 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

and the Geneva settlement's personnel restrictions and fearing deeper

involvement, were not. Nevertheless, Dulles notified Paris on 18 August

that a training mission would be assigned to MAAG Saigon. In October the president overrode the JCS and authorized an immediate crash

effort "to improve the loyalty and effectiveness" of the Vietnamese army.

Collins's subsequent proposals of complete autonomy for a reduced

army by July 1955, with American operational direction of organization

and training and progressive replacement of French by American

trainers, became, with minor modifications, a part of the Collins-Ely

agreement on forces and training concluded by the two governments

on 12 February 1955.57

O'Daniel's new command, the Training Relations and Instruction

Mission (TRIM), separate from the MAAG, gathered up all French and

American adVisory and training personnel attached to VNA units. During

1955 preparatory activities and other distractions delayed getting on with

the training for pacification duties. The large French contingent of

TRIM progressively declined and the program rapidly began to look

American, even to such telltale visible signs as adoption of the American

salute and American-style uniforms. By March 1956, when the last French

trainers departed, the Americans numbered 189. TRIM's headquarters

staff included also a national security section headed by Diem's psychological and political warfare adviser, Air Force Col. Edward G. Lansdale,

charged with preparing the army to reoccupy and pacify formerly enemyheld areas infested by underground Viet Minh. The essence of pacification

was "civic action," based on the hopeful premise that the loyalty of the

population could be won by propaganda and benign services (e.g., medical care) accompanied by strictly enforced troop discipline to curb the

historic proclivity of Asian armies to prey upon the civilian population.

"Up to the very end," Lansdale observed, "the army was still stealing from

the population."58

In August 1955 the rapid pace of the French withdrawal and the

threat of an expanding Viet Minh army in the DRV led O'Daniel to propose

an increase in the authorized levels of U.S.-supported Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF) from the existing 100,000 to 150,000, to be

reached by mid-1956. O'Daniel also now planned to reorganize the army

along the lines of the divisional system he had recommended in 1953-

a structure better suited to resisting invasion. Although the RVNAF mission defined by the NSC in 1954 as limited to internal security was still

on the books, the objective of the 1955 aid program explicitly included

"limited initial resistance to attack by the Viet Minh." Secretary Wilson

quickly approved O'Daniel's proposal and the planned reorganization of

the forces got under way.59
Dien Bien Phu and After 549

Postscript: Saving the Leftovers

Along with its blessings, peace brought new problems to Vietnam,

not the least of them an immense accumulation of military equipment

and munitions that clogged ports and warehouses and rusted untended

in many acres of open fields. Much of it, but far from all, was of American

origin. A great deal of the incoming materiel had simply piled up, unidentifiable as to designated recipient or destination. The departing French

claimed the most serviceable equipment as their own. Still, this vast inheritance of cast-off munitions was far more than the 100,000-man U.S.-

supported Vietnamese army could use or maintain. But Diem and his

generals were unwilling to part with any of the equipment in their possession, usable or not. 60

During 1955 adverse rulings by the International Control Commission

(ICC) thwarted O'Daniel's efforts to replace his staff losses by stretching

the Geneva personnel restrictions. By year's end, Vietnamese forces were

drowning in a sea of plenty; lacking accounting control, they had lost the

capability of supplying themselves in the field. On 13 December Wilson

suggested to Dulles that the Geneva Accords be reinterpreted to allow

replacement of withdrawn French military training and technical personnel by Americans, thus end-running the 342-man MAAG ceiling without

increasing the total level of foreign military personnel in South Vietnam.

After initial resistance, Dulles yielded, and in February 1956 State and

Defense agreed to send a one-year military logistics mission of 350 officers

and men to Vietnam, supplemented by about 1,000 Filipino or Japanese

civilian technicians. Named Temporary Equipment Recovery Mission

(TERM), separate from but subordinate to the MAAG, it would assist the

MAAG staff in recovering and safeguarding excess aid materiel. Members

of the first TERM increment arrived in Vietnam early in June 1956.61

Of TERM's two professed aims, the more challenging was the need for

care and. maintenance to prevent deterioration. This would require transforming the Vietnamese into efficient supply managers, at best a distant

prospect. State rendered it more so by decreeing that TERM personnel

should get on with the actual collection and shipment of substantial quantities out of the country. 62

To Lt. Gen. Samuel Williams (who replaced O'Daniel in October 1955)

and his hard-pressed staff in Saigon, the MAAG's essential mission was to

prepare South Vietnamese forces for an inevitable, perhaps imminent, showdown with the Viet Minh. Not surprisingly, therefore, TERM largely evaded

or ignored State's mission guidance. Most of the additional manpower

brought in for TERM, more than doubling Williams's existing strength,

was regularly assigned as logistical advisers to Vietnamese army units and
550 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

to major logistical installations, or to conduct training courses for Vietnamese logistics personnel, thus freeing MAAG officers for operational

and staff training. The agency lived on until 1959, when it was absorbed

by MAAG. Although it functioned primarily as a logistical training agency,

during the last two years of its existence it processed $650 million of aid

materiel and transferred $300 million worth of serviceable materiel to

the Vietnamese forces and other agencies. 63

For Secretary Wilson the Indochina crisis from late 1953 onward was

a source of growing frustration as pressure mounted for American

military intervention to avert a Communist takeover. He viewed intervention in any form, including the involvement that tended eventually to

invite intervention, as a mistake because the United States had never had

a vital interest in Indochina. His repeated assertions of this view in the

NSC and other forums made him the most outspoken of a handful of

dissenters to the ongoing effort of the president and Dulles to organize an

anti-Communist coalition of European and Southeast Asian states. Since

this was an issue on which the president did not welcome dissent, Wilson

was relegated to an uncomfortable and humiliating role on the sidelines.

Foreign intervention actually ran counter to the president's own instincts and, more concretely, to his fears of undermining a flourishing

peacetime economy; hence his insistence on a coalition effort with costs

and participation shared by allies. But his and Dulles's obsession with the

perceived menace of worldwide Communism overrode these fears, leading the nation more than once to the brink of war. Wilson could at least

usually count on the judgment of the Joint Chiefs to support his resistance

to intervention proposals as expensive and imprudent, notably Radford's

proposed air strikes at Dien Bien Phu. For similar reasons, the chiefs

supported Wilson's objections to the installation of an American-directed

training program in Vietnam, which the NSC ultimately ordered into effect

over his opposition.

But the departure of the French left a vacuum into which the United

States, sensitive to the persisting "domino" perceptions of its leaders, was

to be irresistibly drawn by the inherited burdens of supporting a weak

client state: the momentum of earlier commitments, the fragility of

Vietnamese leadership and society, and the endless crises, internal and

external, requiring American intervention. Successive U.S. administrations

would have to deal with the grim and tragic consequences of the Truman

and Eisenhower Indochina policies. A prophetic exasperation may have

informed Wilson's exclamation, in October 1954, that the French and

Vietnamese should be left to "stew in their own juice."64
CHAPTER XXV

Defense of Western Europe:

Confronting Reality

Despite the absence of hostilities, the cold war in Europe seemed to

offer the Eisenhower administration less assurance of a successful outcome than the armed conflict in Korea. To meet the Soviet threat the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, struggling to bring strategy into line

with its members' reluctance to shoulder greater economic burdens,

gradually embraced the New Look's reliance on nuclear weapons as a way

to offset manpower shortfalls. Central to NATO's dilemma was how to

utilize, yet control, Germany's potential military strength. To accomplish

this objective the United States vigorously supported the European

Defense Community CEDC), a proposed grouping of continental powers

including West Germany. Footdragging on EDC by successive French governments, however, left the administration not only exasperated at French

recalcitrance but also slow in adopting alternative courses of action once

the French finally rejected EDC.

Picking Up the Reins

At Lisbon in February 1952, NATO's North Atlantic Council had

agreed, in a burst of optimism, on a multiyear rearmament program of

almost 90 divisions with associated air and naval forces, not counting

prospective contributions by Greece and Turkey, formally admitted as

members at that meeting. l Fulfilling the goals would depend on a

substantial German contribution, a need recognized long before the

Lisbon conference. Negotiations to bring German forces into the NATO

framework, under way since late 1950, culminated in the signature on

551
552 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

27 May of a treaty by six countries: France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and West Germany. The treaty would establish a

European Defense Community CEDC) and a European army with a

German component of twelve 15,OOO-man divisions under NATO supreme

command, plus air and naval components. The treaty and related agreements would give West Germany essentially equal status with the other

signatories, while also providing for common EDC political institutions,

armed forces, and budgets. Protocols to both the NATO and the EDC

treaties promised that an attack on the European territory of any EDC

member would be regarded as an attack on all. On 26 May in Bonn, representatives of the United States, United Kingdom, France, and West Germany

also signed the Contractual Agreements whereby West Germany was to be

granted a substantial degree of sovereignty. 2

For obvious reasons the United States strongly backed the EDC treaty,

although with discreet concern as an outsider for the sensibilities of the

member governments, especially France. From the beginning, however,

the Joint Chiefs of Staff were cool toward this method of bringing West

Germany into the framework of European defense, rightly fearing that

it might delay the actual advent of German reinforcements for NATO's

meager forces. The chiefs preferred the direct approach of admitting West

Germany to NATO membership. They tended to discount the risk of

alienating France, which, with its non-European colonial interests, generally unstable domestic politics, and strong Communist party, they felt likely

to be an unreliable ally. 3

For a few weeks following the signing of the EDC treaty and related

documents U.S. officials remained hopeful that ratification by the respective parliaments would soon be completed. Within months, however, it

became clear that ratification efforts had lost momentum, particularly in

the two countries about which there was most concern, France and West

Germany. As the likelihood of early ratification dimmed, the NATO bureaucracies struggled with the complex statistical data in the 1952 Annual

Review.* The undertaking was bedeviled by differences in purpose and

approach and the perception by the European countries of a diminishing

Soviet threat. The unity and sense of purpose evident at Lisbon disappeared, replaced by bickering and conflicting national agendas. 4

It seemed unlikely that the Annual Review report could be ready for

final consideration and action at the NATO Council meeting in Paris in

December 1952. Moreover, European governments expressed reluctance

* The Annual Review was an extended procedure that fixed force goals that took into

account the overall defense needs of the alliance and the economic and financial capabilities of member countries.
Defense of Western Europe 553

to make firm 1953 commitments on force goals until the views of the

new administration in Washington could be clarified. So the council met

as planned, but conducted no Annual Review. The conferees had little to

do except deliver speeches and pass resolutions. "Our colleagues treated

us," Secretary of State Dean Acheson recalled, "with the gentle and affectionate solicitude that one might show to the dying, but asked neither

help nor advice nor commitment for a future we would not share with

them. For this they were waiting for our successors."5

Truman's secretary of state could hardly have been expected to see

the new occupant of the White House as the future savior of NATO, but

many others did. The new president-elect himself certainly placed that

task near the top of his agenda. Weeks before his inauguration he had

brought his influence to bear in an effort to revive the fortunes of the

EDC treaty ratification, which at the moment seemed to be dead in the

water, by sending well-publicized New Year's messages to Supreme Allied'

Commander Europe General Matthew B. Ridgway and German Chancellor

Konrad Adenauer stressing the importance of the treaty to the "peace

and the security of the free world.,,6

In January 1953, a week after the new administration moved in,

Secretary of State Dulles queried the Joint Chiefs about alternatives in

the event EDC was not approved. JCS Chairman General Omar N. Bradley

answered bluntly that the chiefs, while accepting EDC as the best available

option, had always regarded full NATO membership for West Germany as

preferable and were still worried about the restrictions on German munitions production the French were then trying to write into the contractual protocols. How soon was the German contribution needed? The

time of greatest danger, Bradley answered, would be 1954-55; by then it

was important that NATO forces be at least strong enough to make the

Soviets uncertain of success. Twelve German divisions would make a real

difference, forcing the Soviets to concentrate their forces and make them

vulnerable to atomic attack. "We don't have enough atomic weapons to

plaster all of Europe," observed Bradley.

What about the French? Mostly a liability, the JCS seemed to agree.

Should France go Communist, as seemed possible, Germany would be in

an untenable position. "It would become very difficult to decide whether

to invest more of our resources in attempting to hold there," said Bradley,

leaving the decision unspoken. France depended greatly on U.S. aid in

Indochina. "We are faced with more and more demands from the French,"

Bradley complained. "Maybe what we should do is to tell them that they

will receive nothing more until they do something about ratifying the

EDC." Although the mood of the discussion was bleak, apocalyptic, and
554 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

sharply focused on France as the root of the problem, no decisions

were reached. 7

To dramatize continuing American interest in Europe Eisenhower

decided to send Dulles and Harold Stassen, his new mutual security director, on a brief tour of European capitals (31 January-8 February) to listen

and reassure, but without making commitments. Before departing, Dulles

made a television speech citing the nearly $30 billion in American aid to

Western Europe since World War II and warning that, in the unlikely

event the principal European partners should decide to "go their separate ways, then certainly it would be necessary to give a little rethinking

to America's own foreign policy" in this part of the world. Results of

the European mission were generally favorable. The EDC project, Dulles

told the NSC afterward, had at least been taken "out of mothballs." He

estimated the odds for ratification now at 60-40. 8

The administration's review of national security policy led off in

February 1953 with a detailed budget/economy manifesto from Budget

Director Joseph Dodge, followed by debates in the NSC over the FY 1954

and 1955 budgets and political/strategic concepts that would later

be packaged as the New Look.* The task of balancing NATO's needs with

the administration's cost-cutting program fell heavily on Stassen. His presentation to the NSC covered both the economic and military components

of the aid program. Of all the disasters Stassen envisaged as possibly

resulting from the spending ceilings, should they be implemented, some

of the worst fell in the NATO area. He predicted that cuts in economic

aid would change the whole U.S. relationship to the European defense

effort, causing a drop of $3 billion in European defense spending in FY

1954 and perhaps $700 million more in the year following, with attendant balance of payments and trade difficulties, reduced economic activity,

higher unemployment, and pressures to expand trade with the Soviet

bloc. Some of these negative effects, Stassen suggested, might be mitigated by shifting money from military to economic aid. For NATO the

effect would be to reduce the total aid package to $4.2 billion in FY 1954

and $2.7 billion in FY 1955, while increasing its economic aid component from $810 million to $1,085 million in the first year and from $460

million to $630 million in the second. He estimated total aid expenditures

of $6.5 billion for FY 1954, restoring a billion of Dodge's $2.5 billion

cut. 9 Despite reservations voiced by Wilson and Dulles about the magnitude of the reductions, the revised program seemed to please the president and even Treasury Secretary Humphrey and was duly inserted into

• See Chapter V for details of the Dodge budget exercise and Chapter XXII for treatment

of the military assistance budget.
Defense of Western Europe 555

NSC 149/2, the basic guidance document for the cost of the national

security program soon to be presented to Congress. IO

Paris in the Springtime: Retreatfrom Lisbon

The North Atlantic Council meeting in Paris 23-25 April 1953 clarified the intentions of the Eisenhower administration regarding the

defense of Western Europe, thereby giving the European governments a

firmer basis for planning. Soviet peace moves and rumors of a palace

revolution following Stalin's death at the beginning of March, warned

u.S. Permanent Representative on the North Atlantic Council William H.

Draper, were raising false hopes in Europe and undermining solidarity.

Communicating directly to the president his own sense of discouragement over NATO's prospects, Draper recommended a new "top-level u.S.

evaluation of our overall strategy" aimed at "finding a better system of

defense that would be within NATO's political and economic capacity to

finance." Eisenhower replied briefly and sympathetically a few days later,

observing that "new weapons and new methods may, in the long run,

bring about some fundamental changes that will tend to outmode what

we are now trying to do. But what we are presently trying to do seems

to me absolutely essential to the meeting of the immediate threat.... I

am quite sure that the adoption, at this moment, of a different defense

policy could not lessen the need for the very modest number of military

units that we are now striving to produce in Western Europe."11

Draper's anxious views received reinforcement on the eve of the

NATO meeting from a disturbing report General Ridgway sent the Standing Group warning that, on the basis of recent intelligence, "a full scale

Soviet attack within the near future would find this command critically

weak" and that "the initial battle, likely to be of short duration, could be

decisive." The deficiencies in NATO defenses were correctable, but not

overnight: "Providing timely action is initiated and sustained ... this

command could be made capable, within the next two to three years, of

effectively defending Western Europe against a full scale Soviet attack." 12

American officials arriving in Paris on 22 April for the NATO ministerial meetings thus found an atmosphere of foreboding spiced with

irritation and mutual suspicion. As the principal U.S. spokesman, Dulles

dominated the meetings and combined reassurance with warning, declaring that nothing the Soviets had done since Stalin's death had given

reason for believing their hostility had abated or their dreams of world

conquest had been modified in any fundamental way. The United States,

said Dulles, must build for the long haul, as the Soviets were doing. In any
556 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

event NATO governments need not fear increased pressure from Washington to expand their force goals and accelerate the buildup. Only a

moderate increase over several years was envisaged, with greater emphasis on qualitative improvement through new weaponry, intensive training,

and better planning. Dulles also addressed directly fears current in NATO

that the new administration's interest in the Far East signified a diminishing interest in Western Europe. The flow of end-items to NATO Europe

would increase, not diminish, he told the ministers, even if the wars in

Korea and Indochina continued. At a subsequent session, Dulles issued a

blunt warning regarding the delays in EDC ratification. "It is obvious," his

prepared statement stressed, "that the decisions to be made by the executive and legislative branches of the United States Government [regarding}

foreign aid programs will be greatly influenced by the progress made

toward early ratification" of EDC. 13

Secretary of Defense Wilson fleshed out Dulles's remarks on the

administration's new long-haul policy in a short address to the council. He

urged the member governments to focus productive effort on materiel

needed most urgently while stretching out programs of less critical and

more deferrable items. Wilson warned that all delivery forecasts were

likely to be reviewed later in the year in the light of progress toward ratification of the EDC treaty. Beyond 1953, future U.S. programs for support

of NATO would take fully into account the extent to which NATO governments screened their defense budgets to embody the long-term concept and provide the more selective emphasis on efficiency and real needs

for which the United States was striving in its own budget-and, more

generally, the degree to which each government sustained the collective

defense effort needed to prevail against the Communist threat. 14

The council responded to Dulles and Wilson for the most part with

a chorus of "amens." Bilateral U.S. meetings with the French, however,

revealed differences. The French viewed with alarm talk of a leveling-off

of the NATO buildup, as well as the planned phaseout of U.S. economic

aid and the uncertainty as to its continuance at all beyond 1953. Minister

of National Defense Rene Pleven warned that France would be forced to

reduce its defense expenditures if other countries did so, and that in any

case the French budget in 1954 could not rise above the 1953 level. It

followed that increased American subsidies would be required both for

the continued buildup that France considered essential to NATO's survival and to her own future secure coexistence with a resurgent Germany.15

In separate talks with the U.S. delegation, the British emphasized that

their chief worry centered on the strain that might be imposed on the

already weak British economy by the approaching phaseout of U.S.
Defense of Western Europe 557

economic aid. Like the French, the British-especially Prime Minister

Winston Churchill-opposed any real or apparent relaxation of NATO's

buildup in response to current Soviet tactics, but made it clear that

they would need more American help to support the effort required. 16

For DoD representatives the main task at Paris was to complete the

1952 Annual Review left unfinished in December 1952. A general impression had then prevailed that the Lisbon force goals for 1952 had been

substantially met, and since final figures were not available the point was

not questioned. By April 1953 it was already evident that the force buildup since Lisbon had fallen significantly short of those goals in D+30

divisions and frontline aircraft. During 1952 only 3 combat-effective

divisions had been added to the 20 1/3 D-day divisions on hand at the

beginning of the year; the number of combat-effective D+30 divisions had

increased from 33 only to 40 2/3, 10 short of the Lisbon goaL Frontline

aircraft had increased from 2,907 to 3,957 in 1952, but only 3,352 rated

as combat-effective. The growth of naval forces was more impressive, less

in numbers (from 1,557 to 1,642 vessels) than in improved readiness and

efficiency. In addition, 29 Greek and Turkish divisions and about 440

aircraft and 103 combat naval vessels had been added to NATO's defense

array but were not yet incorporated in NATO defense strategy. 17

At Paris the council approved 1953 and 1954 force goals well below

the Lisbon objectives in most categories, emphasizing the degree to which

the latter, under the pressure of political and economic realities, had

become virtually irrelevant to force planning. More relevant, and disturbing to military planners, was the gap between the new goals and the

estimated requirements for an effective defense of Western Europe, as

opposed to what ~European governments could realistically expect to

extract or cajole from their peoples." The currently accepted requirements

estimate (Me 26/1) had been approved as far back as November 1951.

It aimed toward achieving by 1954 a total of 99 D+30 divisions, approximately 11,000 frontline aircraft (including maritime types), and about

3,000 naval vessels, large and small. Assuming the materialization of

German divisions and aircraft as a reasonable probability by 1954 or 1955

but discounting Greek and Turkish forces as needing much more modernization in equipment and training before they could take on a ~bastion"

role on NATO's right flank, the approved provisional goals for 1954 added

up, in effective forces, to only 78 divisions, about 8,600 aircraft, and 2,310

naval vessels-roughly 80 percent of MC 26/1 requirements. 18

The main culprits in this retreat from Lisbon goals and real defense

requirements were the nine Western European NATO countries, whose

1954 force goals were 27 percent short of MC 26/1 requirements in
558 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

divisions and 29 percent short in frontline aircraft. The whole NATO

buildup was leveling off at approximately its existing strength; emphasis would shift to qualitative improvement through training and

new weaponry.

Dulles gave the NSC an upbeat assessment on 28 April of what had

been accomplished in Paris, especially in adjusting NATO military plans

to the realities of the members' economic capabilities. The greatest cause

for worry was the anticipated delay in ratification of the EDC treaty,

which now seemed unlikely before October. NATO's mission henceforth,

Dulles remarked, would be viewed as "the defense of Europe by Europe

with United States assistance," an idea which he said the Europeans had

accepted "with equanimity and ... no tailspin .... The NATO program is

now more alive than ever and, more than ever before, should be considered a long-range operation." He did not mention that for the next

two years, at least as now planned, U.S. forces would form the heart of

NATO's defenses. 19

NATO and Emerging Strategy

After Dulles's reassuring words at the Paris meeting, the $5.8 billion

aid bill for FY 1954 the president submitted to Congress on 5 May must

have come as a shock to European governments. Overall, the military

assistance portion of the new program represented a 27 percent reduction from President Truman's program and a 44 percent cut in its

European component.

During the ensuing three months the basic hostility or indifference

of most legislators to foreign aid, reflected in the press and the defection of veteran aid supporters such as Senators Mike Mansfield and

Walter George, clearly foreshadowed major cuts. In July the House and

Senate in conference adopted the Richards amendment to the authorization bill providing that half of the military aid funds in the bill for

Europe should be earmarked for the European Defense Community, but

that materiel procured with it should not be delivered until the organization actually came into being, unless Congress, in response to a

presidential recommendation, saw fit to reconsider the prohibition.

Urgent cables went out to U.S. embassies in Paris and elsewhere pointing

out that since only FY 1954 funds were affected, procurement lead times

for most equipment would postpone the impact of the amendment for a

year or more, by which time, hopefully, EDC would be in place and

functioning. European officials were to be assured that the Richards
Defense of Western Europe 559

amendment demonstrated the strong desire of Congress and the

American people that EDC come into effect. 20

In August Congress passed an aid bill appropriating $1.86 billion in

military assistance for Europe, in a global total of $4.5 billion for all aid-

$630 million and $1.3 billion less, respectively, than the president had

requested (although the administration had substantially reduced the

original request before the final vote). However, the bill also made available for reappropriation up to $2.1 billion in unobligated prior-year

funds, including $1.3 billion for military assistance in Europe, making

overall totals considerably larger than the original request. Defense allotted

for military assistance in Europe only $214 million of the $1. 3 billion

of unobligated prior-year funds that Congress had made available for

the purpose. 21

Meanwhile, the emergence of new basic security policies was providing context and direction for U.S. policy toward NATO. NSC 149/2,

approved at the end of April 1953, laid down many of the broad postulates soon to be formalized as the New Look, notably the crucial

importance of a sound American economy to the survival of the free

world and the corollary necessity of balancing federal spending with

income as soon as pressing national security commitments and needs

would permit. Regarding NATO, the document confirmed some of Dulles's

recent assurances to European leaders: henceforth his government would

support attainable force goals and be more relaxed about schedules for

attaining them, would support France's Indochina war more vigorously

(short of direct intervention), and would make critical equipment available for raising NATO first-line divisions to combat readiness. American

aid would become more selective, concentrating on "vital free countries"

with a view to "helping the weakest to attain economic strength, and

encouraging and enlisting the strong"-notably France, West Germany,

and Britain-"to maximize their carrying of their share of the over-all

defense requirements."22

The persistence of a requirements-resources gap remained a central concern. Draper, about to leave his post in June, wrote the president

a long letter analyZing NATO's maladies and prospects as he saw

them and calling for a re-examination of requirements "to be sure that

the best use and division of resources is being made."23 EVidently impressed by Draper's letter, the president saw to it that it received more

attention than it might otherwise have, requesting brief responses from

the State Department to each of Draper's points. 24 The incoming Joint

Chiefs had problems with Draper's letter, initially splitting on the question of whether current NATO strategy was the best possible under the
560 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

circumstances. Ridgway and Carney thought it was, but Twining argued

that it was based on implementing unattainable requirements. The chiefs

eventually agreed to fudge the issue: NATO was making the best possible

use of its resources, "insofar as is politically possible," and the problem

would be kept "under continuing review and analysis."25

In August the Joint Chiefs were told to rewrite strategy for the long

haul, without imminent target dates, and to redesign the military establishment on a "really austere basis." Squeezed between dictated economy

requirements and dwindling assets on the one hand, and a growing threat

on the other, the chiefs, not surprisingly, emphatically recommended a

sharp refocusing of defense priorities to permit a rapid buildup of continentai defenses and expansion of strategic retaliatory power accompanied

by a drastic reduction of overseas commitments and wholesale redeployment of forces homeward-in effect a retreat to "Fortress America."

In any case the recommendation called for no immediate action, since

the chiefs estimated that the redeployment operation would require careful diplomatic and administrative preparation extending over a period of

two years or more.

For the long term, the main obstacle to accepting the JCS proposal

was its likely effect on official and public morale in Europe and the

structure of European defense. A new draft basic national security paper

(NSC 162), discussed by the NSC early in October, contained a paragraph

drafted by the chiefs which, after noting the dangers of overextension,

declared that "the best defense of the free world rests upon the mobility

of U.S. forces centrally based," the political commitment to retaliate vigorously against any aggressor, and the indigenous security efforts of the

allies. It proposed that a decision be made whether "reasonably soon to

initiate, and during the next few years to carry out, the redeployment

toward the United States of the bulk of our land forces and other forces

not required to guard overseas bases." Such a move would require a concerted diplomatic effort to win allied support. The president and Dulles,

although favoring major redeployments in principle, quashed the paragraph for fear that if it became known it might wreck the NATO alliance.

As finally approved at the end of October, NSC 162/2, the "bible" of the

New Look, alluded briefly to the overextension problem but concluded

that "under present conditions, however, any major withdrawal of U.S.

forces from Europe or the Far East would be interpreted as a diminution

of U.S. interest in the defense of these areas and would seriously undermine the strength and cohesion of the coalition." With masterly ambiguity,

it went on to call for a diplomatic "clarifying" effort directed at U.S. allies

not yet under attack to persuade them of the merits of a deployment of
Defense of Western Europe 561

U.S. forces permitting "initiative, flexibility and support." The word "redeployment" did not appear. 26

Consideration of a plan to withdraw some U.S. forces from Europe

was hinted at in public statements in October by two of its more ardent

champions, Secretary Wilson and Deputy Secretary Kyes. Discussing the

effect of new weapons on defense requirements, Kyes dropped a remark

that NATO's unfulfilled force requirements were in the process of being

reappraised. When asked a few days later (19 October) whether this meant

that American troops were to be withdrawn from Europe, Wilson said no,

but in the ensuing exchange could not bring himself to state categorically that this would not occur. The Paris edition of the New York Herald

Tribune promptly reported Wilson's remarks as a bald assertion that new

weapons would permit a substantial reduction in U.S. troops in Europe,

and for more than a week the press on both sides of the Atlantic happily

exploited the story. 27

Damage control measures went into effect. John C. Hughes, Draper's

successor, assured the NATO Council that the president had authorized

him to deny any intention of withdrawing troops and to reassert his government's loyalty to NATO as the "keystone" of Western European defense.

The president tried to set matters right in his own press conference on

28 October. Dulles lodged a complaint with him about Wilson's transgression as well as with Wilson himself. Obviously upset with Wilson, the

president complained in a long, apologetic letter to General Gruenther on

27 October that "some people have more trouble in controlling their

tongues than they do their wives.... I suppose that we shall have to

counteract what has happened with reasoned and thoughtful statements. However, in all honesty, we cannot allow anyone to get up and

protest that we are going to keep troops in Europe !orever."28

On other matters of concern to NATO, NSC 162/2 spoke with both

cautious reassurance and blunt admonition. The military buildup and

economic recovery of Western Europe, the paper noted, had given NATO

and associated forces the capacity to make Soviet aggression costly and

had fostered a sense of security in these countries. But they still could not

prevent Soviet forces from overrunning Western Europe in a full-scale

attack, and even after the planned accession of German forces much of

Western Europe would be indefensible in such an event. The states of

Western Europe must build up their defensive strength, especially since

U.S. military aid could not be maintained at present levels and grant economic aid must be phased out altogether. Despite common interests and

basic strengths, moreover, the NATO coalition suffered from serious weaknesses: a growing sense of independence and resistance to American
562 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

guidance in matters of coalition policy, the notorious instability of

French and Italian governments, the heavy costs of clinging to disintegrating colonial empires in Asia and Africa, the persistence of ancient

feuds and disputes within Europe itself, and increasing distrust of American leadership in the cold war. Most of all, Europeans feared an all-out

nuclear war, heedlessly precipitated by American rigidity and incompetence, which would be fought on their own soil. 29

Nevertheless, the United States needed allies-for their strategic air

bases, their armed forces and economic resources, and because of their

role as the essential heart of the free world-as they depended on the

United States for their survival. U.S. strategy could not be executed unless

the "essential" allies-Le., the industrialized countries of Europe and

Japan-believed that the strategy served the collective defense against the

Soviet threat. Absorption of these nations into the Soviet orbit would

upset the world balance and endanger the ability of the United States to

win, perhaps even survive, a general war. NSC 162/2 thus posed, without resolving, a basic dilemma in U.S. defense policy: In a postwar world

intent on adjusting to the ways of peace, could the NATO allies with

their combined resources afford, or could they muster the will, to defend

themselves against aggressive communism? "The major deterrent to

aggression against Western Europe," said NSC 162/2, "is the manifest

determination of the United States to use its atomic capability and massive

retaliatory striking power if the area is attacked." But what if the deterrent failed to deter? The thrust of the paper held that Western Europe

could not be defended-except by resorting to the hyper-destructive

"defense" of atomic preemption. 30

The British launched an initiative in September that helped bring out

of the closet the idea that NATO's salvation might lie not in the probably

foredoomed effort to build up massive conventional defense forces but in

the nuclear option available to the United States. They proposed informally

that the two governments jointly put before the North Atlantic Council at

the December meeting a new political strategy based on candid recognition that for the foreseeable future the full requirements for defense of

Western Europe were unattainable. Indeed, with American aid tapering

off, merely to maintain in being the forces thus far built up would be

difficult. Accordingly, NATO's objective must be "to keep in being over

a period of years forces which, with atomic weapons always in the background, will provide an effective deterrent to Soviet attack and which

countries can afford to maintain and provide with up-to-date equipment."

So long as the United States continued to provide an effective deterrent,

attaining full NATO force requirements became less immediately urgent.

Major aims over the next few years would be maintenance and qualitative
Defense of Western Europe 563

improvement of existing forces, and, of course, the earliest possible introduction of German forces. 31

Since June DoD officials involved in NATO matters had concerned

themselves mainly with formulating the u.S. position for the upcoming

Annual Review. The JCS, after digesting the preliminary service submissions, reported a probability of substantial shortfalls in u.S. force commitments for 1954 from the provisional goals approved in April. They

wondered about the reaction of NATO governments to a reduction in

U.S. goals at a time when they were under pressure to meet theirs; would

it not be wise to consider now how best to present the case, perhaps by

stretching the assumptions somewhat? Dulles and Stassen, even more

worried about NATO reactions, wanted a more forthright approach. Wilson

told the Army and Air Force to develop better answers. Both services came

up with slight reductions, their task made easier by the ending of Korean

hostilities on 27 July.32 In an interagency meeting on 25 September the

principals agreed on the importance of maintaining, while improving,

existing NATO forces but with only "moderate additions ... within countries' capability to raise and maintain." Admiral Radford undertook, for

the JCS, to review the current NATO strategy and explore possible revisions that might be workable as early as 1956.33

Later, in October, with time running out and the new American

strategy still unborn, the chiefs submitted an interim report admitting

failure to agree on a new strategy. Conceding that the current NATO

strategic concept would have to be revised in the near future, the chiefs

argued that any attempt by the United States to change it in conjunction

with the· 1953 Annual Review might lead to decisions to give up NATO

territory, with attendant repercussions at least as serious as those expected from continued failure to meet projected requirements. They

recommended retaining the present strategic concept "for any necessary

use" in the Annual Review, during which they thought U.S. representatives

should say as little as possible about possible changes in force goals.

Recalculation of NATO strategy and forces should be postponed until

the 1954 Annual ReviewY

To make the postponement of basic decisions more palatable to

the allies, the Defense Annual Review Team recommended an across-theboard reduction in the NATO April force goals, which admittedly were far

below estimated requirements, but the "probable maximum in conventional forces which can be achieved by NATO nations under present

political and economic conditions." The operative word here was "conventional"; atomic firepower, by implication, could fill the gap. The Joint

Chiefs, yielding to the pressure, signed off on the proposed goals. 35
564 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Toward a New Atomic Partnership

With Eisenhower's election, it appeared that the policy of holding

tight to nuclear secrets might be relaxed. With hopes raised worldwide

for a reduction in cold war tensions following Stalin's death, Eisenhower

delivered an address on 16 April, "The Chance for Peace," declaring the

desire of the United States for peaceful relations with the Soviets, limitations on armaments, and control of atomic energy. Late in May the

president launched Operation Candor, implementing one of the recommendations of the Oppenheimer panel of consultants, appointed under

the previous administration, that the American people be told frankly of

the nature and perils of nuclear war. After months of deliberation within

the administration, in a speech to the UN General Assembly on 8 December 1953, the president proposed an international pooling of fissionable

materials to be used for peaceful purposes. 36

These developments created a climate more favorable to a sharing

of nuclear weapons information with the allies. The Atomic Energy Act

of 1946 (McMahon Act), the basic legislation providing for civilian control

of atomic energy, restricted the exchange of information and cooperation

with foreign governments concerning it-specifically, information about

the manufacture or use of atomic weapons, production of fissionable

material, or the use of fissionable material for the production of power.

In January 1948 the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom negotiated a modus vivendi modifying the McMahon Act and prOViding a mechanism for the allocation of available uranium ore among the three countries

and the exchange of information in certain militarily innocuous areasY

Shortly after taking office Eisenhower had directed action on another

proposal of the Oppenheimer panel-that the policy of candor be extended to allied nations through free discussion of the "problems and

dangers posed by the use of atomic weapons." In March the NSC began

to consider options for further revising the McMahon Act, and on 8 June

Eisenhower publicly urged that it be changed to permit more cooperation with allies since its original aim, to preserve the American atomic

monopoly, had been overtaken by events. Both Dulles and the new Joint

Chiefs who came aboard in August shared this view. As in the preceding

administration, however, resistance came from the Joint Committee on

Atomic Energy OCAE) and from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC),

especially after 1 July when the president appointed as its chairman former AEC Commissioner Lewis Strauss, who had consistently warned against

Communist influences in the British government. By this time, however,

there was no real prospect of enacting new legislation before the congressional session ended on 31 July. 38
Defense of Western Europe 565

The spectacular detonation of the first Soviet thermonuclear. device

on 12 August 1953 boosted the drive for broader sharing of nuclear

information with the allies. Retired JCS Chairman Bradley promptly called

for a lifting of barriers to U.S.-NATO cooperation in atomic energy; even

JCAE Chairman W. Sterling Cole urged the president to release information on atomic weapons effects in order to enhance public awareness

of the horrors of nuclear war. Shortly before the Soviet test the British

had announced the scheduling of their own second atomic bomb test for

October, and asked for a more liberal interpretation of the McMahon Act.

At Bermuda in December Churchill himself tried to persuade Eisenhower

to include in any revised legislation language that would permit disclosure of the weight, dimensions, and ballistics of American atomic

bombs in order that British V-bombers could be redesigned to carry

them. Eisenhower replied regretfully that these specifications were basic

weapons data under the McMahon Act that Congress would never agree

to release. "We will have to spend millions we poor Britons can ill afford,"

Churchill complained, "to learn what you chaps already know and could

tell us if you would. We will learn it, of course, but at what an unnecessary cost. It makes no sense whatever .... The enemy will be our

common one. The means to stop him should be common means."39

Although Eisenhower could offer Churchill little immediate encouragement, the emergence of the New Look strategy would over time tilt

the issue in the British favor. NSC 162/2 made explicit and inescapable

the links between U.S. security and nuclear weapons (henceforth to be

"as available for use as other munitions"), allied manpower, and air bases.

For some years to come, American bombers would need bases in Britain

and on the continent in order to bring nuclear airpower effectively to

bear against the enemy; use of such bases would of course require the

consent of host governments. It made no sense to emplace nuclear airpower on NATO soil in sealed compartments insulated against technical

communication and interaction with its surrounding military environment. Indeed, this was only the tip of the problem. NATO planning,

observed an Annual Review working group early in October, must be

based "squarely on the fact that any attack will be carried out with atomic

as well as conventional weapons and ... countered by atomic retaliation and

defense. [This dictates} the provision to our NATO allies of such atomic

information as is required to carry out effective planning." Late that

month Assistant Secretary Nash reminded Deputy Secretary Kyes that, with

atomic plenty only a few years down the road, military planning had little

time to bridge the transition from conventional to nuclear war. "We must

reassess our strategic and logistic planning in the light of technological
566 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

advances and have the courage to discard outmoded procedures and

weapons." Recently General Gruenther had confessed that he lacked sufficient knowledge of the latest developments in weapon systems, tactics,

and doctrine to make an intelligent assessment of requirements. All NATO

commanders, Nash argued, shared this need. He urged that Defense press

for an early NSC decision on a policy for the "fullest disclosure politically

feasible of atomic energy information to our Allies," and also that Defense

seek approval for releasing actual weapons to allied countries as needed

to carry out wartime missions. 40

The new policy paper on sharing atomic information with the allies

(NSC 151/2), which the president approved on 4 December, turned out to

be a prescription that could not become effective without revision of

the McMahon Act. Still, it was a step forward, authorizing disclosure of

carefully defined types of information not only on the effects of atomic

weapons, but also, in broad terms, on a variety of other data useful in

NATO planning. Explicitly excluded, however, was detailed information

on the manufacture, design, and numbers of atomic weapons, total U.S.

atomic capability, and deployment. 41

Augmentation of u.S. forces in Europe with nuclear-capable weapons

made more urgent the clarification of nuclear relationships with other

NATO members. In June 1953 General Ridgway, before leaving his post

as SACEUR, had asked that five battalions of the Army's new 280-mm.

artillery, capable of firing both conventional and atomic ammunition, be

assigned to Europe-a significant and early move in the development of

a tactical atomic capability for NATO. In due course arrangements were

made to ship the units to the Seventh Army in West Germany, for the

present with conventional ammunition only. In deference to Chancellor

Adenauer's fears of adverse effects on the upcoming West German elections, the public announcement was withheld until 15 September. The

Air Force also planned to send two short-range Matador atomic-capable

missile squadrons to Europe in 1954 and two more in 1955, besides two

additional day-fighter squadrons under national command over and above

the NATO commitment. 42

Alternatives to EDC

Despite the steps taken toward the nuclearization of NATO forces,

the hope that six German divisions might join NATO's defense array by

the end of 1953 had all but faded. Impatient with the delay in ratification

of EDC and frustrated by the State Department's unwillingness to talk

about alternatives to it, DoD proposed setting a deadline for ratification,
Defense of Western Europe 567

failing which the United States would begin to consider other courses

of action. 43

The Defense-State disagreement came to a head in August 1953, when

the NSC took up a draft of a new policy paper on Germany. Wilson explained that Defense favored establishment of a deadline for ratification

because of the problem of what to do with the considerable amount of

military materiel being accumulated for use by the anticipated German

units. Although Dulles felt that the chances of general war-and thus

the urgency of rearming Germany-had been reduced considerably, he

agreed with Wilson that alternatives to EDC should have been studied

earlier and that the NSC Planning Board should begin immediately to

consider them. Dulles conceded that if all the other countries except

France would ratify the treaty, the United States should start to talk about

and even to begin rearming Germany, not as an alternative to French ratification but as a psychological tactic to induce France to ratify. The policy

paper that the NSC subsequently adopted (NSC 160/1), although not

setting a ratification deadline, contained much of what Defense had

been advocating:

... It may be desirable to take bilaterally with the West German

government certain initial steps in the actual creation and

arming of German units, if developments should so indicate and

if this can be done without serious repercussions on our

relations with France. This, it would be made plain to all EDC

signatories, would be to expedite the implementation of EDC

when ratified. The implication that such bilateral action would

continue even though French ratification was further delayed

should provide additional leverage on the French to ratify the

EDC treaty at an early date. 44

To prevent Defense from prematurely initiating contacts with the West

Germans, Dulles asked Wilson to take no action unless State concurred

that it could be done without injuring relations with France. Under present conditions, he emphasized, such action "could have very serious

adverse effects in France and in Germany."45

It did not take long, however, for the NSC partially to retract the new

policy. At a meeting on 1 October, Dulles told the council that a number

of favorable developments-notably, Chancellor Adenauer's Christian

Democratic Union had won a clear majority in the Bundestag in September's West German elections-now pointed toward favorable action

on EDC. The situation was therefore too fluid to warrant making initial

contacts with the West Germans regarding rearmament. Stassen, noting

that a serious logjam of military equipment would develop if creation of
568 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

West German units were delayed beyond the end of 1953, asked

whether equipment might be sent to Germany and distributed prior to

EDC ratification. Eisenhower wondered whether the equipment might

be shipped in the guise of reserve stocks for U.S. occupation forces, but

Wilson thought the amount of equipment too great for this to work.

Dulles suggested the end of January as the date to begin rearming West

German units, since he anticipated definitive action on EDC by then.

Eisenhower "expressed strong skepticism as to whether there was any

really effective alternative to French membership in the EDC." After

further discussion, the NSC asked Wilson to report in two weeks as to

the desirability of establishing a revised planning date for EDC ratification as a guide to the scheduling of production and delivery of

equipment for the German military forces. At the NSC meeting on

13 October Wilson recommended, and the council approved, setting

1 April 1954 as a planning date on which the German military buildup

would begin, but only in the event EDC had already been ratified. 46

In the weeks following, however, new complications developed in

both France and West Germany, as nationalist elements in each country

sought new amendments to the treaty and positions hardened. By the end

of November it appeared that ratification would be delayed beyond the

NATO ministerial meeting in December and probably for months thereafter. One symptom of the growing pessimism was a revived search for

alternatives to EDC. The Joint Chiefs restated their preference for full

West German membership in NATO, admittedly ruled out by the certainty

of French rejection; if EDC were also ruled out they predicted, on the

basis of strictly military considerations, that NATO would be forced to

fall back to the insular-peninsular "peripheral" strategyY

This strategy assumed that West Germany could not be defended

and NATO forces might have to fall back through France to Spain and

Italy behind the natural barriers of the Pyrenees and the Alps. Apart from

the questionable viability of such a strategy, Spain offered obvious potential assets for any defense of Western Europe through its strategic

location, defensible northern frontier, and economic and demographic

resources. If they were to be realized, of course, Spain would have to

be provided at least the framework for rapid transformation into a major

military base, and its political reliability assured, although close association with NATO was ruled out by bitter memories of Franco's pro-Axis

role before and during World War 11. 48

The groundwork had been laid in 1951 when Congress, at President

Truman's instigation, appropriated $125 million for military, economic,

and technical assistance to Spain for FY 1952-53. By executive action
Defense of Western Europe 569

Truman also concluded a bilateral mutual assistance agreement with

Spain giving the United States, in return for aid, the right to station air

and naval forces in that country. Negotiations over base rights and aid, after

dragging on through 1952, had reached an impasse by the time the Eisenhower administration came to power, but in May 1953 Wilson, queried by

the NSC, endorsed an estimate of $465 million as a justified cost for the

base rights. After further negotiations, on 26 September three agreements

were concluded authorizing the exchange of aid for the right to develop

and use bases as provided in the 1951 bilateral agreement. Informally the

United States agreed to the $465 million cost estimate, to be paid over

the next four years, but subject to congressional approval; $350 million

of this sum would be allotted to military assistance. 49

Eisenhower and Dulles, however, remained committed to EDC. Greatly concerned about French dilatoriness in ratification, they personally

exerted great pressure on French Prime Minister Joseph Laniel and Foreign

Minister Georges Bidault at the Bermuda Conference, held in conjunction with the British in early December. The president warned the French

leaders that rejection of EDC would be "cataclysmic" and that he "could

not see what direction" the United States might then take. Dulles spoke

of "tragic consequences" that "would require a complete reevaluation of

our whole foreign policy."50

Paris in the Winter: '~gonizingReappraisal" and More

What the president and secretary of state had expressed privately at

Bermuda Dulles would vent openly at the NATO meeting in Paris later

in December in colorful language that only heightened European fears

about a possible U.S. retreat from the continent. Ironically, pre-meeting

deliberations in Washington focused on preventing the recently chastened

but unpersuaded Secretary Wilson from upsetting the Europeans by spilling something at Paris about planned American troop withdrawals.

Having seen an early draft of remarks Dulles was to make at the meeting,

Wilson, fearing they represented "a long-time commitment" that would

make it difficult eventually to withdraw U.S. forces from Europe, wrote to

the secretary of state that "we can spend our money more effectively and

get more defense for NATO" by using it "for air and naval components

rather than indefinitely keeping hundreds of thousands of our ground

troops and their dependents in Europe at great expense." Wilson believed

the allies had the capacity to provide the ground troops.51

For the 10 December NSC meeting ISA advised Wilson to outline the

points he intended to make in his address at the NATO meeting and to obtain
570 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

NSC and presidential approval. On Wilson's point that the United States

planned "eventually to reduce, if not to phase out completely, its ground

forces stationed in Europe," ISA asked, if indeed this was the plan, "whether

any indication should be made at the forthcoming [NATO] Council

meeting or should we, in fact, take special precautions to prevent any

indication of it, in the interests of obtaining ratification of the EDC and

the German force contribution on which our ultimate aim of withdrawal

is predicated."52

The question evoked a decisive answer at the NSC meeting on 10 December. Dulles warned that irresponsible statements could render ineffective

the essential diplomatic preparation for redeployment by allowing the

impression to get around that the United States planned shortly to pull

out of Europe. Such statements required prompt official denials, which

had the effect of freezing U.S. policy on this issue and thus making its

later modification more difficult. The president emphatically agreed;

"philosophical dissertations" on new weapons were permitted, he said,

but their connection with forces in Europe was off limits. On that subject

"he wanted everybody to keep still" until EDC was ratified and German

forces were in place. In Paris, Dulles said, the U.S. delegation would try

to avoid discussion of the subject altogether. When Wilson and Treasury

Secretary Humphrey stubbornly argued that since eventual redeployment

was the approved policy it might be preferable to alert the public to expect successive reductions in NATO force levels, the president remained

firm. Because of France's "almost hysterical" fear of being left alone on

the continent to face a rearmed Germany, he explained, any such disclosure must be carried out "very gradually." For some time to come, "we

could not afford ... even to talk about redeployment ...."53

A revised draft of Wilson's address, apparently prepared within ISA

following the NSC meeting, clearly reflected the president's thinking. It

included a statement that speculation about the possible withdrawal of

U.S. forces was unfounded. In transmitting the draft to Wilson, Assistant

Secretary Nash recommended that he unequivocally assure the other NATO

members "of the enduring nature of U.S. adherence to and support for

the North Atlantic Treaty including the availability of military assistance

and U.S. combat units."54

Dulles's controversial keynote address on the afternoon of the first

day, 14 December, was the salient event of the Paris meeting. His theme

of a European community that would combine indissolubly the interests

and capacities of France and Germany was an appeal to European hope

and idealism. He warned, however, that if EDC "should not become effective, if France and Germany remain apart so that they will again be
Defense of Western Europe 571

potential enemies, then there would indeed be grave doubt as to

whether Continental Europe could be made a place of safety. That would

compel an agonizing reappraisal of basic United States policy."55 In a press

conference afterward Dulles hammered home his point, repeating the

"agonizing reappraisal" threat. According to a U.S. embassy official, the

press reaction was "instantaneous and violent" both in Paris and "everywhere in Europe," where it was resented as "blackmail." The reaction is

difficult to explain, because Dulles had been issuing similar warnings

regarding EDC for nearly a year. 56

During his address Dulles also announced that the U.S. Congress

would be asked to make available to NATO governments more information about atomic weapons, particularly tactical weapons, than was now

permitted. Such information would serve an immediate purpose, he said,

by permitting a more realistic recalculation of NATO force requirements

to take into account the introduction of atomic firepower into the NATO

arsenal. However, the firepower would accrue only to American, not allied

forces; the relaxation of legislative restrictions did not look toward the

eventual provision of atomic weapons to European NATO forces or of

information about their design and fabrication. The policy of wider

disclosure was intended only "to enable NATO countries to participate

more fully in military planning for their own defenses and in the conduct

of combined operations" with U.s. forces. 57

In his address to the NATO Council on 15 December Wilson eVidently

intended to soften the impact of Dulles's "agoniZing reappraisal" threat;

it contained no hint of possible troop withdrawals. "Our national survival," Wilson declared, "is interlaced with the survival and defense of

the NATO area as a whole." The key to survival was modernization, the

primary aim of the current restructuring of U.S. forces and the focus of

SACEUR's current reappraisal of NATO strategy. He amplified Dulles's

announcement of the U.S. intention to seek legislation to permit sharing

of information about nuclear and other new weapons with allieswithout divulging the kind of information or the uses to which it might

be put. Noting the relevance of such information to NATO planning, he

cautioned against expectations of quick results and urged "a longer range

view than has hitherto been the basis for our NATO planning." Wilson

eschewed exhortations to accelerate or maximize effort, to achieve greater as opposed to better results. 58

Back in Washington, on 23 December Dulles reported to the NSC that

the other NATO members considered the meeting "as successful as any

such meeting ever held." NATO, he believed, had now embraced the concept of the long haul. He and Wilson had tried hard to induce the NATO
572 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

ministers to think "in something like our terms of atomic weapons and of

the atomic age," but with limited success, if any. The NATO ministers

were "still very frightened at the atomic prospect." On the question of

stationing atomic bombers on allied bases, Dulles had learned that the

United States could not count on advance agreements to use the bases,

but it might be possible to agree on an alert system that could be put

quickly into effect if war broke out. Dulles had not addressed the corollary

question, whether atomic weapons could be made available to allies, and

apparently no one had embarrassed him by asking. "Our campaign of education for our allies on atomic weapons," Dulles concluded, "must go on."59

Demise ofthe EDC

Dulles's threat of an "agonizing reappraisal"-however great the immediate commotion it stirred in France-failed to prod the Laniel

government into action on EDC. The French preferred that a conference

be held with the Soviet Union to discuss the overall German question and

European security-to demonstrate to the French public the futility of

negotiating with the Soviet Union-before putting EDC to a vote. But a

four-power foreign ministers meeting in Berlin early in 1954 produced

no diplomatic fireworks, only agreement to hold a follow-on conference

in Geneva that spring regarding Far Eastern questions, including Indochina. Dulles warned Foreign Minister Bidault not to use the scheduling

of the Geneva conference as a reason for further postponing the vote

on EDC. 60

Still doubtful of sufficient backing for EDC in the Assembly, the

Laniel government asked for additional public commitments from Great

Britain that it would associate in some form with the EDC, and from the

United States that American troops would remain on the continent following EDC ratification. Deliberations regarding the French request pitted

an impatient Department of Defense against a more sympathetic Department of State, with President Eisenhower-though vexed by the French

tactics-finally supporting State. At an NSC meeting in early March 1954

Secretary Wilson questioned whether new assurances would do any

good. Under Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith strongly favored providing them, because they were essentially a reiteration of previous public pronouncements. Bristling at Smith's statement, the president asked,

"Must we go on forever coddling the French?" Smith explained that the

situation was reaching a critical stage. If EDC was to be ratified, it would

have to be done by the Laniel government, since chances were slim that

any successor government would approve it.
Defense of Western Europe 573

When Deputy Secretary of Defense Kyes took sharp issue with Smith,

Eisenhower placed himself squarely on State's side. A recent visit to France

had persuaded Kyes that the Assembly would approve EDC, thus obviating the need for further assurances. He thought the French should now

be warned that failure to ratify would prompt the United States to withdraw its troops from Europe. Eisenhower, stressing that he was speaking

from experience, disagreed completely with Kyes. A threat to withdraw

American forces from Europe, he maintained, would not help at all in

securing French ratification. Concerned about the widening assurances

to the French and opposed to an indefinite stationing of American troops

abroad, the president nevertheless favored meeting the French request.

Wilson remained upset by the implications and the cost of keeping U.S.

forces in Europe. Recalling that the United States had come to France's aid

during two world wars, he felt "sick and tired of seeing the United States

pulling France's chestnuts out of the fire." The president pointed out that

Frenchmen would counter that "France had held the fort while the United

States was making up its mind and getting ready to save its own skin.,,61

Following the meeting Wilson and Smith agreed, with Dulles later

concurring, on a draft statement to be made by Eisenhower. After a series

of discussions involving the president, congressional leaders, State and

Defense representatives, and General Gruenther, the statement was revised

slightly to reflect senatorial concern not to extend U.S. commitments

beyond those already embodied in the North Atlantic Treaty. Eisenhower

released the statement on 16 April 1954, having secured a commitment

from the Laniel government to begin Assembly debate on EDC. The president continued to insist that EDC was the only acceptable choice.62

Defeat seemed far from certain. By late April the legislatures in four of

the six EDC signatory nations-the Netherlands, Belgium, West Germany,

and Luxembourg-had ratified the treaty. Only Italy and France remained,

and Italian government officials forecast speedy parliamentary approval

of the treaty once the secret negotiations over the Trieste dispute being

conducted by the United States and Great Britain with Italy and Yugoslavia reached a successful conclusion. 63 Prospects for French ratification dimmed, however, when the worsening French military position in

Indochina caused the fall of the Laniel government before the EDC

debate began. A new government, formed in June under Pierre MendesFrance, promised first to end the Indochina war and then to deal with

EDC. Mendes-France also raised the possibility of amending the EDC treaty

before submitting it to the Assembly.64

The Eisenhower administration looked at possible actions if the

French dragged out consideration of EDC beyond the end of the summer.
574 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Although DoD and the British government favored German membership

in NATO over EDC, State refused to face the possibility that EDC would

not be approved. It continued to oppose discussion of alternatives lest

French awareness that such a process was under way would doom any

chances, however slight, for eventual ratification. 65

For DoD the need to begin preparing for German rearmament loomed

especially large. That spring the NSC had again pushed back the planning date, this time to 1 October 1954, for the start of the German

military buildup. Wilson-whether at the president's direction is not

clear-notified the JCS in late June that the decision the previous year to

suspend consideration of EDC alternatives "is not now interpreted as

precluding planning within the Defense and State Departments." The

JCS responded by calling attention to the October planning date and

urging that the United States try to bring about either early French ratification of EDC or agreement to full NATO membership for West Germany.

The French were to be informed that rejection of both alternatives would

lead the United States and Great Britain to restore German sovereignty in

their zones, assist Germany with its rearmament efforts, and eventually

integrate German forces into NATO. 66

The JCS recommendations found a cool reception at State. Although

the chiefs argued that waiting indefinitely for a French decision would

risk loss of both Germany and France, Dulles resisted discussion of alternatives. At lower levels, however, State representatives made clear to their

Defense counterparts that they too favored German membership in NATO

as the most desirable alternative to EDC. Concerned at State's unresponsiveness, ISA kept up the pressure, urging the earliest possible development

of a formal joint State-Defense position regarding EDC alternatives and

full Defense participation in planning and decisions. 67

DoD had indeed been left out of key discussions between the United

States and Great Britain. At a meeting in Washington in late June 1954,

Churchill, Eden, Eisenhower, and Dulles (no Defense representatives

were present) considered how to deal with the possibility of more French

procrastination. Dulles mentioned the impatience of the JCS and their

view that the chances for rearming West Germany in a controlled and

effective fashion were slipping away. The Western leaders agreed, so long

as EDC was still before the current session of the French Assembly, to

maintain their public and private support and to dampen public discussion of alternatives. They recognized the need, if the Assembly rejected

EDC (but not before then), to quickly restore German sovereignty and to

consult with other NATO members about securing a German defense

contribution. 68 An Anglo-American study group (including on the U.S.
Defense of Western Europe 575

side representatives only from State) subsequently developed plans for

the restoration of German sovereignty in the event the French Assembly

recessed before putting EDC to a vote. The group did not look at specific alternatives to the EDC in the event the French actually voted it

down, because the U.S. members preferred to delay consideration of

such alternatives until a later time. 69

The hopefulness of the State Department and White House was

bolstered by generally optimistic reports from U.S. diplomats and others

that EDC was still viable and preferable to other options. In talks with

U.S. military and civilian officials during a trip to Western Europe in early

July, the President's special assistant for national security affairs, Robert

Cutler, gained the impression that the French Assembly would ratify EDC

"if the political leadership would move." In reporting to the president,

Cutler concluded, "It is idle to consider admitting West Germany as a

NATO partner, subject to certain restrictions (as the British sometimes

suggest). The Germans will not agree." Nor did the president believe that

the threat of rearming Germany would spur the French to action.

Eisenhower told the NSC he doubted whether "a strong U.S. initiative

toward arming Germany would be a means of compelling the ratification of EDC."70

Pressure by the United States, Great Britain, and the other EDC countries brought a reluctant, resentful Mendes-France to submit the treaty

for ratification, only to have the Assembly reject it on 30 August. 71 Just

prior to the vote both Mendes-France and the British advanced alternative arrangements-versions of the "little NATO" solution-that

would allow German rearmament through a small grouping within NATO

but without EDC's supranational features that so bothered the French.

Asked by Churchill to support a "variant of NATO" in place of EDC,

Secretary Dulles remained skeptical. He stood by EDC to the end, calling French rejection "a saddening event" and proposing a special meeting

of the North Atlantic Council to consider future courses of action.

Moreover, the French decision "without the provision of any alternative"

obliged the United States, Dulles said, to reappraise its European policy.72

Dulles and Eisenhower were slow to accept alternatives despite the

urgings of DoD and the British government. They misjudged the level

of support for EDC in the French Assembly and locked the United

States-for tactical advantages that proved ephemeral-into an unnecessarily rigid stance. The British then took the lead in considering how the

West should cope with the crisis created by the EDC's demise. 73
576 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Broadening the New Look

While French rejection of EDC terminated a lengthy, frustrating effort

by the United States and left up in the air the question of West Germany's

relationship to NATO, Washington could at least take heart at progress

achieved, albeit slowly, in putting into place two other elements of the

New Look policy. The first element involved the incorporation of tactical nuclear weapons into NATO strategic planning. In July 1954 the

major NATO commands finally completed the capabilities studies requested at the North Atlantic Council meeting the previous December,

aimed at a revision of basic NATO strategy. These became the basis for

a Standing Group draft paper (SG 241/3), circulated to the Joint Chiefs

in August, which forecast that an intensive exchange of nuclear weapons

in the initial few days or weeks would likely decide any future war.

Although it assumed a West German contribution to NATO defense, SG

241/3 recommended that NATO, instead of planning to mobilize large

forces after D-day, concentrate on maintaining combat forces equipped

with nuclear arms. At the same time, Wilson forwarded to State the views

of the JCS on the need for reaching agreements within NATO regarding

U.S. operating rights in foreign territories, exchange of nuclear information, the role of nuclear weapons in strategy, and the measures to be

taken prior to a counterattack. The major point at issue between State

and Defense was State's preference merely for prior "arrangements" to

be made between the allies regarding authorization for a nuclear counterattack, while the Joint Chiefs envisioned "agreements" granting this

authorization. State favored the more flexible language on the grounds

it would facilitate adoption of a new strategy paper at the NATO meeting

coming up in December 1954.74

The second element, similarly time-consuming, pertained to the liberalization of the McMahon Act to permit more sharing of atomic information

with the allies. In February 1954 the president submitted a special message to Congress proposing amendments to the Atomic Energy Act

having both domestic and international ramifications. In the international

sphere Eisenhower recommended that "authority be provided to exchange with nations participating in defensive arrangements with the

United States such tactical information as is essential to the development

of defense plans and to the training of personnel for atomic warfare."75

During the hearings begun in May and the subsequent prolonged

congressional debate, concerns expressed by Democratic opponents,

primarily senators from the Tennessee Valley Authority region, about the

bill's encouragement of private participation in the domestic development of atomic power overshadowed its groundbreaking international
Defense of Western Europe 577

features. Following passage by the House and Senate of differing versions

and resolution of their differences in two conference committees, the

president signed into law the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 on 30 August,

ironically the same day that the French Assembly rejected EDC. The act

represented a triumph for the president, who had inspired the legislation, given it his complete support, and gained broader powers from

it. Under its provisions, sharing U.S. fissionable material or classified information with a foreign government now required negotiation of a

cooperative agreement, but only after the president had determined that

the proposed agreement "will promote and will not constitute an unreasonable risk to the common defense and security."76

By September 1954 NATO, primarily because of budgetary constraints, had taken major strides in reducing force goals from the

unrealistic Lisbon levels of two years before and in accepting the New

Look's emphasis on nuclear weapons. Within the Eisenhower administration Wilson often had found himself opposed by the president and

Dulles on what seemingly were military questions. Wilson and the Joint

Chiefs had made no secret of their desire to withdraw some U.S. forces

from Europe as a cost-cutting measure and to offset this reduction with

German force contributions through West Germany's membership in

NATO. DoD's importunings on these matters had met resistance from

Eisenhower and Dulles, who, more alert to possible negative repercussions of U.S. actions (especially vis-a-vis France), focused above all on

maintaining and strengthening European political cohesion. With the

collapse of EDC, however, that goal seemed even more difficult of

achievement.
CHAPTER XXVI

Stabilizing Central and

Southern Europe

Western diplomatic triumphs in late 1954 and early 1955, for the most

part unanticipated, helped soften the acute disappointment in Washington

over French rejection of the European Defense Community (EDC). The

masterstroke, a result of British decisiveness and initiative, was devising

a substitute for EDC as a way to bind Germany to the Western security

system and begin its rearmament program.

The Western powers also made great strides in shoring up the defense

of southern Europe, a region that President Eisenhower referred to as

"our weak flank.'" The October 1954 resolution of the controversy between Italy and Yugoslavia over Trieste and the signing in May 1955 of

an Austrian state treaty resolved longstanding issues that had clouded the

security of the region. While the Department of Defense played a limited

role in the negotiations, both agreements subsequently raised troublesome

questions with political and money overtones about the redeployment of

U.S. forces that had participated in the occupation of Trieste and Austria.

Worrisome, too, were the rapprochement between Yugoslavia and the

Soviet Union that began in the fall of 1954, the former's shunning of

closer ties to NATO, and the problems the U.S. military assistance program

increasingly encountered in Yugoslavia that led to the program's termination later in the decade. Ultimately, although no formal link ever developed between Yugoslavia and NATO, the neutralist position adopted by

Yugoslav President Tito offered a satisfactory, if less than ideal, contribution to stability in the region. To a greater degree than Department of

Defense officials, State Department representatives, especially Secretary

Dulles, would come to view Tito's feisty neutralism as a fair exchange

578
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 579

for the disruptive impact Yugoslavia's continuing independence from

Moscow might have on the Soviet satellites.

Despite approval in December 1954 of a new strategy paper (MC 48)

that embraced the use of nuclear weapons, NATO found itself still struggling with many of its old problems-striving to achieve unrealistically high

conventional force goals, working out equitable formulas for funding the

modernization of equipment and new infrastructure, and improving the

preparedness of forces. In the summer of 1956 the hoped for boost in

manpower and financial contributions from West Germany's admission to

NATO was still slow in materializing. Detente between East and West and

signs of liberalization within the Soviet bloc made it difficult for NATO

members, particularly West Germany, to gain public and parliamentary

support for a military buildup.

West German Entry into NATO

Although the French National Assembly's rejection of EDC at the end

of August 1954 caught the United States without specific alternate plans

for linking West Germany to NATO, the British had been examining several possibilities and were prepared to move quickly. Foreign Secretary

Anthony Eden pushed for an arrangement to restore West German

sovereignty and bring Germany into NATO through the medium of the

Western European Union (WEU), a mutual defense organization formed

in 1948 consisting of Great Britain, France, and the Benelux nations,

which now was to be enlarged to include both Germany and Italy. 2

Like the British, the Department of Defense had been urging consideration of alternatives to EDC. Frustrated by the State Department's

delay in responding to the Joint Chiefs' proposals submitted in June,

DoD began to prepare a comprehensive program for the rearmament of

West Germany.3 At the same time Eden and Secretary of State Dulles

separately visited several European capitals and obtained agreement on

the holding of a conference in London (28 September through 3 October)

to work out the details of the British plan. The arrangements, finalized at

a special meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Paris 19-23 October at

which Deputy Secretary Robert Anderson and Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs H. Struve Hensel represented the Department of

Defense, constituted a complex set of interrelated documents, involving

sometimes as many as 14 countries and sometimes only one nation in a

unilateral declaration. Great Britain, for example, gave a unilateral commitment to maintain forces on the continent; Germany unilaterally

renounced the manufacture of atomic, biological, and chemical weapons,
580 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

guided missiles, large naval vessels, and strategic bombing aircraft.

The United States provided a series of unilateral assurances, including the

continued deployment of U.S. troops on the continent. 4

Even before West Germany's formal admission to NATO on 6 May

1955, study groups and multilateral working groups began tackling the

time-consuming details of implementing the Paris accords. Attention

centered mainly on measures to reach the goal of a 12-division 500,000-

man army, the amount of military assistance and training the German

armed forces were to receive, the costs Germany would pay to support

the armed forces in Germany of other NATO members-the "sending"

states-the size of the West German defense budget, and the portion of

the budget to be devoted to NATO's infrastructure program.

Two issues in particular caused especially deep concern within

NATO-the slow pace of the German manpower buildup and Germany's

share of the support costs. Raising the West German army proved slower

than expected. In September 1955 German Chancellor Adenauer stated

publicly that ground forces would be brought to full strength in three

years and the naval and air forces in four years, goals that were approved

in NATO's 1955 Annual Review. But it was not until 2 January 1956 that

the first 1,000 volunteers were put into uniform and started limited training. The early units were located in Andernach, 40 kilometers south of

Bonn, in the hope that German soldiers on display and close to the seat

of government would have a positive political effect on the German

parliament and NATO. Volunteers came forward more slowly than the

government had hoped, perhaps because of a general relaxation of EastWest tensions. By December recruitment had picked up, but lack of accommodations prevented the attainment of the year-end goal of 96,000. 5

The new army, the Bundeswehr, had been envisioned as a mix of

volunteers (60%) and conscripts (40%), but the Adenauer government

increasingly turned to conscription to fill the ranks. Early in 1956 the government proposed legislation to authorize conscription for all males

between the ages of 18 and 45, with a period of 18 months service. Despite

strong opposition in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, and

among the German public to the length of the conscription period,

Adenauer continued to support the 18 months of service. Critics also

charged that NATO's decision to rely on nuclear weapons for defense

made the proposed 500,000-man German army unduly large and the rate

of the buildup too rapid. The Bundesrat, the upper house, narrowly

approved conscription in March with a large majority recommending a

12-month term of service. In July the Bundestag merely approved conscription without specifying a term of service. But in September the

Bavarian Christian Socialist wing of Adenauer's Christian Democratic
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 581

Party, led by Franz Josef Strauss, publicly called for a 12-month service

term, and the Bundestag cut Adenauer's proposed military budget, forcing

the chancellor to accept the 12-month draft. The North Atlantic Council

quickly expressed concern at the lowering of the requirement for military

service. By year's end some in Washington were doubting that the 12-

division goal would be met or that the conscription measures would be

put into effect before the 1957 elections. 6

The amount of money West Germany would pay to support foreign

troops on its soil presented another contentious issue. At the end of 1954

the United States had over 250,000 military personnel and nearly 5,000

civilians in West Germany, a number larger than in any other foreign

country. Under the contractual agreements of May 1952, Germany had

agreed to pay DM 7.2 billion ($1.7 billion) per year in occupation costs.

With the termination of allied occupation in May 1955, the Federal Republic agreed to provide support amounting to DM 3.2 billion over the next

12 months, with the United States receiving nearly half the amount. 7

In the spring of 1956, although the sending states wanted to renew

the agreement at the same levels, Finance Minister Fritz Schaffer disclaimed German responsibility for support costs, pointing out that no

other NATO member paid them and that Germany had to be treated as

an equal partner. Germany was willing to negotiate only for provision

of goods and services for the sending states' forces, not for continuing

monetary support. The United States contended that Germany differed

from other NATO countries in that it depended for its defense on outsiders until its own forces could be built up. Germany therefore should

at least meet some of the costs of its defense provided by other countries.

The U.S. embassy in Bonn wanted the United States to propose a figure of

DM 1.2 billion per year, but to be prepared to accept much less.s

As the Comptroller's Office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense

noted, the United States, Britain, and France had minimal leverage in negotiating with the Germans. Their major assets were the troops stationed

in Germany and MDAP assistance. These mattered for little, since the

Germans assumed the Western powers would not pull their troops out

of Germany over failure to receive support. Such action "could wreck

NATO." The office concluded that the United States might have to consider settling for minimal German support in the form of goods and

services with the understanding that no further grant aid would be

forthcoming beyond the commitment of DM 3.6 to 4.0 billion made by

Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Nash in April 1953 and reaffirmed

by Secretary Dulles in October 1954. Any additional equipment might

be provided on a cash reimbursable basis or in exchange for specific
582 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

amounts of deutschemark support for U.S. forces. Implicit in the office's

analysis was the likelihood that the German buildup would stretch out

over six to eight years, a conclusion that ISA's European Region disputed.

Although preparations for the buildup had been quite slow, the European

Region saw no indication of a stretchout of such duration, which, moreover, would run contrary-to Adenauer's private and public assurances. 9

To deal with several issues in U.S.-German relations, including support costs, Secretary of Defense Wilson appointed Karl R. Bendetsen,

former assistant secretary of the Army, as his special assistant and dispatched him to Europe in May 1956. Bendetsen worked with Ambassador

James B. Conant in securing an agreement whereby the German government would contribute DM 650 million to the cost of maintaining

U.S. forces in Germany for the 12-month period ending 5 May 1957,

about half the previous year's amount. Under the agreement the United

States reserved the right to reopen negotiations for further German contributions should effective efforts toward the buildup of German forces not

be forthcoming. Upon returning to Washington Bendetsen recommended

that no further grant aid for Germany be programmed or considered

beyond the Nash commitment until Germany demonstrated that it was

making a real effort toward the buildup of effective military forces of

its own. 10

While Bendetsen was in Germany and the Bundestag was debating

the conscription legislation, the NSC Planning Board, worried about the

difficulties Adenauer might face in the elections scheduled for the fall of

1957, recommended a slight change in policy toward West Germany. It

proposed that the NSC reaffirm the importance of achieving "an adequate

German defense contribution," but in light of Germany's internal political

situation, the United States "should not press for a German defense buildup in a such a manner as would jeopardize the continuation of a moderate

pro-Western West German Government."ll

Admiral Radford expressed the Joint Chiefs' opposition to the proposed revision. The chiefs wanted to continue pressure on Germany to

participate more fully in Western European defense. "It was our duty," he

said, "to find out as soon as possible where the Germans stood on their

contribution to NATO....The situation will be less satisfactory in Germany

a year from now if we do not continue to push them on the nature of

their participation." Deputy Secretary of Defense Reuben Robertson

asked whether the degree and timing of pressure to be exerted on the

West German government should not be left up to the secretary of state.

Dulles, who believed he had pushed Adenauer about as far as he could

regarding the buildup, did not want to see the Adenauer government
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 583

toppled. Radford agreed that too much pressure should not be applied,

but "we must also not let the Germans off the hook." How Germany

handled its contribution to NATO, particularly the length of the conscription period, would be a test case for other NATO members. Acting on

Dulles's view that the pressure to be applied was essentially an operating rather than a policy question, the NSC rejected the Planning Board's

recommendation. 12

Given the long period under EDC of planning for and anticipating

Germany's rearmament, the delays encountered in the early months after

West German entry into NATO proved frustrating indeed. Ambassador

Conant remarked in his diary, "What irony. First we were afraid the

Germans would rearm, now we are afraid they won't!" Finance Minister

Schaffer received most of the blame for the slow pace. But there is evidence that Adenauer, despite his professed support for a speedy buildup,

at least supported Schaffer on the support costs issue. Because the

Eisenhower administration, however, viewed Adenauer as indispensable

to Germany's reintegration with the West and worried about the possible

negative ramifications of U.S. actions on the German electorate, it may

have been overly solicitous of him and given him a "quasi-veto power"

over American policy. 13

Settlement ofthe Trieste Dispute

The Trieste area at the head of the Adriatic Sea had been a source of

tension between Italy and Yugoslavia since Italy acquired it after AustriaHungary's defeat in World War I. When Yugoslav forces began to take control of the area in the closing days of World War 11, British and American

troops quickly moved in and worked out a joint occupation with Yugoslavia, formalized in 1947 with the signing of the Italian peace treaty and

creation of the Free Territory of Trieste divided into two zones. Some

5,000 American and an equal number of British forces remained in the

predominantly Italian city of Trieste and the areas to the north and east

(Zone A). Yugoslavia, permitted 10,000 troops, occupied the area south of

the city (Zone B) populated mostly by Slovenes and Croats. 14

Since Yugoslavia refused to recognize Italy's claim to Zone A, tensions

remained high along the zonal boundary. In the fall of 1953 Yugoslavia

nearly went to war with Italy when the Italian government, with the

support of the Americans and the British, announced that it would take

over administration of Zone A upon the withdrawal of the two occupying powers. Tempers cooled, and the United States and Britain scrapped

their plans for withdrawing. 15
584 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

In February 1954 secret talks to resolve the dispute began in London

among British, American, Italian, and Yugoslav representatives. Llewellyn

Thompson, high commissioner in Austria who shuttled unobtrusively

between Vienna and London, represented the United States. DoD's role in

the negotiations was limited. In the early stages Maj. Gen. Clyde Eddleman, assistant chief of staff of the Army (G-3), served on the U.S. delegation.

Thompson, however, soon dispensed with the other members of the delegation, preferring to deal on a one-to-one basis with his counterparts. 16

Little progress was made until the summer of 1954. A clinching visit in

September to Italy and Yugoslavia by Deputy Under Secretary of State

Robert Murphy paved the way for an agreement on 5 October 1954 that

divided the territory roughly along the lines of the occupation zones.

Eisenhower had remarked that a Trieste agreement was important "if for

no other reason than to provide some counter-balance for the EDC flOp."17

That summer the prospect of agreement stirred discussion in Washington of what eventually to do with the U.S. forces stationed in Trieste,

now numbering about 3,000. Three options came under consideration:

(1) redeploying the forces to the U.S. occupation zone in Austria, (2) redeploying them to the port of Leghorn (Livorno) about 160 miles northwest of Rome, or (3) returning them to the United States. The discussion

occasioned a clash of views between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary Wilson and a rare point of agreement between Wilson and Secretary

of State Dulles.

Purely military considerations favored redeployment to Austria. The

Joint Chiefs, backed by Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR)

General Alfred Gruenther, reiterated their recommendation from the

previous fall that the Trieste forces be redeployed there to strengthen

defenses along the Italian border. General Gruenther doubted the wisdom

of the second option-redeployment to Leghorn-'-because the forces

would find themselves too far away to move eastward quickly on short

notice. Gruenther also felt that an augmentation of U.S. forces in Austria

would compensate for British and French withdrawals from the country

earlier in the year that had left only token forces in their zones of occupation and would strengthen the Austrian belief that the West would

not abandon them in the event of a military crisis. IS

Financial and political factors made the other options more attractive.

Secretary Wilson strongly preferred that the forces be returned to the

United States. He noted that the terms of the settlement under discussion involved the United States dispensing considerable sums of money

to Italy and Yugoslavia; returning the Trieste garrison to the United States

would help reduce the overall cost of the settlement. 19
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 585

Between the position of the military authorities and that of Wilson

stood Dulles and Eisenhower. Dulles did not object to the transfer of most

of the troops to Austria, but the political reactions to such a move, he

believed, would be minimized if the forces could "be phased into Austria

gradually and ostensibly as replacements." In addition, sending at least a

small number of troops elsewhere in Europe would permit the United

States to issue a statement that only a portion of the Trieste forces had

been redeployed to Austria. In view of the military authorities' judgment

that the troops be redeployed to Austria rather than returned to the United

States, Dulles chose at this time not to comment on possibly bringing

them home. 20

While acknowledging the concerns of his military advisers, the president essentially agreed with Wilson's point of view. Eisenhower counted

on an eventual Trieste settlement strengthening the southern front by

allowing Yugoslavia and Italy to "look to the east instead of neutralizing

each other." Italy therefore would be able to provide reserve forces in

the north to move into Austria quickly if need be. If this could be

arranged, Eisenhower told Gruenther, "then some time in the future it

would be proper to consider the question of returning our troops all the

way to the United States." At an NSC meeting in mid-August, Eisenhower

remarked that the political importance of the Trieste forces was "out of

all proportion to their monetary cost and military value" and postponed

a decision on their disposition until a final settlement was reached. In

the event of a settlement, however, the troops were to be temporarily

redeployed to Leghorn. After the meeting, Eisenhower wrote to Gruenther,

reminding him of the Joint Chiefs' view that the United States should

expect the allies to share more of the burden of European defense.

Transferring the Trieste forces to Austria, he pointed out, would give the

European nations the impression that "no matter how much they fail to

do so, we would attempt to fill their deficiencies."zl

No further discussion of the matter occurred until the conclusion of

the agreement on 5 October 1954. Traveling in Europe after taking part

in the London nine-power conference, Deputy Secretary Anderson offered

a compromise. The proposal, concurred in by Lt. Gen. William H. Arnold,

commander of the U.S. forces in Austria, called for the 351st Regiment

to move from Trieste to Leghorn, where it would receive short-term

inductees from other European components and would eventually be

brought back to the United States. Long-term inductees, however, would

be assigned to the U.S. forces in Austria. Personnel levels there would

be raised without creating new units. 22 The proposal would thus satisfy

the main objectives of the two contending positions. Not only would U.S.
586 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

defensive capabilities in Austria be bolstered slightly, but the 351 st

Regiment, following its temporary redeployment to Leghorn, would be

brought home and formally deactivated.

Anderson's proposal met stiff opposition from Army Chief of Staff

General Matthew Ridgway, who argued that additional troops would be

unwieldy to superimpose on existing units in Austria and would not

significantly increase the command's combat effectiveness. Nor could he

see a military justification for returning the forces to the United States

unless the move was part of a larger withdrawal of U.S. forces from

Europe. He was unhappy over the prospect of deactivating a regiment

with longstanding traditions and earmarked in planning documents as a

key part of a division to be created immediately after D-day. With Gruenther's support, Ridgway continued to urge redeployment of the 351st

Regiment, as presently organized, to the U.S. zone of Austria. 23

At the NSC meeting on 6 October, presided over by Secretary of

State Dulles in the president's absence, Wilson and Ridgway restated their

positions. For Wilson, who backed the Anderson compromise, filling the

gap created by the British and French withdrawals from Austria would set

a bad precedent. Nor would a single regiment really add to the defense of

Austria. Once in place, however, it would be difficult to withdraw. Money

was also a major factor. To keep its forces in Europe the United States had

to pay two to three times what it cost the allies for their forces. Moving

the troops along with dependents to Austria would run up housing and

other expenses. Although Wilson understood the Joint Chiefs' argument,

he thought the decision should rest primarily on the judgment of Secretary of State Dulles from the political viewpoint.

Wilson found an unfamiliar ally in Dulles, who only several months

before had opposed withdrawing U.S. forces from Europe. As if trumping

the arguments of the Joint Chiefs, Dulles suggested that the president

was the "best judge" on the military aspects of the question and would

have to decide on that basis. Echoing Wilson, the secretary of state

pointed out that the troops could easily be returned to the United States,

but if transferred elsewhere in Europe, "we may never get them out."

Finally, Dulles believed that the lessened risk of war in Europe made it

desirable to bring the troops home. Eisenhower's special assistant for

national security affairs, Robert Cutler, telephoned Wilson the next day

notifying him of the president's decision to have the troops transferred

temporarily to Leghorn and to postpone final action until he could discuss the matter further with the interested officials. 24

Two weeks later, the president, in a meeting with Wilson, Dulles, and

JCS Chairman Radford, "generally" decided that the forces should be
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 587

returned to the United States "for reasons advanced by the Secretaries

of State and Defense." Since loose ends remained relating to the London

conference and the integration of West Germany into NATO, the return

was to be delayed. Eisenhower had earlier expressed concern about the

effect of redeployment on the French Assembly's consideration of the ninepower agreements regarding West Germany. In a telephone conversation

with Dulles, he had remarked that if the Assembly ratified the accords,

the Trieste forces should be brought home. Doing so before then "might

discourage some boys" in the Assembly and cost a few votes in favor of

the agreements. Concerned nevertheless at leaving Austria inadequately

defended, the president suggested that soundings be made with the

British, French, Italians, and Yugoslavs to see whether they might be

willing to help.25

To ISA officials the president's approach seemed indecisive and confusing. It did not take into account Italian willingness for the American

troops to remain in Leghorn only long enough to be staged through to

another destination. They also wondered why, if the president had

generally agreed to the eventual return of the troops to the United States,

action should not begin to provide the necessary facilities. It would

become increasingly difficult to maintain the troops in Leghorn on such

an uncertain basis. 26

The British-American military government in Trieste formally came

to an end on 26 October, after an elaborate withdrawal ceremony was

cancelled at the last minute because of bad weather and fears by the

British commanding general of an assassination attempt. Dulles made a

last-ditch effort to persuade the British to transfer one battalion from

Trieste to Austria if the United States would augment its forces in Austria

with two Trieste battalions. But the British refused. 27 No effort apparently was made to enlist the help of other nations.

In the meantime, the president decided on 1 November to adopt the

essence of the Anderson compromise. Between 1,500 and 2,000 additional spaces were to be made available to General Arnold in Austria for

organizing into units as Gruenther might recommend, provided that such

spaces would not require new housing construction. The 351st Regiment, with its remaining strength and short-term personnel from other

commands, would then be returned to the United States. Although the

regiment's formal return would slightly reduce the U.S. forces committed

to NATO, the administration hoped to offset this with the introduction

into Europe of new weapons such as 280-mm. artillery with nuclear capability, Corporal missiles, and Honest John rockets. 28
588 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The Austrian State Treaty

Concerns over the adequacy of defensive arrangements in Austria

proved short-lived, as a breakthrough in the long-stalemated talks to end

the occupation of Austria by the Western powers and the Soviet Union

followed on the heels of the Trieste settlement, leading to the signing of

an Austrian state treaty in May 1955 and the withdrawal from the country

of all occupation forces later that year.

Although the official U.S. position in the treaty negotiations under

way since 1947 called for the unification of Austria, the Department of

Defense had resisted including language in the treaty that would leave

Austria militarily or economically weak and subject to Soviet pressures,

preferring to see Austria remain divided and occupied rather than unified and unoccupied. Progress in negotiations was also hindered by

Soviet insistence on linking the Austrian settlement with an overall German settlement. 29

The breakthrough resulted not from any shift in the U.S. position,

but a combination of initiatives by the other participants. Through the

early years of the occupation the Soviet Union had a stronger military

presence in Austria, averaging nearly 50,000 troops in its zone compared

to almost 15,000 Americans, 5,000 British, and 5,000 French in the three

Western zones. This numerical advantage increased in 1953. In September the British and French governments, weary at the slow pace of

the negotiations and anxious to redirect their military spending, announced sharp reductions of their forces in Austria. The French withdrew

almost all their troops; the British kept only one battalion. Not only were

the Joint Chiefs concerned at the weakened Western defensive capabilities in Austria, they also worried that the reductions would "establish

the precedent of sanctioning unilateral withdrawal of troops previously

earmarked for NATO." Other members "already more or less affected by

neutralist leanings could be expected to seize upon this action as an

excuse to reduce their own commitments and efforts." Wilson shared

these concerns and emphasized to the president that the "maintenance

of a firm understanding and area of consultation with these major Allies

on all matters affecting our common defense would appear to be as

important as our joint partnership in NATO itself."30

A new policy paper on Austria (NSC 164/1) approved in October 1953,

while recommending that the United States should continue to "vigorously resist the neutralization of Austria," noted the divergence in views

among the Western powers. If the British and French were to press

strongly for some degree of neutralization, the paper recognized that the

United States might have to make a concession to avoid being blamed for
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 589

unilaterally blocking the treaty. No treaty was to be signed, however, that

would "preclude Austria's association with the economic community of

Western Europe, which would prejudice Austria's capacity to preserve

internal order, or which would restrict the western powers in giving aid

to Austria in the establishment of adequate internal security forces."31

On 8 February 1955, the Soviet Union announced it would consider

signing an Austrian treaty even without a German peace treaty. On

19 April after bilateral negotiations with the Austrians, who were eager

for the restoration of their sovereignty, Moscow submitted specific new

treaty proposals in a formal note to the three Western powers. The

Joint Chiefs requested a week to study the military implications of the

proposals, particularly a four-power guarantee of Austrian independence.

Their concerns were threefold: (1) how to withdraw the U.S. forces in

an orderly way if a treaty were concluded, (2) the great strategic significance of Austria and preserving its independence, and (3) whether the

United States and Austria through a bilateral agreement could establish

an Austrian gendarmerie to keep internal order. Under Secretary of State

Herbert Hoover, Jr., argued that speed was essential and that Secretary

Dulles would need broad latitude in the conduct of the negotiations,

particularly regarding the four-power guarantee. President Eisenhower

was worried that a guarantee would be a "Pandora's box" and would

subject the United States to all kinds of uncertainties. He agreed with the

chiefs that the issue should be studied further. The president made clear

his strong preference for an armed neutrality that would allow Austria,

like Switzerland, to participate in its own defense. After consultation with

the British and French, the Western powers proposed, and the Soviets

agreed, that their ambassadors meet with Austrian representatives in

Vienna on 2 May to work out an agreed text which would then be signed

by the foreign ministers of the four occupying powers.:32

As with Trieste, a diplomatic success caused a military headachewhere to move the forces stationed in Austria and how quickly this could

be accomplished. Because Army Chief of Staff General Ridgway believed a

three-month withdrawal period, as the Soviet Union had proposed, would

be physically impossible, the Joint Chiefs wanted to extend the period to

six months. The president believed it would be reneging to ask for a

six-month period and might give the impression that the United States

was playing obstructionist. Dulles thought an extension would not sit

well with the Austrians who strongly desired the prompt removal of

foreign troops. The argument could be made that if the Soviets could

withdraw in three months, why could the United States not remove a

much smaller number in the same time. Joining Dulles in opposing the

chiefs' requested extension, Wilson declared the issue was not important
590 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

enough to waste energy and time that might be more usefully spent on

other matters. However, the president hedged on the question and suggested that Dulles, while not pressing for an extension, should understand

the value for the United States if the period for withdrawal could be extended to six months. 33

Nor did the Joint Chiefs receive support for their position from

Ambassador Thompson in Vienna or the U.S. commander in Austria,

General Arnold, who pointed out that an extension would have "little

if any military value and would have extremely adverse political effects

if we were obliged to advocate such delay." Unless he was instructed

otherWise, Thompson did not plan to raise this point in the ambassadors' conference. 34

By 7 May most of the issues, except for the article dealing with economic reparations, were buttoned up. The president recognized the

dilemma that faced the United States. At this late stage, it would be

difficult to refuse to sign the treaty, but if the reparations article remained

unrevised, the Soviets would gain a hold on the Austrian economy. It

seemed to Wilson that the Soviets wanted to negotiate bilaterally with

the Austrians regarding oil fields and Danube shipping. Eisenhower

thought the Soviets wanted to provide themselves an excuse to move

into Austria at some later time. 35 Eventually the Soviet Union gave way on

the article and also agreed to drop from the preamble to the treaty

reference to Austria's war guilt in World War II. Dulles and the other

foreign ministers signed the treaty in Vienna on 15 May 1955. In the

meantime, the Soviet Union and seven East European nations had signed

a treaty of "friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance" at Warsaw on

14 May. At least at the inception the Warsaw Pact was probably intended

less to hasten the already well-advanced integration of Soviet and East

European military forces than to serve as a symbolic buffer between

the Soviet Union and West Germany-recently admitted into NATO-and

to legitimize the continuing presence of Soviet troops in Hungary and

Romania that should have been withdrawn after the Austrian state treaty. 36

The conclusion of the Austrian state treaty forced a decision on

where U.S. forces were to be redeployed during the three-month period

allowed. Arguments similar to those made the previous year regarding

the redeployment of the Trieste garrison were resurrected-bringing the

forces home to the United States might be construed in Western Europe

as evidence of a U.S. intent to reduce its commitment to Europe or as

evidence of a U.S. belief that world tensions had diminishedY

The Joint Chiefs recommended that the forces be redeployed to

northeast Italy, reorganized as a special weapons support force with atomic

capability, and designated United States Army, Italy (USARIT). The chiefs
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 591

emphasized that Western forces in Austria, along with Italian and Yugoslav national forces, had always had an extremely marginal capability to

hold NATO's southern flank, especially in light of Yugoslavia's reluctance

to coordinate military planning with the West. Therefore, the neutralization of Austria and the withdrawal of the occupation forces, along with

Yugoslavia's tendency toward neutrality and possible rapprochement

with the Soviet bloc, further weakened what was already a less than satisfactory situation. Under the circumstances, the chiefs were worried that

the area around Villach, Austria, and the Ljubljana Gap might become an

undefended avenue of approach to northeast Italy. Unlike the discussion

of redeployment of the Trieste forces the previous year, this time Secretary Wilson supported the chiefs in their recommendation to keep the

forces in Europe. 38

Italian military authorities keenly favored the redeployment, but

wanted it to be "dressed up" as much as possible as a NATO requirement.

The U.S. embassy in Rome thought redeployment would manifest U.S.

interest in Italy's defense, reinforce pro-NATO feeling, and help the government in its struggle against the Communists. The Italians were worried,

however, that the proposed name-USARIT-connoted an army of occupation. General Gruenther therefore suggested Southern Europe Task

Force (SETAF), which was accepted. By 22 October 1955, all foreign

forces had completed their evacuation from Austria. SETAF, activated

three days later, set up headquarters at Verona with the majority of its

combat troops stationed at Vicenza. 39

Yugoslavia: A Partial Success

The Eisenhower administration experienced great difficulty in continuing the policy, inaugurated by the Truman administration, to provide

military and economic assistance to Yugoslavia to safeguard its independence following the 1948 rift with the Soviet Union, a policy dubbed

"keeping Tito afloat." The cornerstone of U.S. military support was a

Mutual Defense Assistance program set up under a 1951 bilateral agreement, though Western policymakers hoped for an eventual Yugoslav

connection to, if not membership in, NATO. Tripartite (U.S.-U.K.-France)

talks with Yugoslavia held in Belgrade in November 1952 and in Washington in August 1953 aimed to integrate Yugoslav defense planning more

closely with those of the three Western countries-and ultimately with

NATO regarding defense of the southern flank. 40

Establishment of a regional military alliance (the Balkan Pact) between

Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey in August 1954 and settlement of the
592 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Trieste dispute that October seemingly cleared the way for Yugoslavia's

closer military association with the West. In fact, the ensuing relationship

with the United States saw a weakening of links with the West. Growing disenchantment with Yugoslav behavior prompted the Department

of Defense and some State Department officials, such as Ambassador to

Yugoslavia James Riddleberger, to advocate curtailment of military

assistance. Sentiment in Congress also supported a tougher stance. But

Dulles and others at State, hopeful of the disruptive effect of Yugoslav

independence on the Soviet bloc and fearful that a tough policy might

drive the Yugoslavs back into Moscow's arms, managed to keep the military

assistance program alive.

Following the Trieste accord, differences quickly emerged between

Defense and State on timing and tactics in dealing with the Yugoslavs.

Defense wanted to avoid forcing the issue of closer collaboration with

the West; State favored an early meeting between Admiral William

Fechteler, commander in chief, Allied Forces, Southern Europe, and military representatives from the Balkan Pact countries and Italy to explore

operational problems of mutual interest. 41

The Defense approach won out. An October 1954 meeting in

Washington between Fechteler, Riddleberger, Vice Admiral Davis of

ISA, and Army and Joint Staff representatives maintained that no matter how desirable military cooperation was among Yugoslavia, Italy,

Greece, and Turkey, it "should not be pushed unduly." They recommended

first developing low-level relations between Italian and Yugoslav military

officers before attempting a more formal arrangement. Eisenhower

endorsed this approach, suggesting that a mutually friendly feeling

between NATO and Yugoslav personnel might be promoted by allowing

the Yugoslavs to see routine NATO equipment and military formations,

without divulging nuclear or strategic information. 42

That fall, as the United States and Great Britain were successfully

brokering an agreement on Trieste, the Soviet Union made overtures to

Yugoslavia to mend the rift in their relations. The Yugoslavs expressed

cautious interest in a "normalization" process, and for the next several

years, as Soviet-Yugoslav relations gradually improved, Yugoslav enthusiasm for a military connection with the West waned. The first manifestation of this reluctance occurred in November 1954 when Tito told

Riddleberger that Yugoslavia did not want any formal connection

between the Balkan Pact and NATO, but he would be willing to discuss

with his military leaders the possibility of "informal liaison arrangements." He feared that a formal link would hinder Yugoslavia's longterm policy of exercising a nationalist influence on the satellite nations

in Eastern Europe. 43
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 593

What raised additional concerns in Washington were the day-to-day

difficulties in administering the military aid program, especially Yugoslav

unwillingness to allow expansion of the American Military Assistance Staff

(AMAS) in Belgrade and to permit inspections by u.S. officers of the

units employing the military equipment furnished them. Given the lack

of cooperation, Admiral Radford found it difficult to justify a program

whose legislative basis required cooperation on defense matters from the

recipient country. The Joint Chiefs felt that, pending clarification of Tito's

attitude, the United States should grant no new assistance and should

thoroughly review the program. "It was a simple fact," Radford observed,

"that Tito had not lived up to his commitments to the United States."

Eisenhower wanted to use the supply of ammunition and spare parts

as leverage on countries, like Yugoslavia, whose "essential loyalty to us

was questionable." By regulating the flow of these two items the United

States generally could control the situation. "If Tito was proposing to sit

back and blackmail the United States," the president declared, "we should

playa very cagy game.,,44

When Riddleberger met Tito again in April 1955, the ambassador

warned that a number of urgent questions regarding military assistance

would have to be resolved or the United States would suspend military

shipments. Although Tito declared that Yugoslavia remained committed to

friendly relations with the United States, he nevertheless emphasized that

a fundamental element of Yugoslav foreign policy was non-membership

in any bloc. Riddleberger, moderately hopeful that Tito's proposal for

talks with the Western allies to discuss mutual problems might prove

fruitful, postponed recommending any large-scale suspension of equipment deliveries. 45

Foreign Minister Popovic's unyielding responses to the issues Riddleberger had raised with Tito, including Popovic's firm rejection of any

Yugoslav connection with NATO, caused Riddleberger and AMAS Chief

Maj. Gen. Peter Hains to recommend to Washington the complete and

immediate suspension of military aid. In Paris General Gruenther and the

Defense representative to the North Atlantic and Mediterranean Areas,

Wendell Anderson, vigorously disagreed, questioning the effect such a

drastic step would have on possibly linking Yugoslavia more closely to

Western defensive efforts. Because of overriding political considerations,

the Yugoslav military assistance program from its inception,. Gruenther

and Anderson pointed out, had been treated as an exception to standard

procedures. It had always benefited from looser interpretations of legislation, programming criteria, and procurement activities.46

Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Mfairs Hensel

replied sharply to Anderson, stating that Yugoslav conduct violated both
594 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the Mutual Security Act provisions and the 1951 bilateral agreement, violations that a Senate committee had already begun looking into. Hensel

did not understand how such abuses could be overlooked "simply because Tito very conveniently for his position will negotiate only when he

is being stroked and placated." Advocating that the suspension be carried

out politely but as firmly as possible, Hensel also asked how, if Tito was

not honoring the provisions of the bilateral agreement, he could be expected to adhere to any possible future agreement regarding Yugoslavia's

association with NATOY

The American deliberations were complicated by the Yugoslav government's announcement that a high-level Soviet delegation, including

Communist Party First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, would visit Yugoslavia

in late May 1955. Wanting to avoid giving the Yugoslavs the impression

that the suspension of military deliveries was the result of the Soviet

visit, State requested-and Defense concurred-that the suspension

should be accomplished in a way that the Yugoslavs would be unlikely

to detect it prior to the conclusion of their talks with the Soviets. To conceal what was happening required some obfuscation. A Yugoslav official

questioned General Hains whether a delay in an ammunition shipment

had been due to U.S. displeasure over the Soviet visit. Hains denied this

and suggested the holdup might have resulted from a periodic review of

the program, routine adjustments, or perhaps confusion on the part of

shipping agents, explanations that seemingly satisfied his inquirer. 48

Although the suspension was effectively hidden, State became

worried that possible Yugoslav awareness that shipments had been held

up might damage prospects for the conference scheduled with the

Western ambassadors in Belgrade at the end of June. State therefore

asked Defense to restore "the appearance of an uninterrupted flow of

aid." Defense agreed that for a few months, until the results of the conference were known and the National Security Council could undertake

a thorough policy review, it would resume deliveries of only the least

sensitive categories of equipment, such as ammunition and spare parts. 49

The ambassadorial conference held 23-27 June proved disappointing, especially regarding future military coordination. The Yugoslav

representatives continued to profess a desire for Western military assistance, pointing out that their cooperation with the Balkan Pact allies and

other Western powers aligned their interests with those of the West in

defense matters. Yet they ruled out new ties to NATO or other countries.

Nor would they agree to an overall review of Yugoslav military planning,

only to hold another conference, perhaps at a high level, to plan for the

use of equipment already received. The State Department felt that the
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 595

Yugoslavs now considered an attack from the Soviet bloc very unlikely

and were accordingly in an excellent bargaining position where they

could playoff East and West against one another. 50

A meeting between Hains and Yugoslav Army Chief of Staff Vuckovic

on 9 July produced no significant softening in the Yugoslav position.

Hains reported that the Yugoslavs were treating each of the three U.S.

service aid programs separately for their own purposes, cooperating

more with the Air Force than with the Army and Navy, because much of

its equipment was yet to be delivered. He foresaw no improvement until

a new agreement was negotiated spelling out in detail the responsibilities and functions of AMAS in implementing the program. Riddleberger

and Hains were now convinced that the Yugoslav government planned

"to employ delaying tactics so long as equipment deliveries continue."

To induce Yugoslav cooperation, the ambassador recommended "a wellcontrolled and planned delay" in delivery of equipment, focusing on the

air program, where the most "leverage" remained. He called for an early

decision on the recommendation, since the initial delivery of spare parts

was scheduled for that fall. "If, because of overriding political considerations, deliveries must continue, we should recommend that work be

initiated upon a reduced program which could be adapted to political

developments." OSD, based on further recommendations from AMAS and

CINCEUR, decided to implement a plan to delay delivery of aircraft, spare

parts, and ground handling equipment (except for training aircraft) at

least until April 1956. The delaying policy was not to be divulged to the

Yugoslavs, and explanations for specific delays were to be made only

when they could be related to technical reasons or a lack of information

as to the items' intended use. 51

According to Dulles, Defense Department officials-specifically the

Joint Chiefs of Staff-were curtailing military aid to Yugoslavia because

the chances of linking Yugoslavia to NATO were now so slim. Since

Dulles, however, saw little likelihood of Yugoslavia becoming subservient

to the Soviet Union, he thought the United States "could afford quietly to

countenance" the prospect of Tito as the head of a bloc of independent, neutralist Communist countries, a role Tito seemingly envisaged for

himself. To ease the strained relations Dulles suggested the president send

a special emissary to Belgrade, perhaps Deputy Under Secretary of State

Robert Murphy. General J. Lawton Collins had been mentioned as a

possibility, but Dulles preferred Murphy because of "the delicate political

nature of the task," a preference with which the president strongly agreed. 52

In preparing for the visit Murphy expressed concern that the

embassy's pressure tactics of cutting back on military assistance, as well
596 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

as avoiding discussion with the Yugoslavs regarding the economic aid

package for FY 1956 and other matters, might, "if carried too far," be

"self-defeating." These tactics, he feared, tended "to push Yugoslavia into

the waiting arms of the Soviet orbit." Murphy worked out a negotiating

strategy, approved in principle by Hensel's successor as assistant secretary of defense (ISA), Gordon Gray. In accordance with the president's and

the secretary of state's emphasis on political factors, Murphy planned

to "retreat from the Embassy position which expects the Yugoslavs to

adhere to standards applied in NATO countries, but which they feel to

be incompatible with their non-bloc position." He would mention, but

not stress, the desirability of joint planning to meet the contingency of

a Soviet-bloc attack, but would insist on a program review that would

divulge basic Yugoslav plans and estimates. What was needed was a

general understanding to reduce the remaining deliveries for Yugoslav

ground forces. If the Yugoslavs made significant concessions regarding military cooperation with AMAS, Murphy would play the "trump

U.S. card," a promise to resume delivery of F-84G and F-86E jet aircraft

but at a somewhat reduced rate. 53

During Murphy's visit at the end of September 1955, Tito and other

Yugoslav officials expressed a willingness to accommodate the United

States on the contentious military issues, which Murphy felt substantially

removed the difficulties that had led to the suspension of deliveries. As

a result he recommended the resumption of deliveries, including release

of spare parts and ground support equipment by apprOXimately 1 December and delivery of F-86E aircraft two to three months later. Murphy

proposed a "stretch-out" of deliveries on a schedule more closely geared

to political considerations. To bring about major economies, he advocated

a thorough program review to eliminate expensive items, perhaps saving

as much as $200 million of the $400 million left in the program. He felt

that prior to the recent suspension, the rapid pace of deliveries where

the United States was providing five or six thousand tons a month made

sense from the technical military standpoint but was "excessive" from

the political standpoint. For the Yugoslavs "this rapid delivery rate became a minimum." Accepting Murphy's proposals, Riddleberger, Hains,

SACEUR, and DoD agreed to the resumption of military deliveries. 54

Defense and State also agreed, for the time being, not to urge the

Yugoslavs to coordinate their military planning with the West. That coordination no longer seemed crucial. In response to a request from ISA,

the Joint Chiefs of Staff prOVided a military reevaluation of Yugoslavia's

strategic importance under three different assumptions: (1) a pro-Western

Yugoslavia aligned with the West including effective coordination of
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 597

defense planning, (2) a pro-Soviet Yugoslavia in which Yugoslavia would

return to the Soviet bloc, and (3) a flexible position, in which Yugoslavia

would achieve benefits from both blocs with minimum commitments to

either. The chiefs agreed with a recent National Intelligence Estimate that

neither of the first two assumptions was likely during the next several

years, and that the third position, which Yugoslavia had adopted, would

continue so long as Tito lived. The minimum requirements for military

cooperation with Yugoslavia, though less than desirable, would be fulfilled

as long as Yugoslavia maintained its flexible policy, showed a determination to defend itself against aggression, continued to support the

Balkan Pact, and did not give "transit rights of any kind, under any circumstances, to Soviet Bloc forces."55

At an NSC meeting on 22 December 1955, during discussion of a

revised policy paper on Yugoslavia that contained many splits in recommended courses of action, Dulles expressed doubt as to whether State

and Defense differed all that much in their views. He indicated, for

example, that State agreed with Defense that aid to Yugoslavia should

be reduced, but believed that "political factors ought to be decisive in

determining the rate of the slow-down." Recalling that the joint statement

he and Tito had issued at the end of his November visit to Yugoslavia "had

created a terrific stir in the satellite world," Dulles emphasized that Tito

was "our best lever for freeing the satellites."

Deputy Secretary of Defense Robertson agreed that differences

between the two departments were "more a matter of degree and

phraseology than of solid substance." He noted, however, that the United

States over the next four years was scheduled to provide Yugoslavia about

$500 million in military assistance, including some 100 jet aircraft. Since

military assistance to Turkey and Pakistan was taking on added importance, Robertson believed it might be "desirable to make our aid to Tito

come a little bit harder." Noting that the crux of the problem was

Tito's intentions, President Eisenhower "suggested that we should approach

the situation cautiously, but give no hint that we are reneging on our

earlier promises to provide Yugoslavia with assistance." Although the flow

of aid could be cut back a little, the president agreed with Dulles's view

that the main considerations were political, not military. 56

The draft policy paper, sent back to the Planning Board for rewriting, was approved by the council on 18 January 1956 as NSC 5601. The

paper concluded that the "original limited objective of keeping Yugoslavia independent of the Soviet bloc has been well served by timely aid."

But the "more far-reaching objective of tying Yugoslavia into the Western system and ensuring its effective contribution to free world power

incase of war in Europe, chiefly through a larger-scale military aid
598 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

program and the growth of U.S. and Western influence, has not been

attained and there is no sound indication that it is attainable." As for the

military aid program, the paper recommended that the present program

be reviewed and revised along more austere lines "taking into account

U.S. willingness to support minimal military requirements for maintaining Yugoslav independence outside the Soviet bloc, and the degree of

Yugoslavia's cooperation." The revised program should be completed, with

the major items delivered in a way to assure Yugoslav compliance with the

agreements and to stretch out the schedule; the training programs and provision of spare parts, ammunition, and other items should be continued

in a minimal way in order to keep equipment delivered in reasonably good

condition; and any further military aid programming should be conditional on how well Yugoslavia informed the United States regarding

its defense planning or took part in joint NATO defense planning. The

report pointedly recognized that "political objectives justify the provision

of military assistance that would not be justifiable on strictly military

considerations." 57

Deliveries were resumed and a review completed of what, if any, of

the undelivered portion of the program could be reduced without affecting overall relations or lowering to an unacceptable level Yugoslav cooperation with the United States. No reductions were made in the Army and

Navy programs, where most of the programmed equipment had already

been delivered and where the undelivered portion was deemed necessary for a balanced program. However, the Air Force program was reduced

by some $7 million, primarily in communications equipment intended

for Yugoslav Air Force coordination with NATO air forces, an event now

considered unlikely. No reduction was planned in the delivery of F-86E

and F-84G aircraft. 58

By the summer of 1956 doubts were again surfacing in Congress about

the wisdom of continuing the military assistance program, feelings shared

to some degree in OSD. At an Armed Forces Policy Council meeting in

June, when Secretary Wilson advised caution in the military assistance

program because of the scarcity of MDAP funds and the inability to "buy

friends" with money, Assistant Secretary Gray remarked that for political

reasons aid was continuing to Yugoslavia and "we do not know whether

we have poured some billion dollars down the drain."59

In the Senate, Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) introduced a bill to terminate immediately U.S. military assistance to YugoslaVia. Especially upset

at Tito's public remarks about Soviet-Yugoslav solidarity during a recent

visit to Moscow, McCarthy criticized the policy "of building up the war

machine of the avowed enemies of our way of life." Dulles privately

reassured congressional leaders that Yugoslavia was "the main card we
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 599

are trying to play in breaking the satellites loose from Russia." It was

crucial not to do anything to push Tito back into Russia's arms and for

this reason it was important that "Tito gets his military equipment from

us rather than from Russia." Dulles stressed how NATO needed "a band

of independent countries (even Tito's) between NATO and Russia." If

"Tito's actions ceased to be consonant with our program," Dulles promised that military assistance would be immediately terminated.60

The Yugoslav aid program survived the 1956 congressional attacks.

Its termination came not at the instigation of the United States but at

the request in November 1957 of the Yugoslav government. The following month the United States ceased all shipments and in March 1958

withdrew its military mission from Belgrade. While the National Security

Council continued to believe that the long-term objective of using aid to

link Yugoslavia militarily with the West and ensure "its effective contribution to Free World power in case of war in Europe" had not been

achieved, the more modest objective of keeping Yugoslavia independent

of the Soviet bloc had been "well served."61

By contributing to the Viability of Yugoslav independence, the United

States helped achieve yet another objective. Dulles's belief that the spirit

behind Yugoslavia's national communism would spread to the Soviet

satellites was borne out in 1956. Internal ferment in Poland and

Hungary, encouraged by Khrushchev's secret speech denouncing Stalin,

helped touch off demonstrations in Poznan in June, the defiance of the

Kremlin that fall by Polish leader Wladyslaw Gomulka, and the tragic

Hungarian revolt. Whether Yugoslavia was a conscious model in these

countries is debatable, but the 1956 fissures grew out of the same spirit

of resistance to Soviet domination that Tito had displayed.62 The cracks

that Dulles had hoped for in the Iron Curtain, however, would take

decades to widen and become permanent.

NATO's Adoption ofMe 48

The preparatory work on a new NATO strategy paper under way in

the first half of 1954* came to fruition that fall. At a meeting with

General Gruenther in October, Defense and State Department representatives agreed that the United States should seek to establish a nuclear

capability in NATO by pushing for approval at the North Atlantic Council

meeting in December of a new policy embodying the concepts in the

* See Chapter XXV
600 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Standing Group paper 241/3. Recognizing the extreme delicacy of the

subject, they decided not to pressure the allies to accept it. Regarding the

actual use of nuclear weapons, the Joint Chiefs favored obtaining prior

agreements with the allies. The State Department, with backing from both

Gruenther and Secretary Wilson, thought it better to have less formal

arrangements and ones made gradually rather than immediately and in

a comprehensive manner. In early November Wilson and Dulles jointly

submitted a memorandum to the president, which he approved, recommending acceptance of the new strategy paper and stressing how

essential it was for the allies to prepare public opinion in their countries

on NATO's need for a nuclear capability. State particularly felt that moving "too quickly in this highly sensitive area may have adverse effects on

the entire NATO structure." The best way, in State's view, to accomplish

the objective of utilizing nuclear weapons from NATO bases was "to ease

into a gradual phasing in of these weapons" to NATO forces. 63

Despite the concerns, acceptance of NATO's new strategy came qUickly

and rather easily. On 22 November NATO's Military Committee approved

a further redraft of the Standing Group paper and designated it MC 48,

"The Most Effective Pattern of NATO Military Strength for the Next

Few Years." Intended for submission to the council at its meeting the next

month, it reflected British and French revisions. In contrast to previous

strategy papers that made only veiled references to nuclear weapons, MC

48 explicitly discussed their use. For the "foreseeable future," it noted,

"superiority in atomic weapons and the capability to deliver them will be

the most important factor in a major war." In addition to employing

nuclear weapons for a retaliatory strike, MC 48 assumed that NATO would

use atomic and thermonuclear weapons "in defense from the outset."64

Because the paper raised the question of where authority rested to use

atomic weapons defensively, Dulles went to Paris a day earlier to discuss

the issue with British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Canadian Secretary for External Affairs Lester Pearson. The three agreed on a formula

embracing MC 48 as the basis for military planning and preparations

but stipulating that the civilian leaders of the NATO governments were

not to delegate their authority to invoke the atomic defense. The formula

was cleared with both Admiral Radford and General Gruenther and was

subsequently approved by French Premier Pierre Mendes-France. MC 48 produced virtually no discussion or debate and was unanimously approved

by the council on 17 December. The final communique noted that, regarding the use of nuclear weapons, the governments were not delegating the responsibility to NATO "to make decisions for putting plans into

action." Pearson and Dulles agreed the entire question was somewhat
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 601

artificial, since it involved "constitutional and political problems which

are virtually impossible of solution in the abstract but which are as a rule

determined without difficulty by events themselves."65

At the last minute Secretary Wilson, who had planned to attend the

meeting and after the formal sessions discuss with General Gruenther

cost-cutting measures, such as reducing personnel at headquarters units

in Europe, cancelled the trip because of his wife's hospitalization. Deputy

Secretary Anderson went to Paris in Wilson's place and delivered an

address on 17 December for the secretary. Alluding to the concepts in

MC 48, Anderson indicated that the atomic deterrent "does not lessen

the measure in which we must provide current military strength ready

for instant employment if necessary, nor does it permit any of us to

minimize the future efforts which must be undertaken for that purpose."

The anticipated West German membership in NATO and resulting defense contribution provided "no justification for reductions in the overall NATO force goals for 1956 below those which were foreseen in the

1953 Annual Review."66

As with previous strategy papers, NATO members found it easier to

approve MC 48 and a follow-up paper, MC 48/1,67 than to carry out their

recommendations. At a NATO defense ministers meeting in Paris in

October 1955, some ministers indicated for the first time their awareness

that implementing the two papers-with their emphasis on a forward

defense of the Rhine as far east as possible, a forward strategy at sea, and

a workable air defense system-would require greater national expenditures than they had planned or anticipated. They expressed general

concern about the magnitude of the preliminary estimate to upgrade

NATO's infrastructure over three years. Some argued that ways had to

be found to eliminate parts of their defense programs to free up funds

to carry out the new NATO strategy and that a thorough re-examination

be conducted of force goals and priorities. Certain European nations indicated they might not meet their 1956 force goals and, in light of the new

emphasis on atomic weapons, questioned the need for increasing conventional forces. While all members favored equipping their forces with

new weapons, some had no plans for maintaining and replacing equipment already in place. What prompted much discussion was Germany's

proposal initially to contribute DM 9 billion, a little over $2 billion, to

meet overall NATO costs. Secretary Wilson, along with his British

counterpart, contended that the amount should be much higher-DM

13 to 15 billion.68

The budgetary pressures confronting NATO members manifested

themselves dramatically in the spring of 1956 when Italian Chief of Staff
602 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

General Mancinelli informed Radford that the Italian government would

have to reduce its force levels unless the United States could provide

some $250 million in support. Radford replied that the United States

would give new weapons to the Italian Army so long as Italy itself furnished the necessary spare parts, which Mancinelli indicated Italy could

not do. The ]CS chairman thought Mancinelli's gambit amounted to blackmail, a tactic Secretary of Treasury Humphrey thought would become

more Widespread. The United States would increasingly be faced, he said,

with "the proposition that either we help support the armed forces of

our allies or else they would quit being allies.,,69

As a whole NATO continued to be plagued by shortfalls in reaching

manpower goals. At the December 1954 meeting, the council approved

lower goals for the next three years, including significantly lower ones

for 1955 than those adopted the previous December. The new Annual

Review conducted in 1955 brought no improvement. Even the United

States experienced serious difficulty in meeting its goals. It proposed

shortfalls in naval and amphibious forces and masked a shortfall in Army

D+ 180 divisions by including five National Guard divisions in that total,

with the explanation that they would require additional training to be

fully combat-ready. ~lthough some ]CS members had wanted to report

frankly that the United States would be five divisions short, Radford

persuaded them that doing so would have an unacceptable effect on

other NATO members who would view the statement as a lack of interest by the United States in meeting its force goalsJo

Another problem was the unpreparedness of many NATO forces.

Gruenther had reported at the end of 1954 that over one-third of NATO's

M-day ground units and more than half the air force units were not fully

ready for combat. In fact, although U.S. forces generally received high

marks, the readiness of other members' forces assigned and earmarked

for SACEUR was "significantly less" than it had been at the end of 1953.

The drop in effectiveness raised doubts in ISA whether MC 48 could be

implemented and, as a result, whether a forward strategy could be carried

out. Recognizing that readiness improvement would require considerable

time, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (lSA) Admiral Davis suggested

that the European governments might need promptly to be made aware

of Gruenther's "indictment."71

The Department of State considered having Gruenther's effectiveness report discussed at the NATO Council meeting in Paris in May 1955,

held primarily to welcome West Germany into NATO. In a personal

message to Gruenther, Dulles acknowledged that the report raised serious problems and merited discussion at the ministerial level. But Dulles

was unsure of the wisdom of "washing our dirty linen at the meeting
Stabilizing Central and Southern Europe 603

when probably the Germans will be present for the first time and when

we want to strike a high note of optimism and success." He asked whether

it might not be advisable to have the report discussed at a separate meeting of the defense ministers prior to the council meeting or to put off

discussion until later in the year when perhaps exaggerated hopes of

success at the Geneva summit meeting had dissipated. Gruenther agreed

that it would be best to postpone discussion of the report. 72

A major reorientation of NATO strategy, MC 48 and MC 48/1 represented significant achievements, but their emphasis on nuclear weapons

nourished the belief in many allied countries that conventional forces

should be cut, especially in light of what seemed to be a reduced Soviet

threat and the growing dependence on the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Facing

up to difficult and potentially divisive questions, such as shortfalls in

force goals, the unpreparedness of some forces, and the procedures

whereby NATO would resort to nuclear warfare, was deferred in the interest of maintaining political cohesion, a goal that Dulles stressed and one

which Wilson increasingly came to share.

Balancing Military and Political Options

As the United States sought to strengthen the Western alliance,

political and psychological factors became important, on some occasions

even more than purely military considerations. This was reflected in the

looser standards applied to the Yugoslav military assistance program,

reluctance to withdraw U.S. forces from Europe for fear that it would

signal the NATO allies that they could reduce their own force levels,

and concerns that pressuring Adenauer too hard on the pace of German rearmament might contribute to the fall of his government.

Wilson and other OSD officials became increasingly sympathetic to

the political ramifications delineated by Dulles usually with the backing

of President Eisenhower. Not only did Eisenhower's military background

allow him to challenge forcefully the views of the Joint Chiefs and his

friend General Gruenther, but his World War II experience, as well as

later service as SACEUR, lent particular weight to his views on European

issues. Wilson's clashes with Dulles during the early months of the

administration, often on Western European issues, became less frequent

after 1954. OSD deferred to the secretary of state, often distancing itself

from the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Dulles and the Department of State, not the Department of Defense,

were thus the primary architects of U.S. European security policy. Dulles's

broader conception of the struggle with the Soviet Union over Europe
604 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

provided a more complex framework than simply maintaining or improving a military edge. Neutralism came to serve a helpful function. The

Austrian state treaty represented not just the removal of a contentious

diplomatic issue, but an opportunity, much as with Yugoslavia, to weaken

the Soviet hold on the satellites to which Dulles thought the contagion

of Austrian independence would spread. The Iron Curtain would disappear, he privately predicted after the signing of the treaty. In the future

the sharp line between the Soviet bloc and the free world would be replaced by a fuzzy area. 73

Neutralism, however, was not an acceptable alternative for West

Germany. Dulles accurately foresaw the long-range implications of the

Federal Republic's integration with the West. As that integration proceeded, the Western powers nevertheless remained willing to discuss with

the Soviet Union the possible reunification of Germany and the eventual

withdrawal of occupation forces under an overall European security

plan. The reason for Soviet unwillingness to accept the Western proposals, which Soviet representatives had not expressed openly at the

Geneva summit meeting in the summer of 1955 but which, according to

Dulles, they had privately intimated, was that unification would probably

mean the end of the East German regime. "The liquidation of the German

Democratic Republic," Dulles believed, "coming on the heels of what

had happened in Austria and the new relationship between the Soviet

Union and Yugoslavia, would gravely disturb Soviet control over the

satellites." Moreover, he indicated, the Soviets might well ask "why they

should be expected to give up East Germany if in doing so an antiCommunist alliance would be strengthened, and the NATO forward

strategy brought closer to the borders of the Soviet Union itself."74
CHAPTER XXVII

Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget

In the waning weeks of 1955 an apparent warming trend in the cold

war abruptly turned chillier. The Soviets became intransigent at Geneva,

pursued aggressive diplomacy in the Middle East, and pushed competitive aid and trade programs in the Third World generally, most notably

an arms-for-cotton barter with Egypt. Late in November they staged

another spectacular, detonating a large thermonuclear device (at least

two to four megatons) at a very high altitude, a feat not yet achieved by

the Americans or the British. 1

On the domestic scene, a canvass of views in both houses of Congress at the end of November 1955 indicated that the administration

could expect more pressure from the Democrats to increase military

spending. The president took heed. On 13 December he told the congressional leaders of both parties that he would allow a $700 million increase

in military spending over the current year's level. Republicans were

pleased; some Democrats suspected they had been outmaneuvered, but

most of them went along. House Speaker Sam Rayburn, however, thought

the situation called for more foreign aid and hinted that the Democrats

might attempt to increase the military budget. Still, an informal estimate predicted that 90 percent of congressional Democrats would support the president's revised Defense Department budget "pretty much

down the line."2

"Short of war," Eisenhower asserted in his State of the Union address

on 5 January 1956, "we have never had military strength better adapted

to our needs with improved readiness for emergency use." Communist

tactics, formerly characterized by violence and threats of violence, now

relied, he said, more on "division, enticement and duplicity," posing a

"dangerous though less obvious threat." The most significant feature of

605
606 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the address's brief remarks on national security was the virtual omission

of the concept of threat, a staple of its predecessors. At a time when

service leaders and their media partisans were trying to arouse the public

to a sense of imminent peril, the president called for measured, justenough defense. He also asked for support of legislation to provide

better medical care for military dependents and more equitable survivors' benefits. 3

The same upbeat, non-provocative tone reappeared in the budget

message on 16 January, emphasizing a "respectable posture of defense"

as the first charge on the budget. The hoped-for budget surplus was

slim-only $400 million-although double the one now expected for the

current fiscal year. Estimated expenditures in FY 1956, $64.3 billion, represented the third successive annual reduction in government spending.

In FY 1957 spending was expected to rise again, about $1.6 billion above

the FY 1956 level. 4

Defense expenditure still dominated the budget, as it had since the

beginning of the Korean War. What the president now called "protection"

(the so-called "major national security" category in previous budgets)

accounted for much the largest slice of the budget pie-$42.4 billion or

64 percent of the whole (about the same as in FY 1956). This included

DoD's military functions, mutual security, atomic energy, stockpiling,

defense production expansion, civil defense, selective service, and foreign information activities (which the president wanted to increase). DoD

budget expenditures accounted for $35.5 billion, almost 84 percent of

the "protection" package. Modernization helped account for about $1

billion of the increased spending and about $1.8 billion of the increase

in NOA. It emphasized "air-atomic power, guided missiles, research and

development, continental defense, and the re-equipping of our forces with

new types of weapons." For conventional weapons and stockpiling, outlays

would be decreased. Conventional hardware would be cut back sharply,

chiefly affecting the Army, and spending for guided missiles (including

ICBMs and IRBMs) would rise to the highest level ever. 5

Navy fleet modernization perhaps best exemplified the new

emphasis. Faced with block obsolescence in a fleet built largely during

World War II, the Navy asked for authorization in FY 1957 of a sixth

Forrestal carrier, additional guided missile frigates and destroyers, nuclearpowered submarines, and an experimental nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser. Work on nuclear power plants would go forward and an

extensive conversion effort would arm ships in the fleet with guided

missiles and additional atomic weapons and otherwise modernize still

serviceable older ships. For the Air Force accelerated production of B-52s
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 607

and supersonic interceptors would continue. Oddly, perhaps ominously

from an Army point of view, the president said nothing specific about

Army weapons or weapons development. 6 And somewhere in the fine

print of the published budget document, sharp-eyed reporters could find

a line-item of $282.47 million for new atomic weapons and their storage

and custody, a slight increase over FY 1956 expenditures. 7

Overall, requested new obligational authority for FY 1957 ($34.9 billion from Congress, plus $785 million from revolving funds) was little

more than the amount ($35.5 billion) DoD planned to spend. But expenditures would include many billions of unobligated funds carried over from

prior appropriations. The Army, for example, proposed to allot $1.3 billion

of unspent Korean War funds for procurement, and for the third successive year it requested no new procurement money at all. Thus the

requested size of DoD new money-$1.76 billion above the FY 1956

request-indicated that spending in the years beyond FY 1957 would

increase. The amounts of requested NOA and planned spending pointed

to increases in procurement for naval shipbuilding and especially for

guided missiles for all the services. 8

TABLE 12

President'sFY 1957 National Security Budget

($ million)

FY 1956 FY 1957

estim estim

OSD 13 15

Army 7,351 7,731

Navy 9,640 10,006

Air Force 15,490 15,430

Other defense 654 607

Proposed legislation 1,902

Transferred revolving funds -785 --- Total DoD 33,148 34,906

Atomic energy 1,179 1,836

Stockpiling 521

Military assistance & support 1,022 3,000 ---

Total 35,870 39,742

Deduct applicable receipts:

Defense production expansion

Net budget expenditures

Programs New Obligational Authority Expenditures

FY 1956 FY 1957

estim estim

13 14

8,510 8,582

9,435 9,565

15,960 16,535

657 651

200

34,575 35,547

1,715 1,945

983 682

2,464 2,500 -- --

39,737 40,674

-270 -304 --

39,467 40,370

Source: Table, Major National Security, Budget of the US. Government, FY 1957, M22.
608 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The Air Force's Preemptive Strike

The president's submission of the budget to Congress was preceded

by a blare of publicity from the press, fed by undisclosed sources in the

Air Force, continuing that service's ongoing campaign against budgetary

constraints on airpower. General Twining had supposedly said that the

Air Force "absolutely" required from 140 to 150 wings, instead of 137,

whereas with current funding it could barely maintain 50 wings "of

truly modern aircraft in top operational shape." He had no intention of

going public "on his own initiative," but he would have to speak his mind

if quizzed by a congressional committee. Without at least $1.5 billion

more, both Twining and Secretary Quarles had asserted, only a weak 137-

wing force could be produced by July-undermanned, undertrained,

underequipped. The president's $700 million add-on a few days later did

not pacify the malcontents. 9

The attack on the DoD budget intensified in the new year. On

4 January Sen. Henry Jackson told reporters that the Russians might have

already achieved a 1,500-mile nuclear missile, giving them striking access

to "virtually aU" SAC bases. 1o The Alsops, presumably with help from their

Air Force sources, promptly picked up the ball from Jackson, reporting

major advances by the Soviets in IRBMs that could soon threaten SAC

European bases. Moreover, they were on their way to building the ICBM.

Most of this was apparently a product of speculative interpretation of

limited intelligence spiced by imagination. In reality the Soviets had successfully tested a 600-n.m. missile----,the SS-3 IRBM. 11

In all this angry chorus, one calm voice could be heard. On the

opening day of the House budget hearings, American Aviation Daily

came out with what it called a "realistic appraisal of the nation's efforts

to expand its airpower." The Air Force, it pointed out, was getting a lot of

new money: 44 percent of the total NOA requested. Air Force and Navy

together would get $7.5 billion to buy new aircraft and missiles. Aircraft

for the 137-wing force were assured by orders already placed, regardless

of future appropriations, and the 936,000 military personnel authorized

would include the pilots and crews needed to man them. 12

Alone among the services, the Air Force conducted a systematic

publicity campaign against the president's FY 1957 budget during the six

weeks or so before the House hearings began. Like the 1955 campaign,

this media blitz used information and ideas supplied by Air Force officials and staff and employed the standard techniques of citing "informed

sources" and unnamed "officials." Overt and direct criticism of the budget

and the policies it reflected came in the main from known partisan purveyors of "opinion" (like the Alsops). General Twining skated dangerously
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 609

close to the edge, obviously moved by strong conviction. Twining's unequivocal assertion, before the congressional hearings even began, that

he regarded the USAF budget as "tight" and would support it only with

the reservation that the next one must be larger may have been more

effective than a dozen columns by the Alsops.

Land and Sea

In the other services, the top leadership, without shunning publicity,

also avoided direct criticism of their budgets. Besides standard descriptive and image-improving publicity about new weaponry and missionrelated activities (such as maneuvers), their staffs engaged in normal competitive propaganda, pitting one service's interests or point of view against

another's, often with budgetary implications. 13 During Army-Air Force

maneuvers (Sage Brush in Louisiana in December, for example) the Army

operated a provisional reconnaissance unit, known as "SkyCav," equipped

with helicopters and small fixed-wing aircraft, which made spectacularly successful landings behind "enemy" lines. To the Air Force, of course,

SkyCav looked like a foot-in-the-door move to give the Army its own air

force to provide all the tactical air support for ground forces. 14

General Taylor similarly exploited his prized IRBM development work

for its between-the-lines implication that the Army's role was expanding

with the revolution in warfare and would require larger budgets in future.

As for the FY 1957 budget, he made it reasonably clear that the administration had little to fear from him. The Defense program, he argued,

should be designed for the long haul; it must also provide for "the increasing danger of so-called small wars, which may erode the borders of the

free world." A general nuclear war was highly unlikely, but "the attractiveness of undefended assets and resources offers an inducement to

small-scale aggression which potentially may be as dangerous as the big

war itself." In effect, Taylor was hinting (as General Twining would say

explicitly in January) that, while he would not attack the FY 1957 budget,

larger costs loomed beyond. 15 Nevertheless, the Army received excellent

publicity, independently of its official spokesmen. 16

Surprisingly, the Navy and Marine Corps were inconspicuous almost

to the point of invisibility in defense-oriented publicity during the weeks

preceding the budget hearings. Among naval officials Admiral Burke

showed the highest profile, urging the House Armed Services Committee

in mid-January to approve quickly the $1.5 billion shipbuilding bill for

FY 1957 (the committee qUickly complied), and warning that the Soviet

navy, with 400 submarines already afloat and 75-85 being built every
610 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

year, had become the second-ranking naval power in the world. The

widely touted all-nuclear fleet, he pointed out, was not a realistic prospect; it would cost $2 billion a year and take 20 years to build, and conventional power would probably continue to be more efficient for certain

types of warships. But he defended the planned nuclear-powered guided

missile cruiser and nuclear power as the dominant form of propulsion

for large ships and submarines in the future Navy. General Randolph Pate,

Marine Corps commandant since the beginning of the year, attracted

some press attention as a "new breed of leader," a reputed planner and

administrator. But, from Secretary Thomas and Admiral Burke on down,

no whisper of official criticism of the proposed budget came to the ears

of reporters looking for a story.17

Ridgway's ColdAshes

The remarks of Taylor, Burke, and Pate gave the administration

welcome assurance of high-level support in the coming congressional

battle. Less welcome was the publication by the Saturday Evening Post,

at the end of January, of the first two installments of General Ridgway's

memoirs, soon to be published in book form.* In the first, Ridgway recalled his "shock and surprise" over the president's statement in the 1954

State of the Union message that the FY 1955 defense budget reflected

the unanimous recommendations of the Joint Chiefs. As a member of

the JCS, he had "most emphatically" not concurred in the 1955 military

program finally submitted to Congress. Ridgway had qUickly learned that

DoD decisions were based on "budgetary considerations ... , on the

advantage to be gained in domestic politics by a drastic reduction in military expenditures, rather than on clear-cut military needs." On occasion,

* Almost coinciding with the appearance of the Ridgway articles was the publication in

Life magazine of an article (also damaging in its repercussions) by James Shepley, based

on interviews with Secretary of State Dulles, purporting to show that on three occasions

Dulles, with the full support of the preSident, had gone to the brink of war with one or

the other (or both) of the leading Communist powers and faced them down by communicating the threat of U.S. military action (including, by implication, use of nuclear

weapons) unless they yielded on the points at issue. The three occasions were the crisis

precipitated in June 1953 by South Korean President Syngman Rhee's release of Communist prisoners who had refused repatriation; the Dien BienPhu crisis in 1954; and the

Formosa Strait crisis in the spring of 1955. In the article Dulles allegedly asserted, "You

have to take chances for peace .... We walked to the brink and we looked it in the face.

We took strong action." The article caused an uproar in the press and Congress even

greater than the publication of the Ridgway articles, and, while not directly related to the

budget debate, was exploited by the Democratic opposition. See James Shepley, "How

Dulles Averted War," Life, 16 Jan 56.
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 611

moreover, it was made clear to him that he was not expected to give

Secretary Wilson his "reasoned military judgment" on certain issues.

Pressure to make him conform, Ridgway said, was "sometimes subtly,

sometimes crudely, applied," and he told of one occasion when Wilson

advised him that it "would not be good" to express views opposing those

of the president, "a former soldier of wide experience," since to do so

would "place me in the position of taking issue with my Commander in

Chief." Despite his persistent opposition, DoD adopted policies that by

the coming summer would reduce Army strength from 1.5 million, when

he became chief of staff, to a little over 1 million, and its budget from

$16.1 billion to $8.9 billion.

The first installment of the memoirs concluded with a summary of

Ridgway's final report in the form of his retirement letter to the secretary

of defense, in which he had warned that existing U.S. forces were

"inadequate in strength and improperly proportioned" to fulfill numerous commitments to allies around the world. Ridgway noted with relish

Wilson's unsuccessful attempt to suppress this letter by classifying

it "confidential." 18

The administration's initial reaction to Ridgway's attack seemed confused and uncertain. In a news conference after the first memoir

installment appeared, Secretary Wilson noted that it had been cleared

for publication without change and confirmed that Ridgway had consistently fought for higher Army strength than the other chiefs favored

or were finally approved. But he ducked questions about Ridgway's

allegations of pressure to conform his views to an official party line,

merely asserting that he never expected associates to "polish the apple"

and seem to agree when they really did not. Wilson issued a statement

later that he and Admiral Radford had believed at the time that Ridgway

had gone along with the other chiefs in supporting the FY 1955 budget. 19

When questioned on 19 January, the president simply denied that Defense budget cuts had ever been politically motivated. On the matter of

JCS unanimity on the FY 1955 DoD budget, he neatly passed the buck to

Wilson and Radford, who, he pointed out, had cleared their portion of

the State of the Union message for accuracy.20

Serious analysis of Ridgway's charges soon followed. On the 22d

the New York Times ran a thoughtful review by Hanson Baldwin, putting

the charges in the context of the New Look. On the whole, he thought,

Ridgway's charge that economic considerations had been paramount in

determining military force levels, and that massive retaliation and airnuclear power had been emphasized at the expense of manpower and

conventional forces, was undeniable. Baldwin concluded: "If we are to prevent a nuclear war we must have the capability of fighting a non-nuclear
612 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

one. Our future military policy must be a blend of massive retaliation

and graduated deterrence."21

Ridgway may have expected, as many of his partisans surely did, that

his media attack on the administration would reach an early climax in a

triumphant and well-publicized appearance before the House Defense

Appropriations Subcommittee, followed by appearances before other committees as well. On 8 February 1956, some two weeks after the budget

hearings began, Ridgway faced a mostly friendly audience in the House

subcommittee, which had 9 Democrats among its 15 members. "We are not

too interested in rehashing old controversies," Chairman George Mahon

gently admonished him in his introduction. The general did not qualify as

an expert on the FY 1957 budget and there was little he could say about

it that he or others had not already said.

In his preliminary remarks Ridgway noted that the New Look that he

and the other chiefs had approved in December 1953, including "preset

manpower and dollar ceilings ... qualified by a series of stated assumptions and conditions," pertained to FY 1957, not FY 1955. The chiefs had

not recommended personnel ceilings for the latter year at any time

during the last half of 1953. His basic objection was that the proposed

Army personnel cuts-approximately one-third (500,000) over a period

of two years-were "too drastic and too rapid," although the effects might

not be fully apparent for years to come "until and unless that Army is

thrown into the crisis of a great battle again." Ridgway favored an

optimum size of the Army under current commitments of 1.3 million

men with about 26 divisions, more airborne mobility, and a family of

tactical nuclear weapons at the disposal of field commanders. 22

The Republican minority operated as a team, with assigned areas of

interrogation. They treated the witness with scrupulous courtesy, but

they also pressed each question relentlessly. As the day wore on, the

Republicans' prosecutorial style of interrogation increasingly ruffled

Ridgway's equanimity. He stubbornly defended his statement that as chief

of staff he had often felt he "was being called upon to destroy, rather

than to build," the Army. It accurately reflected his reaction to the prospect of being ordered to knock off a third of a force of 1.5 million over

a period of 30 months. 23

Chairman Mahon's opening admonition that the committee did not

want a rehash had in fact proved futile. Thanks to the Republicans'

interrogation tactics "old controversies" had dominated the hearing after

all. Mahon lamented at the end that "we have not developed more of

your ideas ... as to what we should do from here on out." All the Democrats got from his testimony that might prove politically useful were

his views, now a little stale, on the New Look, past and future. On the
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 613

current budget review he had nothing to tell the committee that

General Taylor had not already told them as persuasively and more

authoritatively. The 8 February testimony was, in fact, Ridgway's swan

song, ending his formal participation in the budget hearings and, indeed,

in the larger national security debate. None of the predicted later committee appearances materialized. Ridgway passed into history. 24

Taylor's Turn

If Ridgway failed to strike sparks with his performance before the

House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, one reason undoubtedly

was that he had been preceded the week before by General Taylor, a hard

act to follow. Taylor, Secretary Brucker, and a large entourage of subordinates gave testimony on 1-3 February. Representative Sikes later pronounced the presentation the Army's best to date and better than any

of the other departmental presentations he had heard. 25

As spokesman for the underdog service, the chief of staff brought

to the hearings an impressive persona. A facile speaker with a superior

command of language, a linguist and an intellectual, Taylor was a

persuasive, disarming advocate-as well as a soldier tested and proven in

combat, leadership, and high command. Throughout more than two days

of grueling, almost uninterrupted interrogation, he seemed brisk, buoyant, and affable, holding the attention of his auditors through sometimes

lengthy expositions, all apparently without irritating anyone. 26 He maintained his firm position on the adequacy of the Army's FY 1957 budget.

This, in effect, was the bottom line, and, for the Republicans at least, the

one that mattered most. Taylor would not challenge the budget now

under review, publicly or off the record, thus aligning himself more or

less with the other chiefs. 27

Most of his prepared statement was a succinct analysis of the Army's

role in the deterrence and war fighting missions of the armed forcesenunciating in the process the Army's new doctrine, soon to be known

as "flexible response." Deterrence, he stressed, came first. All-out nuclear

war, Taylor went on, was not the type of war most likely to occur, since

the superpowers, as they approached nuclear parity, would make every

effort to avoid it. The Communists would probably continue to try to extend their boundaries through subversion, guerrilla actions, coups d'etat,

small-scale wars, and "the ever-present threat of their large armies."

Enemy land forces posed a serious threat, but he believed "that the United

States and its allies have the capability, if they have the will, of producing ground forces able to counter the enemy divisions. There is no
614 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

reason to say that we are hopelessly outnumbered and that our defense

on the ground must be obtained indirectly from atomic superiority in the

air." Prompt and effective response to enemy probes was imperative to

prevent "piecemeal loss of important areas to friends and allies." Any

military action in the likely trouble spots around the world would be

essentially land operations with very little use, if any, for weapons of

mass destruction. Taylor summed up the Army's view of the basic priorities: first, a capability to deter general atomic war and also to deter, or

quickly suppress, a small war. Only after allocating resources for these

capabilities should the "residual" requirements for fighting a general war

be met. 28

He expressed cautious optimism about the Army's capability to play

its part in deterring and fighting wars. The quality of its forces was

excellent. The field forces were multiplying their firepower with atomic

weapons and would soon have longer-range ballistic missiles. Expansion

of the reserves under the 1955 legislation was lagging, however, hampered by the absence of compulsion for participation and inequality of

pay between the National Guard and Reserve. To Mahon's blunt question

of whether his endorsement of the budget was a "forced attitude," Taylor

replied: "I had my full day in court. I. .. consider the funds allocated

marginally sufficient to maintain the Army 1 have described."29

On the second day of his testimony Taylor dropped the other-i.e.,

manpower-shoe. To the question, what did he believe the '''size and

composition" of the Army should be if no budgetary restrictions were

imposed, he later replied in writing that an "optimum" army, "disregarding all considerations except 'purely military,''' would be "perhaps on the

order of magnitude of around 1.5 million men with an active combat force

of about 28 divisions." He brushed off as unimportant his public "disagreement" with Ridgway'S assertion that the Army was not large enough.

Conditions, said Taylor, had "changed somewhat" since his predecessor

retired, and "in general, on military subjects, General Ridgway and 1 think

very much alike."30

Taylor played down his differences with the Air Force over airlift,

tactical aviation, and long-range missiles. His most unequivocal assertion

of dissatisfaction concerned restrictions on the Army's use of ground-toground missiles beyond a 500-mile range. Asked what use the Army

could have for an intermediate-range (1,500-mile) missile, he replied that

the Army was not necessarily thinking of the extreme range: perhaps only

a few hundred miles, but from a launching site "safely" far to the rear. 31

Taylor's-and the Army's-most fundamental dissent from Air Force

and, indeed, from administration policy, was his view that the armed

forces as a whole must have a balanced dual atomic and conventional
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 615

capability to fight any kind of war. Taylor inherited Ridgway's views on

this point. Small atomic weapons, he argued in a brief exchange with

Sikes, had of course brought about important changes, but conventional

weapons would remain a fundamental part of the Army's arsenal. 32 To

the Democrats on the subcommittee the Army's top spokesman had

proved disappointing on one count; he provided them little or no

ammunition for attacking the administration's FY 1957 budget. The

legislators' attention, in any case, focused mainly on the airpower issue,

which clearly was becoming the principal target of the budget debate.

Wilson and Radford for the Defense

"Nothing has occurred in the international situation during the past

year," Wilson told the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee during the first hearing on 24 January, that "would indicate the necessity for

any major change [in the new Defense budget]," and he went on to recite

a list of his department's recent achievements, starting with the completion of the New Look manpower cutback, which he called a "personnel

adjustment." His audience, tuned to the daily headlines of resurgent Soviet

airpower and recent fissures in the free world, expected and wanted

something stronger. The stage was set for the president to receive the

first of several major budgetary rebuffs. 33

Subcommittee Chairman Mahon, courteous but tenacious, came

quickly to his main point: "Are we not more vulnerable in 1956 in many

ways than we were in 1955," similarly in 1955 than in 1954, and so on?

Both Wilson and Radford seemed taken aback and fumbled for answers.

Wilson pointed to the immediate postwar years as a period of high

vulnerability, but Mahon reminded him that the threat of crippling air

attack was then much less than now. Radford conceded the gravity of

the current threat, but was not sure it was the gravest the country had

ever faced. At first he avoided responding to Mahon's thrust about the

country getting stronger all of the time while simultaneously getting more

vulnerable to a heavy enemy attack. 34

On 30 January, when Radford returned for another round of questioning, Mahon emphasized again the theme of the overall direction of

U.S. national security policy. "It seems to me we may to some extent be at

the crossroads in our military policy," following a period, first, of drastic

reduction after World War II, then the buildup of the Korean War, and,

more recently, cutbacks and leveling-off looking toward an indefinite

period of danger. With the FY 1957 budget, however, defense spending

appeared to be rising again. Radford recognized Mahon's tactic, aimed
616 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

at eliciting statements that might prove damaging to the. budget he was

there to defend. Defense planning, he argued, did not stand at a "crossroads" and did not face a crisis. Since its inception in 1953 the evolution

of the New Look had been orderly and it had not changed direction.

The proposed FY 1957 budget now under review generally followed

the course projected in 1953; its proposed spending levels were merely

an unavoidable consequence of higher equipment and personnel costs

and stepped-up missile R&D. Without arguing the point, Radford then rejected Mahon's "strange paradox" of increasing vulnerability despite growing strength. To another questioner Radford admitted that "this Nation

has never been faced with a more serious threat." The long-range danger

was clear for all to see. Then, asked Mahon, "there was no great controversy" over the FY 1957 budget? "No battle of the Pentagon? .... Generally speaking, the budget is the creature of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the

Secretary of Defense, and the top people in the three services?" "That

is correct," Radford replied. 35

The Air Force Takes the Stand

Meanwhile, the airpower publicity offensive continued to heat up

outside the committee room. On 1 February Senator Jackson repeated in

the Senate his recent prediction that the Soviets might launch a 1,500-

mile ballistic missile before the year's end. He urged again that the entire

ballistic missile program be put immediately on a war footing under a

civilian administrator reporting directly to the secretary of defense and

the president. Asked about Jackson's statement, Wilson said that he

would soon appoint an administrator for the missile program. A few

days later Sen. Stuart Symington, speaking on national television, reinforced Jackson's warning, stating that he knew that the Soviets were

ahead in the ballistic missile race. He accused the administration of withholding alarming facts about the growth of Soviet airpower. 36

On the eve of the Air Force hearings, a new rash of headlines erupted

with the resignation of Air Force Assistant Secretary (R&D) Trevor

Gardner.* In an impromptu news conference on 8 February Gardner

* Gardner, a 40-year-old native Welshman, had become a naturalized American citizen in

1937.A graduate engineer with a master's degree in business administration, in World War II

he headed research projects at the California Institute of Technology. After the war he became an executive vice president of General Tire and Rubber Co. of California and then

established the Hycon Manufacturing Co. In February 1953 he had come to Washington

with the new administration to become special assistant for R&D to the secretary of the

air force, subsequently redesignated assistant secretary of the Air Force for R&D.
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 617

reportedly stated that the "essential" point in dispute was his request,

turned down by Quarles and Wilson, for $200 million more in the budget

to accelerate research and development, especially for ballistic missiles.

Gardner declared that ICBM and IRBM development should be put on a

"wartime emergency basis," as Senator Jackson had urged. He was also

known to favor a larger share for the Air Force in missile development.

The president, at his press conference on the same day (before Gardner's),

had disparaged the notion that larger R&D appropriations would necessarily bring large results; he emphasized the limited accuracy of the longrange missiles now under development and the coronary requirement

that very large numbers would have to be used in an all-out war, resulting

in "complete devastation"-"race suicide, and nothing else." He reminded

his audience that he had issued "positive orders" giving ballistic missiles

the highest priority, and they were "being researched and developed

as rapidly as it can be done in this country." The next day he accepted

Gardner's resignation. 37

Ostensibly Quarles and Twining provided the administration's principal response to the complaints of airpower partisans in their testimony

to the House on 9 and 10 February. Both felt strongly that the Air Force

was seriously underfunded. Quarles had come to terms with the administration party line and could expound it without much discomfiture;

Twining had not and did not conceal his distaste. Accordingly, Twining,

not Quarles, confronted the airpower issue head-on. "The Air Force this

nation needs," he began, "must be determined not only by decisions made

here in Washington, but also by decisions made in Moscow." Methodically, Twining went down the list of pertinent "estimates and facts,"

detailing the total number of aircraft on both sides-B-52s vs. Bisons,

B-47s vs. Badgers, B-36s vs. heavy turboprop Bears, light jet bombers,

jet fighters, an-weather fighters. The Soviets were ahead in numbers, or

probably soon could be if they tried, "in all categories of warplanes

except that of the medium jet bomber."

Twining testified that the Bison and the Badger compared "very favorably" with their American counterparts, which he gave only a "slight edge

in performance." For the United States he claimed significant advantages-an aerial refueling capability, a worldwide base system, and greater

experience in long-range operations. But the Soviets were expanding and

improving their own base system. From their Arctic bases alone, several

hundred heavy bombers could be launched in a single attack. Against

improving Soviet air defenses SAC faced the probability of increasingly severe losses. The new U.S. F-I02 interceptor was faster and more

hard-hitting than anything the Soviets were known to have, and the
618 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

F-I0l and F-I04 day fighters, not yet in production, were believed to be

superior to the now operational Soviet Fresco and Farmer fighters. In

airlift, the USAF enjoyed a definite qualitative though not numerical

advantage. But Twining made no inflated claims for airlift. The Air Force

could now move one airborne division, without heavy equipment, only

by diverting aircraft from the Military Air Transport Service (MATS).38

It remained for Quarles, in a more detailed briefing, to present what

amounted to a revised USAF position on the whole bomber-versusmissile question. All the "ultimate weapon" publicity surrounding the

long-range ballistic missiles, he declared, was "highly misleading and

highly damaging." For a long time to come the B-52 would remain a

more effective weapon, overall, than any missile, perhaps for as much as

10 years. Fundamentally, he went on, the defense against ballistic missiles

was to create a strategic air force that would deter the Russians from using

their ballistic missiles, However, "we are not ignoring the technical

problem of intercepting attacks."39

The two officials seemed to be telling the committee, in short, that

they were braced both to lose the missile race and to fail to develop an

effective anti-missile defense but could count on neutralizing the Soviet

advantage for many years to come by the retaliatory threat of SAC's

long-range bombers. Soviet interceptors and ground defenses would be

spread thin by the immensity of Soviet geography, and the first generation

of long-range missiles would be too inaccurate for effective preemptive

strikes at SAC bases. Eventually both sides would have an abundance of

missiles and bombers, along with improved air defenses, and a state of

mutual deterrence would prevail. To round out the picture, Twining

praised the prospective nuclear-powered aircraft, which would represent

a "potent counterweapon even when the ICBMs come on the scene."40

Throughout their testimony Quarles and Twining carefully refrained

from asking for more money; read literally, their statements were a plea

merely not to cut the proposed budget. But the whole thrust of their

exposition, and the implicit message, argued that austerity had been

pushed to dangerous lengths. The 137-wing goal, Twining assured the

committee, would be reached on schedule, but 137 was "just a number,"

not a measure of effectiveness. In sum, Twining supported the president's

budget but had deep misgivings as to its adequacy. Quarles considered it

a "sound" budget, but thought that "if we are to continue to support an

Air Force program of this magnitude there is no escape from a larger

budget in fiscal year 1958."41

The Democrats reacted to the flagrant inconsistency of this position with mingled glee and bafflement. Why, they demanded, did the Air
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 619

Force not ask for more money now? Under Secretary Douglas explained

that for various reasons including the shortage of skilled maintenance

personnel, the Air Force did not want more aircraft deliveries in FY 1957

than the 1,900 asked for in the budget, 800 less than in the current year.

"We do not want them coming any faster this year," said Twining, "if we

get the increased aircraft procurement funds we will need next year."42

Like the Army, the Air Force had its Ridgway, now billed as a witness

for the opposition. Trevor Gardner, until only a few days before assistant

secretary of the air force for research and development, testified before

the House subcommittee on 13 February, several days after the appearance of Quarles and Twining. Unlike Ridgway, who, testifying the week

preceding, had turned out to be something of a spent force, Gardner came

on as a vigorous, outspoken critic of the proposed budget.

He began his testimony on a low key, however, stressing his personal

friendship and high respect for both his former superiors, Quarles and

Wilson. The disagreement, Gardner said, originated in his growing alarm

in recent years over the rapid Soviet advances with the attendant threat

of overtaking and passing the United States in technological progress.

Beginning in 1954 he had expressed this concern on several occasions. In

mid-January he organized what amounted to a collective protest by some

of the Air Force's top R&D leadership. In a formal letter to the secretary

of the air force signed by Gardner, Twining, and a half-dozen other top

military and civilian Air Force officials, the group asserted a need for

$178 million more in current (FY 1956) funding and $316 million more

in the FY 1957 budget then being presented to Congress. Quarles met

with the group, listened to their views, and rejected them tactfully. The

secretary regarded his own judgment as "superior to the combined

judgments of those of us who were working on the problem full time."

Facing thiS "honest difference of opinion," Gardner saw no alternative but

to resign. 43

For the FY 1957 budget Gardner had urged a substantially larger allocation for R&D, possibly $850 million or even more. But this was only the

beginning of his discontent. Under the current system, "when we come

up here and ask for $610 million [in the FY 1957 Air Force budget], that

is not what we want, that is what we are told to ask for." Mahon tried to

bring him down to earth. "Is it ever possible to satisfy the reasonable

requirements of our scientific people?" Gardner conceded that that was

a "very real worry" -as was also the risk that "if you got this money,

you would not be able to spend it.,,44

Gardner made it clear that he did not consider the ballistic missile

program to be currently underfunded, although it had been starved in
620 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

earlier stages. Both Quarles and his predecessor, as well as Wilson, had

provided all the funds asked for, but under the system of budget ceilings

the money was simply taken from other important work, notably aircraft, other missiles, and continental defense. One consequence was an

extremely cautious procurement policy (fly-before-you-buy) for aircraft

and missiles, which prescribed only small initial production orders, and

then only after thorough testing. Gardner believed the urgency of the

threat warranted much larger initial orders, regardless of risk.

Missile development, he believed, should have independent funding

managed under a "czar" with statutory rank, in effect a "crash" program.

He disapproved of the injection of interservice competition into IRBM

development, with three services "racing down the same channel" with

inevitable friction. Gardner felt strongly that the missile effort was not

the only issue. He feared that the budget was billions of dollars short of

what was needed. "If we were buying the right kind of air power we

would be spending about $20 billion, in my opinion." This represented

almost 60 percent of the proposed DoD expenditures for FY 1957. 45

The Air Force budget hearings on 9-13 February opened the floodgates of the airpower publicity drive. Within a few days the most newsworthy parts of all three principals' testimony had seeped through the

closed doors of the hearing room into the public domain, and on the

18th Mahon released most of the remainder in order to clear up public

"confusion as to the true facts."46 On television's "Meet the Press" on

19 February, Gardner followed up with a strong plea for doubling or

tripling the currently "pitifully" low level of B-52 production. He had had

no opportunity to urge this upon the president, he said, because his

only audience with him had been "under controlled conditions" with

limited time to speak. The administration's two leading senatorial adversaries weighed in earlier, Symington with another angry speech from

the Senate floor on the 10th and a dinner speech a few days later. On

26 February Jackson sounded a frightening note about the anticipated

impact of Soviet missiles and charged that Wilson and Quarles had not

acted to give ballistic missile programs the priority they required. 47

Tactical Retreat: The Supplemental

Airpower partisans, for the most part, enjoyed a free ride during

February, a banner month, while administration spokesmen suffered in

silence. On the 23d Chairman Russell of the Senate Armed Services

Committee, after listening to Quarles and Twining repeat their House

budget testimony, declared that he had decided to fight for an additional
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 621

$1. 5 billion for 'the Air Force in FY 1957. He asked the Air Force to work

up a detailed statement on how a budget augmentation of that size might

be used. Hard on the heels of this announcement, Russell told newsmen

that he would appoint a special subcommittee headed by Symington to

conduct a "blue-ribbon" investigation of the Air Force and the guided

missile program. 48

Russell's announcement caused immediate alarm in the White

House. At his news conference on 29 February the president came prepared with a detailed response, concluding with an assertion that he saw

"no present need" to increase the budget. The matter, however, did not

come Up.49 But by then the president had probably already decided that

his standpat position would not do and that it was important to regain

the initiative before the proposed budget increase could gather momentum in Congress and the press. It was certainly not to be tolerated that

the president should be bullied by an alliance between· one of the services and its partisans in and out of Congress into accepting an almost 10

percent increase in a budget it professed to support, not to mention the

effects of such a capitulation on the morale and loyalty of the other

two services.

Pressure to increase the Air Force budget mounted daily. Russell had

urged Congress on 2 March to transfer the $1.5 billion he wanted for

that purpose from the foreign aid biU,and Senator Stennis, criticizing

the Defense Department for its apparent apathy, called for a bipartisan

effort to provide the Air Force with adequate funds. Wilson told Eisenhower on the 13th that Twining wanted to double B-52 procurement (from

400 to 800) and that General LeMay was talking of an ultimate requirement for 1,800. Relentlessly, the drumbeat of publicity continued. 50

The president directed Wilson to explore the options. The exploration resulted in what looked like directed conclusions. "Certain factors,"

Wilson reported to the president on 29 March,"now indicate the need

for additional appropriations and expenditures in FY '57." The salient

factor was recent information about increases in Soviet output of Bison

bombers and supersonic fighters. The Air Force and Wilson proposed to

meet this increase bya slightly steeper acceleration of B-52 output-from

17 to 20 per month-in 1958, raising total output to 500 by October

1958 instead of February 1959 under the current schedule. Aggregate

Soviet output, however, would continue to exceed U.S. output until

mid-1960. Wilson also recommended construction of more bases for the

additional bombers and for the SAC dispersal plan and supported the

Air Force proposal to proceed with relocation of the Pacific DEW line

extension along the Aleutian chain recently recommended by the Joint
622 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Chiefs. Additional new appropriations for the Air Force budget would

come to $376.5 million, out of a total DoD supplemental appropriation

proposal of $547.1 million. 51

The package was discussed with a disgruntled Eisenhower in his

office on the same day, 29 March. "A fine recommendation," the president sourly remarked after reading the paper, but where would he get

the money? Director of the Budget Hughes said that he had not been

consulted and he had been under the impression that all the difficult

choices had been made back in December. The president challenged

almost everything and complained repeatedly that "no one ever comes

up to him to say 'let's get rid of something.''' He gloomily admitted, however, that the demands to accelerate ballistic missile development and

B-52 production, and the pressure exerted by the forthcoming Symington

committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings, would

be difficult to resist. 52

On 9 April the president forwarded to Congress a request for $547.1

million in additional DoD appropriations, noting that his original budget

message had forecast "continued study and scrutiny" and that subsequent developments made this request necessary. Spending in FY 1957,

he said, would not be increased by more than $400 million, but it was

not expected to unbalance the budget, since a larger surplus was anticipated. The new request would raise DoD's 1957 budget to nearly $35.5

billion and spending to more than $35.9 billion; total government spending would rise to $66.3 billion, barely under anticipated revenues. 53

By the time of official release on 9 April most of the story had

appeared in press reports. During what amounted to a council of war

with Humphrey, Wilson, and top DoD and BoB officials, the president

revealed that the supplemental request had been timed to reach Congress before the inquiry began and thus, hopefully, to counteract sentiment favoring the proposed $1. 5 billion increase. He confided that

Secretary Humphrey's approval of this strategy had finally persuaded

him. He wanted an all-out fight in the Senate against the proposed $1.5

billion increase and expected DoD officials to oppose it vigorously. 54

With Quarles's cooperation, the president finessed the Air Force reply

to Senator Russell's "how would you spend $1.5 billion more" inquiry.

On 9 April Quarles sent Russell a response, cleared through the White

House, that dovetailed with the president's requested $547.1 million

supplemental and barely mentioned Russell's proposed $1.5 billion.

Quarles's "further specific needs" added up to the $376.5 million the president was now requesting for the Air Force. The supplemental request

and Wilson's tardy appointment, at the end of March, of the long-awaited
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 623

"czar" to head the missile program-Eger V. Murphree, president of Esso

Research and Engineering Company-took some of the wind out of the

Democratic sails. 55

On 18 April Wilson, accompanied by other DoD officials, went back

to Capitol Hill to explain the requc;sted amendments to the House

appropriations subcommittee. The proposed amendments, he assured the

committee, simply resulted from the continuing review of the military requirements, and added up to only 1.5 percent of the total DoD budget.

Since his last appearance the review had revealed that it would be

feasible to accelerate B-52 production, slightly raising the peak rate and

also reaching it several months earlier than planned, with only minor

additions to existing plants. 56

By dint of persistent questioning, Chairman Mahon extracted a more

complex and believable picture of the rationale behind the amendments.

Concern over the Soviet threat was, of course, the driving factor. Quarles

declared that he would have included provision for acceleration of B-52

production in the original budget had he known that Boeing could step

up output from its two plants in operation. The timing of the decision,

then, had been dictated by Boeing's happy "discovery" that acceleration

was feasible without plant expansion.

Understandably, Mahon was puzzled. Had not General Twining emphatically stated in his earlier testimony that he wanted no more airplanes,

which were already coming as fast as they could be absorbed operationally, but did want more money for airfield construction and R&D? Wilson

answered at some length that the general now saw the light. Twining,

when quizzed on the following day, dismissed his own asserted preference

for new airfields and more development money as in-house arguments,

which he had lost and were now history. As for the "no more airplanes"

testimony given before Russell offered the Air Force an additional $1.5

billion, Mahon asked whether the offer was the reason for the supplemental request. Yes, Twining replied. Evidently he had spoken out of turn,

for Quarles promptly set the record straight. The possibility of getting

more spending money, he told Mahon, "was perhaps the vehicle for

getting this matter to you," but "it was not any thought of the availability

of the $1.5 billion that led me to propose this [acceleration]. I assure you

that was not a factor in the administration's handling of this matter."

Again Mahon persisted. Would the supplemental request have been submitted even if the possibility of an additional $1.5 billion had not been

raised? Yes, Quarles replied, "in my judgment."57
624 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

The House Goes Along

Nothing in the two days of testimony on the 9 April supplemental

nor in the January-February hearings on the original budget submission

had served to allay Mahon's foreboding over the direction of the nation's

military. He worried over what seemed to him a lack of imagination

and vision on defense issues within the administration, the public, and

his own party. He asked each administration witness a ritual question:

Can you suggest any way in which this budget might be cut? Both he and

the witnesses understood the charade and gravely played it out for the

record. At one point Wilson put aside the script and enlivened the hearing by confessing to a personal venture he kept in the back of his mind

and hoped some day to bring to fruition: elimination of the Veterinary

Corps from the Army and the Air Force, which in these two services

accounted for 2 generals, 34 colonels, 738 other officers, and 2,100 enlisted men (with only 481 horses and mules)-"an example of how hard

it is to get people out of the old rut, and to face the new."* Mahon's Democratic colleagues eVidently shared his reluctance to try seriously to

impose significant increases on the administration's Defense budgetparticularly in the light of the results of previous efforts to challenge the

president's role as the nation's foremost military expert. 58

So the committee report, submitted to the House on 3 May, approved

the budget, including the 9 April supplemental, substantially as submitted.

It noted the committee's feeling that "barring unforeseen developments,

the amount appropriated is generally adequate to fully implement our

projected military requirements for the fiscal year and will enable the

Department to continue to give the country an increasingly strong and

well balanced force." It even made a modest net appropriation reduction

of $236 million. The committee cut by only $187 million the Air Force's

$15.66 billion appropriation request. The largest category, aircraft and

related procurement (including missiles), remained intact at more than

$6 billion. The recommended total ($15.5 billion) still represented an increase over the 1956 budget. 59

USAF procurement for 1957 included 1,927 aircraft-down from 2,777

in FY 1956, in part because of a shift to more expensive types, including

the B-52 bomber, the F-101B fighter interceptor, and the F-104 day fighter.

Most of the other subcategories represented substantial reductions from

the previous year, but an increase in missile procurement, $470 million,

outweighed all the reductions and amounted to a 62 percent increase in

• In fairness, it should be known that the Veterinary Corps had the prime responsibility

of inspecting all meat products purchased for the services.
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 625

that category over FY 1956. Even so, missile procurement only accounted

for about one-fifth as many dollars as aircraft in the Air Force budget, a

modest step into the missile age. 60

R&D funding, for which the committee approved the entire request

of $610 million, revealed the extent to which Quarles had overruled

virtually the whole Air Force R&D community in the missile dispute that

Gardner had brought to a head in January 1956. Requested amounts

showed reductions from the FY 1956 budget in all but two subcategories. The largest reduction, $28 million for guided missiles and related

equipment, was the reverse side of the 62 percent increase in missile procurement noted earlier, underscoring the ongoing shift of this program

from research and development to production. Quarles, whom the committee seemed to regard as a guru for the whole R&D field (presumably

owing to his role until recently as assistant secretary of defense for R&D),

argued persuasively that it would not necessarily be helpful to throw

more money at R&D. About one-half of the nation's whole R&D capability,

he pointed out, was already being devoted to defense. The $610 million

total for FY 1957 was a ceiling imposed by OSD, to which all the R&D

work had to be adjusted, one of Gardner's principal grievances and a

sore point with many committee members, who evidently acquiesced with

Quarles grudgingly, reflecting their respect for his judgment.61

The House debated the DoD budget on 9 and 10 May, but public

interest, and with it congressional attention, had shifted since mid-April

to the airpower hearings in the Senate, from which titillating news and

rumors seeped out almost daily.62 Mahon's presentation of the Appropriation Committee's bill consisted largely of a grim analysis of the

looming Soviet threat and a confession that the budget he and his subcommittee now recommended was a grossly inadequate response to it.

Congress had pushed the Defense Department into accelerating procurement in 1955 and again in the current year, but he tended to agree

with the administration that the existing rate of output was probably the

best that could be achieved at present. On 10 May 1956 the House passed

the DoD appropriation bill unanimously and sent it to the Senate.63

Senate Maneuvers

During May and the first half of June, budget hearings had droned

on behind closed doors in the Senate, attracting little press comment. By

early June, the appropriations subcommittee was ready for fireworks.

They were set off by General LeMay's huge bomber-tanker-base "wish

list" for SAC, which he had prepared at the request of the Symington
626 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

subcommittee. LeMay had recommended a SAC expansion plan almlllg

at a force by 1960 built around 27 wings of B-52s and 61 squadrons of

KC-135 jet tankers, numbering respectively 1,360 and 1,327 of each type

of aircraft. It would involve construction of 70 additional bases for a total

of 101. The existing force of medium bombers, piston-engine tankers, and

interceptors would be sharply cut back and all B-36 bombers retired. At

the same time, SAC would move into the missile age with missile augmentation (penetration aids) for its bomber wings, plus wings of intercontinental cruise missiles, IRBMs, and ICBMs. 64

On 11 June LeMay presented this huge bill of particulars with chilling force and gravity to the Senate appropriations subcommittee. At the

moment the United States was clearly superior to its adversary and,

should a war start tomorrow, would "unquestionably" emerge the victor,

although hurt. But studies, each more pessimistic than the previous one,

emphasized that "the supremacy which we enjoy today is on the wane.

By 1959 the Soviets will have the superior strategic air force." His wish

list represented, he said, only the force structure that the country could

absorb and support without emergency procedures, and that would "give

us the greatest deterrent capability practical for the time period." Even so,

the list of aircraft, bases, R&D, etc. was formidable enough. The senators

had little to say about it, but the staggering cost implications, compressed into a three-year time frame, were sobering. LeMay tried to

confine his exposition to his own jurisdiction, but he conceded that the

Air Force's manpower ceiling of 975,000 would be inadequate to man

a 137-wing force; he would need more people, for example, for his

planned 24-hour alert. He thought a 1,200,000-man ceiling would be

more realistic. 65

For the FY 1957 budget LeMay endorsed the Air Staff's estimated

price tag of $3.8 billion in NOA for his program, added to the roughly $5

billion already budgeted for SAC. For FY 1958 the bill would be largerthe Air Staff estimated an annual additional $4 billion to $5 billion,

running into the indefinite future. At the end of his testimony, LeMay

seemed to become aware that he might be pushing the limits of what

the country could afford. "We do think of those things," he said in his

closing statement, alluding to the risk of spending the country into bankruptcy. It was all a question of priorities. The subcommittee, including

the Republican members, was impressed. Senator Russell, apparently

without having heard LeMay's testimony, raised the possibility of diverting to SAC the total foreign aid funds authorized by the House on the

same day, 11 June, which by coincidence came to almost exactly the

$3.8 billion LeMay had requested. 66
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 627

In its report the subcommittee recommended and the full committee

approved an addition of $800 million to the Air Force budget, specifying

that the added funds should be used "primarily for increasing the production of heavy bombers for the Strategic Air Command," along with

more fighter aircraft, if deemed advisable. The committee also voted to

restore some $173 million of the $187 million that the House had cut

from the Air Force budget. The Army and Navy budgets were left almost

untouched, the former reduced by $216 million, the latter by $48 million, these cuts much smaller than those made by the House. Overall, the

committee added $1.389 billion to the House bill and $876 million to

the president's budget.67

The 18 June committee vote on the Air Force budget-increase amendment was close-13 to 12-suggesting that LeMay's predictions of doom

may have lost some of their potency when reported to those who had

not heard him in person. On the Army and Navy budgets the votes were

unanimous. This hairline vote on the Air Force augmentation did not

augur well for the bill's fortunes on the Senate floor. When it came up

for debate the next day, 19 June, the ranking Republican on the committee, Styles Bridges, was waiting for it with an alternative amendment.

Sponsored by a bipartisan group of five colleagues, it proposed an

increase of only $500 million, including $350 million for aircraft procurement and $100 million for R&D. Its author professed to have reason

to believe the president might be persuaded not to impound the money.68

Wilson Drops the Ball

On 21 June Secretary Wilson was badgered by newsmen to comment

on the two amendments. Would he spend additional money if it were

appropriated? Wilson curtly answered that if he had thought he needed

more money, he would have asked for it in the first place. Later, areporter quipped that Wilson's problem apparently was "how to stave off

more money." Annoyed, Wilson snapped, "I think that's a phony." Immediately he seemed to regret the remark ("Maybe I shouldn't have said

it"). Unfortunately, he continued: "I would just like to see the people ...

that vote for the expenditures, that vote for. the taxes to produce the

money to pay for it [defense]-same people-stand up and be counted."

At first, Wilson's gaffe seemed no more than an ordinary attack of his

chronic "foot-in-mouth" affliction. This time, however, the immediate

consequences were unusually explosive. For one thing, the press played

it up with unusual glee, giving the story a momentum that extended it

over several days. The next day Democratic senators and even a few
628 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Republicans, inferring that Wilson had used "phony" to describe the

proposed increases in the DoD budget, promptly engaged in a veritable

orgy of Wilson-bashing. Bridges expressed "amazement and shock" and

called Wilson's remark "an unwarranted slur" on senators on both sides

of the aisle who supported a larger Air Force budget. "I am very pleased,"

remarked Majority Leader Johnson the next day, "that no member of

the Senate on either side of the aisle has sought to justify the statement

made by the Secretary of Defense yesterday."69

Johnson and other Democratic senators saw the budget battle as a

phase of the airpower inquiry with which their political interests were

linked. Skilled strategists all, they found in the hapless defense secretary

a target of opportunity whose sudden vulnerability could be turned to

account by making him a symbol of the administration's economy obsession and blindness to the nation's peril. Jackson, Symington, and Russell

all solemnly called for Wilson's resignation or dismissal. Near the end of

the debate Russell delivered a particularly vitriolic attack on Wilson. 70

Much of the Democratic attack aimed at undermining support for

Bridges' amendment, which offered a half-billion increase in the Air Force

budget as a reasonable "compromise" between the president's wishes and

the committee's proposed $1.1 billion. The committee, torn between the

two judgments, had chosen a figure less than a third as large as the additional amount per year ($3.8 billion) that LeMay had warned his command alone would need to meet the threat of a superior Soviet air force

by 1959. The amassing of unobligated funds, Symington charged, was an

administration strategy, pursued by deliberately slowing B-52 production,

in order to deter Congress from appropriating more money and thus

obtain a balanced budget in an election year. 71

The floor debate was hardly a debate at all. The Democrats spoke

mostly to one another in tones of warm agreement, and to their constituency outside the walls. Most of the Republicans listened in silence.

On 23 June the president moved to end the spectacle. After a meeting

with aides in his hospital suite: he notified leading Republican senators

that he would, if necessary, go along with the Bridges amendment. 72

Wilson now found himself isolated. Clearly upset, he refused to answer

a question whether he intended to resign. In Washington the White House

denied any pressure to induce Wilson to modify his remarks of the 21st

but admitted that the matter had been discussed. Talking to reporters,

Wilson was alternately contrite and querulous, and insisted he had been

misinterpreted. He had never meant to insult senators. But on the budget

question he stuck to his guns: he needed no more money.73

* He was still recuperating from an operation for ileitis.
Congress Reviews the FY 1957 Budget 629

Since the president did not formally advise Republican leaders of

his decision to support the Bridges amendment, the debate was thus conducted as though the president's budget still represented the administration's position, although hardly a voice was raised on its behalf.

Republicans now pinned their waning hopes on the Bridges amendment,

but it lost, 47 to 42, and a little later the committee bill was carried by a

larger margin, 48 to 40. These were, of course, largely party-line votes. 74

One must conclude that Wilson's news conference indiscretion on

21 June was a major factor, if not the crucial one, in the outcome. Certainly many senators, Republicans and Democrats, thought so, especially

Bridges. He believed that Wilson had given the opposition a campaign

issue that "will be discussed from now to November on every Democratic

platform." The intensity of the furor was widely regarded by veteran reporters as almost unprecedented. 75

The House and Senate quickly wrapped up the DoD budget. In conference their representatives settled with little difficulty on a compromise

that preserved the main points of the Senate bill-additions to the Air

Force budget of $800 million for aircraft procurement and $100 million

for R&D-while conceding the House a little over $100 million in small

reductions. This increased the president's budget (not including the stillto-be-considered military construction budget) by $806 million and exceeded the House bill by $1.022 billion, for a final NOA total of $34.656

billion. The House passed the conference bill by a standing vote, 79 to 57.

The Senate concluded the adoption with a voice vote the same day,

29 June, and the president signed the bill.76

TABLE 13

The Approved FY 1957 DoD Budget

($ million)

OSD

Army

Navy

Air Force

Total

Approp

FY 1956

695.6

7,330.0

9,127.8

14,739.8

31,893.2

Budget

IT 1957

672.3

7,761.4

10,047.6

15,666.5

34,147.8

House

FY 1957

658.8

7,497.6

9,9995

15,479.1

3.3,635.0

Senate

IT 1957

658.8

7,545.8

9,999..9

16,579,1

34,783.6

Conference

FY 1957

658.8

7,539.3

9,9995

16,459.1

34,656.7

Source: Cong Rec, Senate, 29 Jun 56,84 Cong, 2 sess, 11,335.

The president had already moved to put the matter behind him.

From his hospital bed on the 28th he directed Wilson in his scheduled
630 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

appearance before the Symington subcommittee the following day to

"lay it on the line" in a full-dress presentation of the U.S. defense posture. Press Secretary Hagerty also told reporters that rumors to the effect

that Wilson was in bad odor with his boss because of the recent flap

were "absolute nonsense."77

With the augmented FY 1957 DoD budget safely enacted, one large

question remained: would the administration spend the extra money? Near

the end of the Senate floor debate, Symington had warned that the president "could well impound the funds now being proposed in this amendment," as he had done before. 78 But the Air Force evidently decided it

would be prudent to stake a specific claim right away. On 19 July Twining, reporting to Symington's subcommittee on his recent visit to the

Soviet Union, produced a prepared statement on uses for the extra money:

several important R&D projects, still unnamed; accelerated production

of KC-135 tankers to 20 per month; B-52 performance improvements; and

purchase of long lead-time items for the bomber. 79

The FY 1957 budget process was marked by a great deal of turbulence and volatility. The military, particularly the Air Force, saw the Soviet

menace more darkly than ever, as did the administration's Democratic

opposition in Congress. Eisenhower and the civilian leadership did not

regard the threat as requiring increases in money for additional personnel

and weapons. Wilson, caught between the upper stone of the president

and the nether stone of Congress and the services, found it difficult to

sustain a consistent and balanced approach to the DoD budget through

the long and trying obstacle course he had to traverse. He did not improve his image with Congress and the public by his sometimes inconsistent, impolite, and bumbling statements, but he was also the victim of

circumstance-conflicting signals from above, misunderstanding on all

sides, and Democratic opportunity for a political punching bag, the

majority party finding him an easier target than the president.

Sensing political gain in a presidential election year, the Democrats

exerted strong pressures to increase DoD appropriations and spending,

for which, of course, they had the behind-the-scenes support of the

military services. Eisenhower, ever mindful of the centrality of the DoD

budget in the national budget, which he had desperately sought to bring

into balance after many years of deficits, fought hard to contain the

powerful thrust for more Defense money and finally settled for an increase of about $500 million. Congress, normally given to cutting DoD

budgets, found it difficult to resist the lure of more and better weapons

for the Air Force to meet the growing Soviet threat. At the end of the

confused and labyrinthine budget excursion, Wilson, although wounded

by the intense political skirmishing, retained enough resilience and clout

to maintain his authority over his fractious department.
CHAPTER XXVIII

The Great Airpower Debate

The FY 1957 budget hearings had to play against the distracting

counterpoint of presidential campaigning and the ongoing debate on

airpower. From mid-April through July 1956 the central arena of the

debate was the old Supreme Court Chamber of the Capitol where, on

16 April, Senator Symington's armed services subcommittee on the Air

Force opened hearings on U.S. airpower and its prospects. Advance

publicity had been lavish, much of it inspired by the chairman's role as

a possible dark horse Democratic nominee for president. Three days later

Symington disclosed his plan to take the subcommittee on the road

following the Washington hearings, to visit aircraft factories around the

country. Administration efforts to divert public attention from the upcoming inquiry, such as the earlier appointment of Eger V Murphree as

missile "czar," had no apparent effect. l

The Symington Committee Hearings Begin

Sen. Henry Jackson alerted the public to some of the issues the hearings would grapple with, starting with "why it took ... the Defense

Department a year" to provide additional funds for the Air Force (the

recently submitted supplemental) in the FY 1957 budget now before Congress. Jackson suggested that the $300 million supplemental request for

the Air Force was clearly an administration attempt to preempt the Senate

investigation, as Senator Russell had charged. Talk about a balanced budget was only preelection rhetoric, and General Twining had testified that

in 1958 he would need $3.5 billion more just to maintain a 137-wing

force and that development and production of aircraft would have to be

631
632 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

accelerated. Jackson predicted that the country would "get a big

defense bill right after the election," but he said no, the inquiry would

not be partisan. 2

The president had already held two strategy meetings early in April.

In the first, a briefing with Sens. Leverett Saltonstall and James H. Duff,

the two Republican members of the Symington subcommittee, he reemphasized the basic tenets of the New Look, the varied components

of airpower, the fallacy of trying to match the Soviets plane for plane or

missile for missile, and the too often ignored importance of naval airpower in the total equation. Missiles were vital and, he believed, adequately funded, but if the new missile "czar" determined otherwise, he

would promptly ask Congress for more. 3

On the eve of the airpower hearings Eisenhower met with Secretary

Humphrey, new BoB head Percival Brundage, and the Pentagon's top

leadership. Annoyed by reported Air Force testimony before the Senate

Armed Services Committee that ignored the Navy-Marine role in the airpower picture, and that described the Air Force as "second best" compared

with Soviet air strength, the president plunged into a lengthy complaint

about the tendency of service spokesmen on such occasions to "make

it look as though each does the job alone." The upcoming inquiry, he

warned, "seems to be concentrating on the services to get each to say

they need a little more." The supplemental request about to be submitted,

the president continued, constituted the administration's final concession. He reiterated the "long haul" thesis: Defense costs must be held

down to a level "that we can sustain indefinitely. [Otherwise] the result

would be to ruin the America we know and force us into a garrison state."

The chiefs should voluntarily get together and swap missions with the

aim of assigning each mission where it could be performed most cheaply

and efficiently. "If the Chiefs are not doing this, they should be doing it.,,4

Symington opened the airpower hearings on 16 April. The subcommittee proposed to focus its inquiry on one fundamental question: "Are

the present and planned strengths of the United States Air Force adequate

to preserve the peace through the deterrence of aggression?" After objections by Saltonstall and Duff the subcommittee's mandate was broadened

to include Navy-Marine and Army aviation as welP The schedule of hearings, which ultimately ran into July and brought more than 100 witnesses

before the committee, covered four broad subject areas: (1) developments

in the military situation since World War II; (2) existing and prospective

airpower of the Communist bloc; (3) current strength of U.S. airpower;

and (4) evaluation of the adequacy of policies and programs affecting

U.S. airpower. 6
The Great Airpower Debate 633

The leadoff witnesses, four retired military leaders-General of the

Army Omar N. Bradley, Generals Carl A. Spaatz and Walter B. Smith, and

Admiral Robert B. Carney-all agreed that technology had relegated to

history's ash bin America's traditional reliance on its industrial capacity

and mobilization base to build, after war began, the military strength

needed to win it. Forces in being at the outset, not the forces that might

be created later, were the decisive factor in modern war. All four generally

accepted the implication that modern technology had made airpower,

as General Bradley put it, "predominant, both as a deterrent to war, and ...

as the devastating force to destroy an enemy's potential and fatally

undermine his will to wage war.rr7

In their first week the hearings, as one reporter put it, had "got off to

a tame start amid little public notice." Symington may have overestimated public concern over the Communist threat and failed to appreciate

the publicity value of a more partisan approach. "Most observers feel,"

wrote another veteran reporter, "that the Symington inquiry will not

arouse the general public very much" or, for that matter, advance the

senator's political fortunes. 8

General LeMay Sounds Off

Symington and Jackson undoubtedly counted on their star witness,

General LeMay, to energize the hearings and revive public interest. On

23 April, two days before LeMay's scheduled appearance, Communist

party leader Nikita Khrushchev, then touring in England with Premier

Nikolai Bulganin on a "trade and good-will" mission, declared in a speech

in Birmingham, "I am sure that we will have a guided missile with a

hydrogen bomb that can fall anywhere in the world"; some reporters

thought he had added "very soon." He went on to claim Soviet "firsts"

in dropping an H-bomb from an aircraft and in producing a jet airliner. Symington called the statement, if true, a "significant and terrible

warning." Secretary Quarles made no effort to discredit the claims, noting

the accuracy of earlier ones, but repeated his prediction that the manned bomber would remain the nuclear weapon delivery vehicle of choice

for at least the next five years. President Eisenhower downplayed

Khrushchev's threat and reiterated earlier assurances that u.S. missile

development was moving ahead "somewhere certainly around the limit"

of possible speed. 9

The waves from Khrushchev's pronouncement were still rolling in

when the Symington subcommittee opened Phase 3 and the second week
634 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

of its inquiry with General LeMay in the witness chair. The SAC commander's performance changed the whole character of the hearings.

LeMay's persona undoubtedly had something to do with this: somber,

humorless (at least in the hearing room), intense but calm, exuding

power, sentences and phrases short and unadorned. His spectacular

military credentials drew flowery tributes from the committee. LeMay's

testimony, while not new, did seem to pull together more coherently than

had been done before the manned-bomber school's view of the airpower crisis.

In terms of news value the LeMay hearings got off to a slow start.

The closed sessions of 25 and 26 April generated no leaks and therefore no

headHnes, but in LeMay's last two days of open testimony, 30 April and

2 May, the subcommittee had a more lucrative publicity payoff. LeMay

said that by current estimates the combined production of the two

Soviet heavy bombers, the jet-powered Bison and the turboprop Bear, already substantially exceeded the output of B-52s. Unless the United States

boosted output of B-52s and jet tankers (the KC-135, in production) and

expanded its base system, the Soviets could surpass U.S. overall striking

power in the 1958-60 period. LeMay also stressed that adequate strength

meant a force considerably stronger than the enemy's, in order to absorb

losses and still have sufficient residual strength to retaliate and inflict unacceptable losses on the enemy. 10

LeMay clearly saw himself as spokesman chiefly for his command's

modernization requirements, which meant, in essence, more B-52s and

their support needs. This thrust suggested an almost ruthless disregard

for other elements of SAC. To SAC's only operational intercontinental

bomber, the aging B-36, on which Wilson, in a recent press conference,

had bestowed a few kind words, LeMay gave the back of his hand: "If I

had my desires now, they would all be in junk piles." As for the B-47

medium bomber, SAC's real workhorse and the only U.S. bomber that

outnumbered its Soviet counterpart, he hardly alluded to it. LeMay had

the pilot's skepticism for the new long-range missiles, reinforced by his

single-minded concern for the B-52. The ICBM had good potential, he

said when asked, and should· by all means be pushed, but the missile

was beset by problems. He believed that the first model would not be as

efficient as the manned bomber. LeMay's most damaging open testimony,

saved for the last day, 2 May, revealed that only 47 of the 78 B-52s produced had been accepted through April. Complementing these dire

tidings, it was disclosed the next day that the intelligence estimate of aggregate Soviet production of Bison bombers to date was more than 100Y

The headlines generated by the LeMay hearings thus far were only

the tip of a sizable iceberg. High-level discussion of the airpower crisis
The Great Airpower Debate 635

had entered a critical period early in March, when Robert Sprague, the

NSC's consultant on continental air defense, had reported that recent

intelligence on the Soviet nuclear stockpile suggested that on one-way

bomber missions by mid-1958 the Soviets would be able to deliver a decisive surprise air attack on the United States, presumably aimed mainly

at wiping out SAC. Manifestly this left little sense of complacency in SAC.

In the closed sessions of the hearings on 25 and 26 April LeMay and his

aides provided a mass of information on SAC's plans and procedures that

left no doubt how personally they took the prediction of 1958-60 as a

time of peril. 12

As for the missile threat, which portended an attack warning of only

15 minutes, SAC proposed to place as much of the total strike force as

practicable on a 15-minute alert, a concept developed late in 1955 and

approved by the Air Force early in 1956 as a plan to be put into effect

by 1958. It would supersede the current dispersal plan for getting bombers quickly airborne in an attack. The greatly increased requirements for

special alert hangars with crew ready-rooms, dual taxiways, and combat

crews meant more construction on each SAC base, more high-skill personnel, a 60- to 75-hour work week, and of course more money. When

asked whether, even if the Soviets developed the ICBM well ahead of

the United States, the new alert system would prOVide an adequate

counter to the threat of surprise attack, LeMay replied that it would, if

the system operated with a high degree of efficiency; many bombers

would survive, and Soviet planners would still have to ask themselves

whether they were prepared to accept x number of atomic bombs in a

retaliatory blow. 13

LeMay believed the 15-minute alert, not yet programmed or budgeted for, could be made to work, but fundamentally, he put his trust in

deterrence, the capacity for swift retaliation on a scale that would make

any attack on the United States unprofitable. He insisted on the need for

an overwhelming force of B-52s, now and for years to come the most

modern and capable carrier of nuclear bombs and the nation's key

offensive weapon system. To give the B-52s a genuinely intercontinental

capability, more KC-135 jet tankers should be ordered to provide an

adequate tanker fleet by 1960. 14

LeMay submitted a promised "wish list" -a 50-page document (mostly

tables and graphs) setting forth SAC's "major requirements during the time

period 1956 to 1960." Acceleration of B-52 and KC-135 tanker output

would provide a force of 1,360 B-52s (27 wings) and 1,327 KC-135s (61

squadrons) by mid-1960. The existing force of B-47s and associated KC97

tankers would be radically cut. SAC's personnel strength would climb

from 196,000 to 319,600 in 1960. The SAC base system would expand
636 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

from the existing 31 bases to 101 in 1960, an increase of 56 bases over

the current plans. The long lead times would require funding the whole

expanded base program in FYs 1957-58. High-yield nuclear weapons

would be scheduled as appropriate. Five new missile wings would be

created in 1959 and 1960. "This proposed force," LeMay's report concluded optimistically, "will give SAC the capability of maintaining a high

state of alert with a force relatively secure from destruction by presently

predicted Soviet capabilities during this time period."15

Of course, the cost of all this promised to be astronomical. The estimates, worked up in haste, were no doubt significantly understated, since

they covered only direct costs to SAC during the sp.ecified time period,

ignoring what would surely be a large bill for support from other Air

Force command,s and probable follow-on programs. The wish list would

add about $3.8 billion to the $4.9 billion (new obligational authority)

already budgeted for SAC in FY 1957, peaking in FY 1958 and tapering off

rapidly thereafter to FY 1960 for a four-year total of $31.7 billion. 16

The administration did not seem unduly upset by LeMay's testimony.

His views were no secret; earlier he had talked of even larger numbers of

B-52s than the 1,360 now proposed. 17 On 1 May Wilson attempted in a

news conference to dampen the impact of what had been said thus far,

conceding that the Soviets were probably building heavy bombers "at a

somewhat higher rate than we are," but this did not amount to much on

either side. He hinted that another acceleration in B-52 output might be in

the offing, perhaps in FY 1958. But he refused to accept LeMay's prediction of Soviet superior striking power in 1958-60, referring to the

general as a "dedicated specialist."IB

Naval Strategic Airpower?

A few days later, 4 May, the president tried to broaden the scope of

the debate. Thus far, he said, the critics had focused on one weapon, the

B-52 bomber, while largely ignoring other USAF and naval airpower. "We

have the most powerful navy in the world ...." When all the Defense

Department testimony had been presented, he went on, it would become

apparent that the administration had not been "indifferent to the security

of the United States."19

Testifying before the Senate appropriations subcommittee on 8 May,

Wilson lost no time in following this guidance, labeling as untrue the

"almost daily stories alleging that the U.S.S.R. is far outstripping the

United States in terms of airpower." U.S. airpower comprised the total

strength of the Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Army, the Air
The Great Airpower Debate 637

National Guard and Air Reserve units of all services, and the civil air

fleet, plus the aviation industry-all supplemented by the considerable

airpower of America's allies. SAC's medium bomber wings remained "the

heart of our strategic striking power" and "the most powerful single

element of air power in the world today." Especially to be reckoned with,

said Wilson, was the "strategic capability that our carrier based aircraft

add to our retaliatory striking power" with 15 large carriers each carrying

atomic-capable aircraft and able to project American airpower into areas

otherwise closed to it or inhospitable to land-based aircraft. Under ]CS

direction, use of the carriers was "carefully integrated into the plans for

the employment of our strategic forces."2o As Wilson well knew, this last

flourish was a red flag to the Air Force, and especially SAC. Both Twining

and LeMay in congressional testimony had made it clear that the Air Force

did not and could not count on help from the Navy in the opening strategic air battles of a war. 21 Wilson went on: "The aircraft carrier today

represents one of the most important parts of our overall security program, playing a vital role in protecting our sea lines of communication and

providing mobile bases for immediate retaliation against enemy attack."

He may well have had in mind the president's sarcastic remark earlier in

the month-"what in the world we are building Forrestal-type carriers

for?"-prompted by Air Force testimony disparaging the Navy's strategic

bombing capabilities. Granted, Eisenhower had continued, the Key West

agreements* assigned strategic bombing to SAC, but times had changed

and the Navy now possessed units of great striking power. Wilson confirmed what was already common knowledge, that B-52 production would

be accelerated to 20 per month by late 1957 or early 1958, and that B-52

wings would be enlarged from 30 to 45 aircraft. In a public speech on 7 May

he declared emphatically that he opposed any further speedup in B-52

output, saying that the Soviets could be expected to "forge ahead" in

some areas from time to time. 22

By calling attention to the Navy's air arm asa part of the nation's longrange striking power the president, as one columnist pointed out, had

issued "a virtual White House invitation to renew the old public dispute

with the air force over which can best atomize Russia if war should

come."23 Wilson had reinforced the invitation with more explicit and

feistier language in his Senate testimony on 8 May. Both services were

quick to respond, the Air Force first. After Twining pointed out the limitations on the capability of carrier-based aircraft to assist SAC in its

strategic mission, Burke made a dramatic announcement-the first official

acknowledgment that carrier-based aircraft [the A-3D jet bomber] could

* See Chapter II.
638 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

now drop H-bombs, a capability that helped to explain Eisenhower's

insistence on the Navy's "tremendous" airpower as a recent development.

Burke backed off, however, from the question whether carrier-based

aircraft could reach targets in the Soviet heartland, pointing out that

naval air strategy dictated a "fight our way in" approach, first hitting such

targets as ports, submarine bases, and coastal air bases that posed a threat

to the fleet. 24

Not surprisingly, at his news conference on 15 May Wilson faced a wellprimed audience that plagued him with a barrage of questions. He stated

that "everybody knows the Navy has a strategic striking power," but he

refused to define or quantify it as a percentage of the nation's total, and

denied change or reinterpretation of the Key West agreement. He maintained that the Navy had a "double mission," the second half of which

was "to assist ... in any strategic bombing mission." The secretary pointed

out that Twining had merely said that the Navy's strategic capabilities

were small, not nonexistent, compared to the Air Force's. Wilson's stubborn and maladroit resistance to disclosure of information, already widely

known, proved to be self-defeating. It had the immediate consequence of

fueling, instead of dampening as intended, the emerging roles-andmissions argument between the Air Force and the Navy. 25

Competitive Publicity

Another roles-and-missions dispute was the already simmering argument between the Army and Air Force over prospective competition

between the Army's Nike and the Air Force's Talos, both antiaircraft

missiles." Early in March 1956 Wilson gave the Air Force the go-ahead to

install Talos, when ready, as part of the continental air defense system

at selected SAC bases. The Army promptly protested the decision as an

invasion of its air defense mission and a wasteful duplication of the Nike

system. At a meeting with Brucker and Taylor on 20 March Wilson promised to look into the matter. 26 When questioned by the Senate appropriations subcommittee on 10 May, General Taylor stated that the

assignment of a "point defense" mission to Talos, "which does not presently have interceptor characteristics," looked to him like an invasion of

the Army antiaircraft role. Secretary Brucker, replying to Senator Stennis's

* Talos was powered by a ramjet engine, giving it about four times the 25-mile range of

the rocket-powered Nike; it rode a radar beam to its target and had a proximity fuse. Nike

depended on a ground command guidance system that required the full attention of the

crew until the missile reached its target-a serious disadvantage in a multiple-bomber

attack. Talos was designed by the Navy as a successor to the shipborne Terrier.
The Great Airpower Debate 639

insinuation that the aging Nike missiles ringing American cities might

have outlived their usefulness, made a spirited defense of the weapon and

its prospective improved versions. 27

This dispute eventually petered out inconclusively, but the Senate

subcommittee reached a sweeping but tentative decision favoring the

Air Force on all points-future development of all Nike missiles would

be discontinued and Talos would be assigned the mission of defending

targets in the United States. This decision, however, was never implemented. The heralded "duel" never materialized, the Army's Nike continued to grow and prosper, and Talos was eventually turned over to the

Army for development. 28

The president's unwitting incitement to interservice strife and

. Wilson's follow-up fell on fertile soil, ready to sprout. In March the Air

Force had launched a public relations campaign to celebrate SAC's 10th

anniversary and, more generally, to "make certain that all Americans

understand why the Air Force is the principal force, and what must be

done to keep our Air Force the mightiest in the world." Participants were

admonished not to "take issue with the other services," but at the same

time to stress such arguments as: USAF airpower is the dominant, decisive

force; USAF airpower can be applied anywhere, anytime, in any strength;

missiles are an air weapon and, by their very nature, fall into the Air Force

arsenal. Also in April the Navy launched a six-month campaign aimed at

stressing three themes: "The U.S. depends on the Navy more today than

ever before; in global war the oceans become a giant, interconnected

battlefield surrounding all continents; the U.S. Navy is more important

than ever." 29

One of the first fruits of the USAF campaign, the April issue of Air

Force, published by the Air Force Association, consisted in its entirety

of articles about SAC. The following month's issue took the offensive

against the Army with a "staff study" entitled "The Army's Atomic Dilemma,"

flogging the theme that the Army, desperate over its steadily shrinking

role in the employment of nuclear firepower, was grasping for its own

long-range air force and missiles. "National strategy," it declared, "doesn't

foresee a decisive role for U.S. ground troops in any kind of nuclear war,

global or peripheral. And it is even more difficult to foresee a non-nuclear

struggle big enough to be called a war."30 This representative view of

Air Force strategic thinking reflected a lack of vision. Not many years

passed before the Vietnam War exposed the superficial and narrowly

parochial character of such thinking.

The Army's retort to this "assault" in the June issue of Army, journal

of the Association of the U.S. Army, briefly reviewed what it called "The

Air Force's Technological Dilemma," jibing at the Air Force's "insistence
640 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

on concentrating on the kind of war that isn't going to be fought,"

inasmuch as "there is little likelihood of thermonuclear war so long as

two or more powers have the capability of destroying each other." They

ridiculed the claim that airpower could control or seal off land areas,

"despite the plain evidence of Korea that it is unable to do so." The Air

Force, they wrote, "refuses to face up to the growing obsolescence of the

manned bomber" or to recognize that ballistic missiles "are more a province of ordnance than of aerodynamics." "This Air Force position," the

editors concluded, "is such a calculated drive for arbitrary power that it

can be of no help to the cause of service unification or to the stature of

the public's opinion of the armed forces."31

The Navy's contribution to the upsurge of service bickering appeared

in the April issue of the Navy League's publication, Now Hear This! Its

point of departure was the Icelandic parliament's demand at the end of

March that the United States withdraw all American forces stationed on

the island. Reminding its readers that it had earlier warned of the possibility of such action, the journal interpreted the incident as "an impressive

warning to our defense planners as to what can and may happen to our

other immobile land air bases" in Morocco, Saudi Arabia (both subjects of

current negotiations for base renewal), Libya, and elsewhere. Now it was

"abundantly clear that increased emphasis in our future defense planning must be placed upon our mobile air bases, the fast carriers of our

modern fleet," invulnerable to foreign neutralism and nationalism and

protected by their mobility.32

Taylor's Colonels

With little warning the interservice feud erupted anew over the

weekend of 19-20 May, brought to a head by the bold stroke of a group

of "young colonels" on General Taylor's staff who had been assigned

earlier in the year to energize the Army's faltering public relations

effort. According to one of them, Col. George Forsythe, Taylor told them

they were on their own "in a dangerous assignment and that if they

were ever 'uncovered' he 'wouldn't know us.''' "Taylor's colonels" were

assigned to write staff studies, using classified information as they saw

fit, and not necessarily hewing to the officially approved line, defining

the Army's problems and interests as they perceived them. The group's

existence was not secret, but it maintained low visibility. 33

By mid-May they had decided to take drastic measures to counter the

tide of pro-Air Force and anti-Army propaganda in the press and other
The Great Airpower Debate 641

media. Selected reporters known to be sympathetic to the Army were

given some of the special studies. The results appeared in two long

articles by Anthony Leviero of the New York Times, lavishly embellished

with quotations, on 19 and 20 May. "Grave interservice differences,"

Leviero began, announcing his theme, "are afflicting the armed forces,"

going much deeper than budgetary competition. They "cannot be dismissed as mere interservice bickerings." He listed the salient areas of

contention-strategic bombing, ground forces, the big carriers, and

missiles. Despite the president's characterization of thermonuclear war

as "unthinkable" and his admonition to prepare for the whole range of

lesser threats, lamented one of the Army studies used by Leviero, "we continue to pour excessive manpower and money into an Air Force which

has been substantially neutralized and which pleads for more money,

more money, more money. We continue to divert large quantities of our

military capacity into a Navy that is seriously threatened by a nation with

practically no naval experience or tradition." Even if the Soviets really

cut their armed forces by 1.2 million as promised, the study noted, they

would remain vastly superior to the West in conventional arms.

Another Army study, Leviero wrote, condemned excessive reliance on

aerial bombing as a needless resort to mass destruction that restricted

foreign policy to the "extremes of inaction or action which may be wholly

inappropriate," making military power "more a determinant of national

policy than an instrument of it."34 Leviero's two articles were the prize

"scoop" of the weekend, revealing the breadth of the Army-Air Force

undercover guerrilla war.

Wilson Takes Charge

Secretary Wilson seems to have been unaware of these goings-on. As

early as 2 April, however, Admiral Radford had informed the president, in

the presence of Twining, Taylor, and Burke, that "unless brought under

control, a situation may develop in which the Services are involved in increasing public disagreement among themselves." Eisenhower responded

with a short lecture on "competitive publicity" among the services. He

thought it "highly harmful to the Nation," and declared that stopping it

was the job of the service chiefs. Public relations activities for building

service morale were understandable, but "there should be none of this

competitive publicity."35

When the leaked disclosures in the New York Times and Washington

Post appeared on Saturday morning, 19 May, Wilson failed to notice them
642 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

and no one tipped him off. After reviewing Washington's Armed Forces

Day parade, he went to National Airport to fly to Hot Springs, Virginia.

At the airport a crowd of reporters ambushed him; "I thought you told

me there wasn't anything hot going on," he muttered to an aide. When

told what had happened, he improvised a few comments, saying "this is

not the right way to solve our problems .... We don't have to try our

case in public."36

Over the weekend, Senator Jackson accused Wilson of avoiding the

issue and exercising no leadership. Sen. Estes Kefauver called on President Eisenhower to settle the "bickering" before it became a "national

scandal" that foreign powers would interpret as reflecting weakness.

Chairman Carl Vinson of the House Armed Services Committee declared

that "if the Pentagon itself or the White House do not calm the furious

interservice row over roles and missions ... [my] committee may be required to consider the matter further." Senator Saltonstall said in an

interview that he would insist on being given the names of the officers

responsible for the leaks. 37

Meanwhile, the services continued their "competitive publicity" at a

brisk pace. Secretary Thomas announced that the Navy planned to install

its 1,500-mile IRBM, when ready, on its nuclear-powered submarines.

At Patrick AFB in Florida, a crowd of 25,000 watched the launching of

an Air Force Matador missile, and off Bikini in the Central Pacific a B-52

dropped the first American air-launched H-bomb from about 50,000 feet

-"by far," proclaimed the report, "the most stupendous release of

explosive energy on earth so far."38

Wilson returned to Washington Monday morning (the 21st) and met

with the service chiefs and secretaries that afternoon, preparatory to a

joint press conference with all principals in attendance, an unprecedented venture in Pentagon public relations. Wilson had a prepared

introductory statement for the press conference, which he was persuaded

to modify in some particulars, including (presumably at Taylor's request)

deletion of the term "irresponsible persons" to describe those who "leaked"

Army studies to the press. The secretary announced the conference's purpose: to "clarify the situation" resulting from weekend press reports of

serious differences among the services based on disclosure of certain

staff papers. "Honest" differences and "reasonable" interservice competition were healthy, he said, but the airing of differences was "not good for

the country" when motivated by excessive service partisanship; neither

was the unauthorized release of classified documents. Roles and missions

of the services came under continual review by the Joint Chiefs, but at

the moment he did not contemplate any changes in the Key West agreement, a point reporters pinned down at the outset. 39
The Great Airpower Debate 643

With preliminaries out of the way, Wilson opened the conference to

questions. He remained very much in charge, taking some questions

himself, referring others to his associates ranged on his right and left,

interrupting freely, obviously enjoying himself. His colleagues, by contrast, were variously "glum," "tight-lipped," and "stiff," feeling the pressure

to avoid missteps.40

Taylor, the principal target, established his position early on, promising a "very thorough investigation." From a "cursory glance" at some of

the documents, he disavowed them "as views of the Army," but refused

to disavow "everything that's been published" before he had determined

the facts. He was not yet prepared to commit himself to any course of

action, court-martial or other. "There is no mutiny or revolt in the Army,"

he declared. Taylor skillfully parried reporters' efforts to engage him in

argument with the other chiefs, stating that his views had been adequately presented to them and his superiors. On the Nike-Talos issue he

got little reciprocity from either Quarles or Twining. Both had praise for

Nike. To the loaded question whether Nike was suitable to defend SAC

bases, Twining allowed that it was far better than "standard anti-aircraft

artillery, and 1 certainly hope that it is as good or better than advertised."

He reminded his audience that the Air Force, not the Army, owned the

air defense mission. Taylor cleared the air a moment later by explaining

that the current version of Talos lacked interceptor characteristics, but

later versions were expected to have them. Had he received a full and

fair hearing from the Joint Chiefs, Secretary Wilson, and the president?

Yes, he had. Did he agree with their decisions? Taylor dodged this one:

"I would say there is nothing-no finality in any of these matters. They

are so important they are constantly being reviewed." He and the other

chiefs agreed on the necessity for an adequate air-atomic retaliatory

capability, but the Army also had a vital deterrent role, which required an

"adequate allocation of means.,,41

It was a polished performance, one of Taylor's best, but almost a solo

one. He must have felt very much alone. The only other active participants, apart from Wilson, were the two USAF principals, for whom the

conference, with Wilson's bland acquiescence, provided a forum to

expound Air Force positions, mainly on Army-Air Force disputes. The

others might as well have been in the audience. Burke, when questioned

about the Navy's role in strategic bombing, brushed it aside as a "controversy which blew up over the weekend [and] is much more serious

outside of the Pentagon than it is inside."42

Two topics dominated the conference, the affair of the leaked papers

and the Nike-Talos dispute. On the titillating matter of the leaked papers,

Taylor faced a no-win situation. The abortive machinations of his colonels
644 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

were of course indefensible and had to be disavowed, while the issues

they had hoped to trumpet to a sympathetic public were too diffuse

and complex to be dealt with in a one-hour press conference. Almost

ignored in the hubbub was the fact that the Air Force had also leaked

classified papers that had been extensively paraphrased and quoted in

Leviero's articles. No one quizzed Twining about his undercover colonels. 43

From where Wilson sat, the press conference must have seemed a

smashing success: The chief troublemaker had been pilloried and forced

to deny his guilt publicly (next best to admitting it); Wilson and his colleagues had all joined in a ritual reaffirmation of service unification. Wilson

also took the occasion to point out that he had made a commitment that

"success in the development of a missile wouldn't necessarily determine

which Service would have the roles and missions." He was referring to

the November 1955 development assignments for the IRBM. "[We] want

to have the Service that is best fitted ... to do the job [of deploying and

operating the missile] ."44

In his own press conference on 23 May the president restated his

familiar credo of free discussion before decisions were made and loyal

support without argument afterward. "The day that discipline disappears

from our forces, we will have no forces, and we would be foolish to put

a nickel into them." Had he given thought to a more unified military

structure, "perhaps a single Chief of Staff or even a single service military

organization?" Of course he had, many times over the past 15 years, but it

was "a very, very intricate problem." The roles-and-missions controversy,

he said, had been going on since he joined the Army in 1911 and it

would continue. 45

The president's unhappiness over the upsurge in service rivalry

and near insubordination went deeper than his remarks indicated. He

had discussed the idea of greater centralization of authority in the secretary of defense with both Wilson and Radford separately during the week

preceding the weekend of the roles-and-missions revolt. He had almost

decided, he told Radford, that "some reorientation of the whole organization ought to be made sometime next year. It would involve strengthening the position of the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the

]CS, reducing the services to a more operational, less policy role." The

chiefs of staff would become, in effect, "assistants to the Chairman," who

would have authority to select and reassign them. Under this radical

change the chiefs would then "have the duty of implementing policy

within their own service-not of developing over-all policy." More immediately, he was thinking of requiring (through legislation) that all military and civilian officials serving in the Pentagon take an oath "that on
The Great Airpower Debate 645

termination of their duty they will disclose nothing which the Department of Defense determines to be security information." New appointees

would also take an oath "to accept decisions once made." These ruminations stemmed from a feeling that "the Chiefs of Staff system we now

have has failed." What was needed, he pointedly told Wilson, was for the

secretary of defense to find a way to get "disinterested, competent advice,"

decide on a course of action, then stick to it. Wilson, seemingly not aware

that he had been given both an order and an invitation, replied that he

would prepare a list "of a dozen or so things" and "see how many of them

the president wanted." No, said Eisenhower; what he wanted was for

Wilson "to reach his judgment as to what needs to be done and then

report to him.,,46

Later that week Taylor met with Eisenhower on another matter,

during which the roles-and-missions subject was briefly touched upon.

The chiefs of staff, said the president, pursuing the train of thought of

his earlier talks with Radford and Wilson, "still thought much too much

each in terms of his own service .... Each service should have what the

corporate judgment of the Chiefs thought proper .... If the Chiefs can't

develop corporate judgment on the great problems that are facing us,

the system as we now have it will have failed and major changes must

be made." But the examples of competitive publicity he cited-public

criticism of the Navy's carriers and of the Army's Nike-both pointed

the finger, not at the Army or Navy and their partisans, but at Air Force

partisans aided and abetted by Air Force officials. 47

Both the president and Wilson, whatever their private thoughts,evidently had decided to regard competitive publicity as a disciplinary matter

to be handled by the services internally. Both Twining and Taylor made

the appropriate public gestures: Twining sent a letter to all major air

commands directing them to avoid "negative" publicity and to "strengthen

the [defense] team as a whole by acknowledging the competence of

the other members." Taylor issued a memorandum discouraging public

airing of service differences, pointing out that there were "ample means"

in the Pentagon for settling them. More dramatic was the Army's purge of

the maverick colonels. Retirements and reassignments followed Taylor's

order banning controversial articles and speeches. Although a "purge" of

sorts, these actions seemed not to have a punitive intent. As one maverick later recalled, "We were all sent out of the Pentagon immediately, to

great assignments," although he also admitted that the Army staff was

"delighted" to see them go and "treated us like lepers" as soon as their

fate was known. Taylor had taken care of his own. 48
646 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Wilson's Worst Hour

As Wilson headed for his scheduled 29 June hearing before the

Symington airpower subcommittee he and the president were both aware

that he was being thrown to the wolves. These sessions were the most

grueling ordeal he endured during his entire tenure at the Pentagon,

and the secretary more than earned his salary. Both Symington and

Jackson pursued a coldly correct and aggressive style of interrogation,

sometimes insisting on "yes or no" answers, even challenging the secretary's veracity on occasion. Wilson, although on the defensive throughout,

did not submit tamely. When the "phony" episode came up, he at first

affected to have forgotten it, then refused to apologize for using the word,

adding that it would be in order for certain senators, including Jackson,

to apologize to him. He dismissed as political not personal the uproar

against him on the Senate floor. 49

Unfortunately, Wilson's game demeanor under fire could not offset

the lack of substance in his testimony. His prepared statement, while

mercifully brief, consisted of party-line generalities which his inquisitors hardly bothered to challenge. Under interrogation he produced one

significant attention-getter, an emphatic assertion that the B-52 was

"quite superior" to the Soviet Bison. "If the situation was reversed," he

declared, "and their Bison was as much better than our B-52 as our B-52

is [actually] better than their Bison, we would all be greatly worried."

To bolster the assertion, he supplied the subcommittee with classified

data on comparative characteristics of the two bombers, showing, he said,

that the B-52 was superior in speed, combat radius, and combat ceiling. 50

For well over a year an outpouring of information and analysis by

airpower partisans, most of it originating inside the Air Force, had built

up a cumulative popular impression, shared by most congressmen, that the

Bison was qualitatively a dangerous rival to the B-52. General Twining

and several other high-ranking USAF officers, in carefully worded public

statements, had on the whole supported this view, and certainly had

done nothing to discourage it. As became known later, the "bomber gap"

campaign would collapse under mounting evidence that the Soviets had

decided to leapfrog the creation of a massive fleet of manned bombers

and instead move directly into development of strategic ballistic

missiles-but that time was not yet. In July 1956 all the evidence still

pointed to a major Soviet effort to surpass the Americans in the development of airpower built around the modern long-range bomber, with

missile development as a parallel but still subordinate "next phase"

undertaking. Wilson's attempt to exploit the B-52 versus Bison issue in
The Great Airpower Debate 647

his final appearance before the Symington subcommittee may have been

a response to the president's instructions to "lay it on the line," but, if so,

it did not help carry the day.

Wilson denied or expressed skepticism about most of the other contentions of the airpower lobby. Twining's earlier statement that the

Communists had thousands more combat aircraft than the United States

must, he said, have been a comparison of total Soviet air strength and the

U.S. Air Force alone, not counting naval or allied aircraft; the free world

was ahead in total numbers. He flatly rejected as untrue Vice Chief of

Staff General Thomas D. White's public statement that the Communists

were "making scientific and technological advances at a faster rate than

we" and as a result were "approaching us in quality" of aircraft. Wilson

belittled the significance of the flybys; the Soviets, he said,had only shown

what they wanted to show, and anyway "we knew they were trying to

build a bomber." The whole issue of accelerating B-52 production was

overblown, Wilson argued. Long before the 1955 May Day flyby he had

taken steps on his own initiative to ensure that Boeing would have

capacity to increase production when needed, and production goals

had subsequently been raised in an orderly way. There was no disagreement between him, Quarles, and Twining on this score. For the present

the plan was to increase B-52 production gradually to 20 per month.

Wilson's feisty behavior under this grilling was probably sustained by a

conviction that his inquisitors desired solely to trap him into admissions

that could be exploited politically. But he seemed genuinely troubled by

the efforts of some people, as he put it, to "belittle the capacity and resolve

of this Government" and to foster an impression that the country was

militarily "woefully weak, when we are not."51

In the closing minutes of the 3 July hearing, Symington read to

Wilson what amounted to a personal indictment. The secretary's testimony over the past two days, he declared, was inconsistent with the

testimony of virtually the entire high command of the Air Force except

Secretary Quarles. Knowing that it was feasible to increase B-52 output

beyond current schedules and that Congress wanted this to be done,

Wilson had nevertheless stated that he would "put the money in the

bank," which could mean "maybe do nothing." The subcommittee, Symington asserted, confronted two inescapable conclusions: "(1) You are

considering going against the expressed will of the Congress by refusing

to increase B-52 production as promptly as practicable; (2) either you

are misleading the American people, or responsible military officials of

the Defense Department are misleading the American people as to the

relative military strength of the United States vis-a-vis the Communists."
648 STRATEGY; MONEY; AND THE NEW LOOK

To resolve these conflicts, he concluded, the subcommittee would have

to take some further testimony. 52

Wilson remained calm, ascertained that Symington's remarks reflected only his own views, and reserved the right to reply in writing.

The inconsistencies that disturbed Symington, he told him, were differences of opinion and interpretations of fact. In retrospect this turned out

to have been close to the mark. In a written statement, submitted two

weeks later (on 18 July) Wilson repeated this view, admitting that "in

some cases my advisers have not been in complete agreement," and

promised anew not to impound the additional funds voted. On the

bottom-line question of relative U.S. and Soviet air strength, he still held

that "we are ahead of the Russians today."53

Twining's Russian Visit

The grand finale of the hearings came more than two weeks later

when General Twining reported on his trip to the Soviet Union, the first

by a U.S. chief of staff. Even though he and his principal subordinates had

all testified earlier, this was a publicity opportunity Symington could

not afford to pass up. Twining's trip had been a headline item since

24 May, when it became known that he had received an informal invitation from the chief of the Soviet General Staff to attend the Aviation

Day celebration on 24 June. Twining's party, carefully selected for

"extensive knowledge of airplanes and equipment," was in the Soviet

Union from 23 June to 1 July. Besides seeing the air show on the 24th,

the members visited airports, factories, aeronautical research and training centers, and, on their one trip outside Moscow, the city of Stalingrad,

rebuilding from its wartime devastation. 54

To reporters on his return Twining had said he felt "about the same

as I did when I left, about the comparative strengths of the Russians and

U.S. Air Force," but after a conference with the president, Wilson, and

Quarles at Gettysburg (where Eisenhower was convalescing from his

ileitis operation), he began to change his tune. On the issue of relative

numerical aircraft strengths he deemed that the Soviets were probably

ahead in numbers of jet aircraft, and that the score was about even for

modern aircraft, counting total strength on both sides, although the

Soviets were ahead of the USAF alone. "Qualitatively," Twining declared,

"we are out in front. No question about that."55

In his report, released to the press on 10 July, Twining walked a fine

line between praise of Soviet airpower achievements and reassuring comparisons with the United States, reminding his audience repeatedly that
The Great Airpower Debate 649

the Soviets had revealed very little the visitors did not already know.

In particular, they had divulged nothing at all about their missiles. Except

for the turboprop Bear, a line of development the United States had

chosen not to pursue, "nothing we saw could honestly be described as

being superior to the best United States aircraft in comparable categories."

He praised the Zhukovskii Air Engineering Academy in Moscow, describing it as "unique among the world's professional military institutions."

Soviet production processes, on the other hand, to judge by the two old

plants the Americans saw, appeared old-fashioned. Nevertheless, Twining

reported, the Soviets possessed to a "high degree the ability to apply mass

production processes and techniques to the manufacture of airframes and

jet engines." Overall, Twining concluded, the visit reinforced "our previous judgment that the rate of progress and improvement in Soviet air

weapons, backed by a massive scientific and industrial effort, is such as

to give us cause for serious thought about the future."56

Evidently Twining had managed to steer a course between the positions of the administration and the Democrats without running afoul of

the rocks on either side. No comment came from the White House or

Wilson's office. Symington declared that the general's report "completely

vindicates the position taken by some of us that we should give due recognition to the tremendous advances in Soviet airpower." Both Symington

and Jackson agreed that there was still a conflict between Wilson's and

Twining's testimony, which the subcommittee would try to resolve in a

final session with the general on 19 July. Symington recalled that Twining

had told the committee that the Soviets had more Bisons than the United

States had B-52s, and could "probably maintain this advantage for some

time." Had he learned anything on his recent trip to cause him to modify

this testimony? Twining noted that the recent planned increase in B-52

production might reduce the disparity. Nevertheless, "they will continue to

have a margin over us for several years." In 1958, when B-52 aggregate

output would reach about 500, the score would be "about a stand-off."

On the qualitative side, however, Twining said that he had returned from

Russia with a better opinion of the B-52, as compared with the Bison,

than before. 57

Symington pursued the numbers count through medium bombers

and fighters, with Twining confirming on request. The United States had

a much larger fleet of B-47s than the Soviets had, but Soviet fighter production was running into the tens of thousands. Grudgingly Twining

conceded that the Soviets were dosing the gap in strategic airpower and

that LeMay's prediction of Soviet strategic air superiority by 1959 seemed

valid if defined narrowly in terms of heavy bomber strength and assuming continuation of current production trends. He raised one qualifying
650 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

consideration little discussed up to now: the Soviets would need a larger

bomber force than the United States to assert strategic superiority because

we presented a larger array of targets. Symington's aggressive questioning

steadily tipped the scales back toward the Democrats' alarmist view of the

airpower threat and away from the more benign administration view. To

Symington's question as to the likelihood of being "suddenly confront[ed] "

by a Soviet long-range supersonic bomber, Twining remained skeptical.

"What are our prospects," Symington asked, "of having a supersonic,

long-range bomber in operational quantities in the near future?" "Not in

the near future," answered Twining. "The heavy bomber, supersonic, is

quite a ways off." In the end Twining submitted a brief written statement

pleading in effect that it was impossible at this juncture to come up with

a meaningful conclusion as to the relative capability of the opposing

forces in 1959. 58

The hearings ended on a more thoughtful and speculative note, introduced by Twining himself. What he feared most, he said, reverting to

his earlier don't-underestimate-the-Russians theme, was that they might

"break through with something outstanding." Did that mean, Symington

asked him, we must spend more money, lots more? Twining replied, "I do

not think we can afford to be too austere, certainly in the research and

development field."

"Is it not certain," Symington pressed his point, "that if we do not take

the wraps off of money control of our research and development ... they

are going to pass us in a relatively short time?" "I have said before,"

remarked Symington as he closed down the hearing, "that if people who

feel like some of us do are wrong, we are going to lose some money; but

if we are right, unless there is a change in our policy, we are going to

lose the United States."59

The Symington Committee Report

No fireworks, either on Capitol Hill or in the press, attended the

closing of the airpower hearings. Through August and September testimony released piecemeal generated occasional headlines, but the Senate

airpower inquiry, launched with fanfare, disappeared as a major news

item after July.60 The subcommittee deferred preparation of its report

until after the elections, probably by mutual agreement of the majority

and minority members. A split report was a foregone conclusion, and

its publication during the campaign would probably have been discounted as representing only the opposing partisan views of three
The Great Airpower Debate 651

Democratic and two Republican senators. The report finally appeared on

25 January 1957 and passed almost unnoticed.

The judgment that none of the Air Force primary missions-strategic

air warfare, defense against air attack, and the gaining and maintaining of general air superiority-could be adequately performed under

existing plans and programs constituted the core finding of the majority

report. The majority report gave short shrift to naval airpower and the

Army's air arm. For the Democrats, the "study of airpower" was, in essence,

a study of its strategic aspects. To avoid loss of U.S. strategic superiority,

the majority report called for additional funding to expand the bomber

force and provide sufficient bases to permit dispersal of SAC aircraft.

The minority report cited Wilson's insistence that additional B-52s were

not yet needed. 61

Defense against air attack, according to the majority, was inadequate

on almost all counts-interceptors, early warning, and base construction.

The minority report dutifully disagreed. Twining had virtually written off

the alleged threat of a surprise attack by Soviet obsolescent bombers

flying one-way missions: Newer interceptors would come into the inventory in large numbers by the end of 1958. Air defense was also improving

with the Talos and Bomarc ground-to-air missiles, and the DEW line radar

coverage was progressing rapidly under high priority. 62

The majority report stressed the alarming rapidity with which the Soviets, starting from a position of extreme inferiority at the end of World

War II, had closed the gap, achieving quantitative superiority in most

categories of combat airpower and near parity or better in quality. The

United States had numerical superiority only in medium bombers. Air

Force witnesses testified that under existing R&D ceilings, the United

States would yield qualitative superiority to the Soviets in three to five

years. In the minority report, Senator Saltonstall attempted no explicit

refutation of the majority charge that the administration had effectively abdicated the mission of "gaining and maintaining general air

supremacy." Conceding Soviet numerical superiority in combat aircraft,

he repeated Wilson's claim that the United States and its allies together

were ahead of the Communist bloc in total numbers and total production of modern jet aircraft. 63

The majority report contended that since 1953 Defense R&D funds

had been held to an arbitrary ceiling and many important R&D projects

had been deferred for lack of money. In ballistic missile development,

the Soviets had started earlier and might be abead in some areas. A Soviet

capability to launch medium-range missiles against American coastal cities

from offshore submarines would pose a major threat, to which the only
652 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

available response would be an all-out retaliatory strike. The minority

report cited Secretary Quarles, who scoffed at the majority prediction that

the Soviets would gain a qualitative advantage within three to five years.

In FY 1957 all identifiable R&D programs aggregated $5.2 billion, as contrasted with $3.4 billion in FY 1955. Even though Soviet progress in this

field since World War II had been more rapid than American, it did not follow that "because a second runner is moving up ... he will win the race.,,64

The majority report declared that in the aggregate the testimony implicitly, and in many individual cases explicitly, supported the conclusion

that the administration's rigid economy drive had weakened the U.S.

response to the Soviet threat. In the minority report, Saltonstall pointed

out that in the last four fiscal years the cuts had been much smaller than

during the Korean War years, and also that Congress had reduced the president's defense budget in every fiscal year from 1950 through 1956.65

While maintaining that future wars were likely to be limited or

peripheral, Army officials generally avoided contentious positions on the

Army's differences with the other services and OSD by hewing to the line

that they could live with austerities of the FY 1957 budget while warning that more ample funding would be required in future years. The

committee majority reported that "witness after witness testified that this

country does not now have sufficient mobile forces ... to handle successfully limited conflicts.,,66

In the minority response to the "witness after witness" views quoted

in the majority report, Saltonstall pointed out that all the services claimed the capability of dealing with various levels of limited conflict, using

small atomic or conventional weapons. Saltonstall's minority views reflected pique and resentment. He refused to sign the majority report

because, he said, it took an "unduly pessimistic" view of the status and

prospects of the nation's defense, was biased in its selection and use of

testimony, relied too heavily on military witnesses, and virtually ignored

the years before 1953, which shaped the situation inherited by the

Eisenhower administration.67

The Symington committee hearings and surrounding events revealed the depth and intensity of interservice competition and the

political dimensions of the inquiry. The Democrats sought to create a

major political issue out of the so-called bomber gap and gave intimations

of what a few years later they proclaimed as a "missile gap." The widespread political fallout from the sometimes acrimonious battle between

the administration and the congressional Democrats inevitably engulfed

the military services, which were at the storm center. The hearings provided them with the opportunity to speak candidly and publicly about
The Great Airpower Debate 653

their deficiencies and their needs. And beyond the hearings they engaged

each other directly or indirectly in propaganda battles, seeking to influence official and public opinion. For the president and Wilson it was

painful to witness what they regarded as excessive public exposure of

differences between major elements of the Department of Defense. It

confirmed Eisenhower in his view that major changes were needed in

the DoD and especially in the ]CS. Both the president and Wilson generally hewed closely to established policies, refusing to be driven by the

near-tidal wave of criticism they had to endure. In the next several years,

as still other events, such as Sputnik in 1957, had powerful impact on

perceptions of U.S. national security, the administration altered some of

its directions and made some increases in funds for the military services.

Overall, in retrospect Eisenhower's refusal to panic in the face of

alarming reports of Soviet gains in military power and heavy political

assaults by the Democrats served the nation well. Wilson, who was often

less than sure-handed in dealing with issues, nevertheless served the

president well in defending his policies and keeping the military services

generally in hand during this trying time.
CHAPTER XXIX

Strategic Perspectives

The year 1956-a presidential election year-saw a forceful effort

by President Eisenhower and Secretary Wilson to apply pressure on the

Joint Chiefs to develop an overall military strategy and the war plans

to implement it. In addition to the usual annual production of war plans,

Wilson tasked the Joint Chiefs to prepare for FY 1958 and FY 1959 a

comprehensive military strategy paper that would provide overarching

guidance for the armed forces. He was asking for a paper like the one

that Eisenhower had called on the Joint Chiefs to prepare in 1953, early

in the administration. Consideration of the new strategy paper coincided

with JCS development of the war plans JSCP-57 and JSOP-60. All of

these papers inevitably were affected by the continuing interplay

between them that engaged the planners and the Joint Chiefs.

A Newer Look?

In January 1956 Wilson completed three years in office, during which

he had endured what must have seemed never-ending battles between

the services over money, weapon systems, and roles and missions. During

these years there had occurred striking changes in the international order

that would have to be taken into account by the Defense Department

in planning for the future. The time had come, Wilson decided, to take

another look at DoD's military strategy for the future. On 27 January

he directed the Joint Chiefs to develop a new outline military strategy

and guidance for determining the "size, nature, composition and deployment" of the armed forces for FY 1958 and FY 1959. Two matters,

he reminded them, had already been settled and were not open to reconsideration: preservation of a sound u.S. economy would continue to be

654
Strategic Perspectives 655

"a necessary part of the fundamental values and institutions we seek to

protect," and atomic weapons would be used from the outset in a general

war and in any lesser hostilities "whenever it is of military advantage to

do so." For certain long-range programs-aircraft, missiles, shipbuilding,

base construction, reserves, and the mobilization base-guidance should

be projected beyond FY 1959 as appropriate. Budget planners would

need the new JCS study for their FY 1958 submissions early in August.!

Thus Wilson, without fanfare or rhetoric, launched an effort (prolonged, as it turned out) to adapt the policies of the administration's first

term and devise new ones to meet the emerging challenges of the missile

era-what would later be called the "New New Look." Later in the decade

Albert Wohlstetter aptly summed up the challenges in the phrase the

approaching "balance of terror," a situation of mutual deterrence resulting from the rapid growth of American and Soviet air delivery capabilities and the early prospect of nuclear plenty on both sides. The

consequence would be a greater likelihood of small wars and creeping

Communist expansion, as well as more intense competition in the

diplomatic and economic spheres, straining the solidarity of u.S. alliances

and relations with Third World countries. 2

Wilson probably expected no radical proposals from the Joint Chiefs,

and they gave him none. He had, however, suggested that they first talk

the matter over with the president, advice that they apparently did not

heed. Their reply on 12 March was prepared during a week's stay at

Ramey AFB, Puerto Rico. Among the first items of business considered

there, the chiefs contemplated a surprise contribution by the Army's

new chief of staff, General Maxwell Taylor. "A National Military Program,"

a short paper written about a year earlier, outlined an emerging "flexible

response" strategy, which would become the Army's preferred alternative

to the orthodox "massive retaliation" strategy. It should be "suitable for

flexible application to unforeseen situations .... In short, the military

program of the United States should include all reasonable measures to

prevent general and local war and at the same time contain the potentiality of waging any war, large or small." Secretary Brucker had applauded

the paper, but Taylor's colleagues were not impressed. "Quite content

with the status quo," as Taylor later put it, they read it "politely" and "then

qUietly put it aside." When Brucker sent it to him, Secretary Wilson similarly pigeonholed it with a scribbled "no further action."3

In their reply to Wilson the chiefs stated that the existing military

programs, as best they could forecast, would remain valid through 1958-60

and "continue to represent the minimum U.S. military forces required for

national security." This was not a reassuring judgment for, as they went on
656 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

to warn, they perceived the whole free world situation to be "gradually

deteriorating" and moving within a few years toward a condition of

"great jeopardy" for the United States unless something were done to

reverse the trend. The problem was political, social, and psychological,

not military. U.S. national policy was based on deterrence of wars, large

and small, but visible strength in being, while indispensable, was not

alone sufficient to deter war.

It must be reinforced by a world-wide understanding that the

United States will use that strength promptly ... when necessary

.... There is a feeling throughout the world that the United

States lacks the essential determination to act in time .... Decisiveness is endangered by the need to obtain concurrences of

our allies and by the requirements of our constitutional processes

.... Our military strength will have little effect if every word and

deed of our government and its representatives do not attest our

national resolution to act promptly when the moment of

decision arrives. We must appreciate the fact that the effect of

our free debates and the operation of our free press tend to

present a picture of confusion and indecisiveness to the rest of

the free world. 4

This was an old plaint; the really bad news came in their estimate of

the cost. Annual military spending in the period 1958-60 might, with

great difficulty the JCS thought, be held down to the range of $38-40

billion, still a tolerable level for the prospering U.S. economy. But military

aid should be expanded to at least $4-5 billion annually (about a $3 billion

increase over current levels), in part to finance an adequate NATO air

defense system and to provide more modern weapons worldwide. All

this pointed to annual defense expenditures that could reach $45 billion,

a heavy burden for the U.S. economy to support, but the JCS could not

forecast any change in the military situation that would warrant much

reduction. Military aid had indeed strengthened the recipient countries

both economically and militarily, but had not enabled them to "become

self-sustaining"; some of them had even begun to "demand continued

and increasing financial support as the price of their adherence to our

alliances." Military assistance needed to be examined with a view to

"increased selectivity and definite cutoff dates."5

The president's reaction to the paper was caustic. The Joint Chiefs,

he remarked, painted a "very dark picture," which would seem to warrant

calling for a declaration of emergency, going to "field conditions," a wartime budget, even a garrison state-in which case, he added sardonically,

the services would be reduced to a "much more Spartan mode of living."
Strategic Perspectives 657

He pronounced unrealistic the extraordinary powers proposed for the

president "in anything like the present circumstances." We were not worse

off now, he said, than we were three years ago, especially with regard to

the Soviets, who in fact had been dissuaded from military aggression. The

president seemed to share, to some degree, the Joint Chiefs' disenchantment with the allies; the premise seemed to be that they were not themselves threatened, that the United States "must practically pay" for their

help in fighting communism, that "we [the allies] are fighting your war."

It might be better, and certainly cheaper, he wryly added, "to encourage

some nations to be neutral." The president also expressed annoyance

with the unceasing demand of the military services for ever-increasing

budgets. Why couldn't they cut manpower, especially in the Army and

Marines? Wilson pointed out that DoD spending was actually several

billion dollars larger than current funding would indicate, since the

services were still living in part off of past appropriations and various

one-time savings. 6

Eisenhower told Radford to have the JCS rewrite their paper, and he

specified organization and content. He wanted a version in three sections: first, the domestic military situation, with an upbeat review of

developments in the. last three years and a focus on the emerging role

of missiles; next, the U.S. alliance system, how to sustain confidence and

cohesion, be more selective in choosing allies, and correct the "we are

fighting your war" syndrome; third, the world security problem, with a

critical look at the role of military power. Colonel Goodpaster of the

White House staff would send a written outline for the chiefs to follow. 7

Radford could have had no doubt that he had, in effect, been given

new and far-reaching marching orders. The president had dropped a

parting remark of unmistakable meaning: "Each Chief of Staff ... [should}

take the same attitude toward the importance of a sound economy as

he knows Admiral Radford does-to recognize it as a fundamental element of over-all U.S. security strength." A few weeks before, in his

budget message, the president had proclaimed to the nation the need

for new and expanded domestic spending-for schools, housing, highways, etc. Now he had the shocking forecast of $42-45 billion national

security budgets beginning in 1958. Which of these imperatives would

have to yield was clear enough. S~rvice and aid budgets must be reduced,

even at the cost of structural changes in U.S. forces. The primacy of a

sound economy was an absolute. So was his conviction that in the last

resort the nation's security came first-but only in the last resort, which

was not yet. 8
658 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Over the next few weeks the president hammered on the economy

theme and the responsibility of the service chiefs to take it to heart and

broaden their perspectives. Repeatedly he insisted that each service

chief should see himself less as a champion of his service and more as

a "national military" adviser. "The patriot today," he declared, "is the fellow

who can do the job with less money."9

"A little staggered," as Radford admitted, the JCS submitted a new

report on 17 April. It followed the president's prescribed outline to the

letter, including sub-topics; the tone was far from euphoric, but less

depressing than its predecessor. However, their new version, labeled

"further views," still retained their gloomy conclusions of 12 March. It

carefully affirmed "confidence" that the comparative strengths of the two

superpowers provided a "margin of relative advantage in general war" for

the United States and its allies-although this was "not bound to persist

and may change" at any time. The trend in comparative strengths, the JCS

believed, still was not favorable enough to justify curtailment of existing programs. If the president had hoped to goad his military advisers

to more venturesome thinking he must have been disappointed. They

studiously avoided matters of interservice dispute, and much of the paper

simply paraphrased current policy. They seemed to feel that obstreperous

or otherwise "difficult" allies were not worth the effort of placating

and perhaps should be left to their own devices. On one point-how to

cope with the Communist bloc's current non-military competitive

tactics-the Joint Chiefs revealed heightened caution in their thinking.

"Our military mode of international action alone," they admitted, could

only borrow time by deterring aggression. Meanwhile, the free world

must rely on political, economic, and psychological strategies to combat communism. 10

When the president saw Radford on 18 April, the day after receiving

the Joint Chiefs' "further views," he offered a few noncommittal comments and turned to other matters. 11 The whole exercise must have

seemed to him futile. The JCS had let him down. Still, Radford seems to

have committed himself without reservation to the preSident's stated

purposes. From that point on he was demonstrably searching for a new

strategy and force structure that could be accommodated within the

austere budgetary framework the president believed the nation's economic health required. Since national strategic interservice planning was

the Joint Chiefs' exclusive bailiwick, it would fall to them to define

the choices.
Strategic Perspectives 659

War Planning

Defining choices had become increasingly difficult for the Joint

Chiefs during the New Look years-1953-56. Strategic planning was

marked by a high degree of volatility and sharp competition between the

military services. After the plenty of the Korean War era the services

had difficulty adjusting to what they regarded as lean postwar years.

The constraints on money and people directed by the White House and

powerfully driven by President Eisenhower intensified the battles

between the services to establish their respective missions as indispensable and even dominant. Such considerations carried heavy weight

in the approach of all of the services to war planning, as revealed in the

discussions of the Joint Chiefs. Consequently, the existing elaborate structure of war planning failed to produce plans on a timely basis and thereby

further compounded the difficulty of decisionmaking at the highest levels

of national security planning.

The Eisenhower Joint Chiefs inherited a system of strategic planning,

promulgated in mid-1952, that envisaged the annual preparation of longrange, mid-range, and short-range plans looking ahead 10, 7, and 4 years,

respectively.* The system had not worked well, and its output had fallen

far behind schedule. By the end of 1955 it should have produced three

Joint Long-Range Strategic Estimates OLRSE) projected through June

1965, three mid-range Joint Strategic Objectives Plans OSOP) through

June 1962, and four short-range Joint Strategic Capabilities Plans OSCP)

through June 1957. t But the long-range plan was abandoned as "impracticable" in March 1954 after two successive drafts had been rejected.

The JSCPs fared best: one was completed for FY 1955 and one for FY

1956, each three months late. The more complex JSOPs fell far behind:

JSOP-56 never materialized, and work on JSOP-57 was suspended in

1954 after prolonged wrangling among the planners. In the end it was

decided to substitute a mid~range war plan OMRWP) aimed at a July 1957

D-day. In conjunction with the basic policy paper, JCS 2101/113, this

would cover both war and peace contingencies. Effectively completed

by the end of 1954, the JMRWP was finally approved on 15 April 1955,

little more than two years (instead of the prescribed three) before its

assumed D-day of a general war. 12

• Adjustments in these numbers occurred in 1955.

t The plans were not, of course, intended to cover the entire time span between approval

of a plan and its projected terminal date. The short-range plan, the JSCP, assumed a D-day of

1 July, six months after JCS approval, and would guide use of military forces during

the initial phase of a war. The mid-range plan, the JSOP' would begin on 1 July three years

after JCS approval and would apply to the four years thereafter. The long-range plan, the

JLRSE, would begin five years after approval and would apply to the five years thereafter.
660 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Most of the issues that had slowed completion of joint strategic plans

during the first three years of the Eisenhower administration concerned

the probable nature, weaponry, duration, and patterns-especially

beginnings-of a general war. Throughout this period general war continued to be perceived as the major peril facing the nation. If not the most

likely conflict, it was the chief contingency that had to be planned for.

Early on, during discussion of the first JSCP in 1953, planners confronted perhaps the most basic and intractable of the general war issues:

whether to rely mainly on strategic nuclear retaliatory power to bring

the war to an early end by crippling Soviet warmaking capacity (the Air

Force view) or to develop balanced forces of all services capable of dealing with any military threat. The Air Force position required a clear

priority in peacetime for development of forces needed at the outset of

war with logistic support for the first six months only, on the assumption that these forces, spearheaded by the nuclear retaliatory elements,

would qUickly triumph. Air Force planners did not reject the possibility of

a more protracted conflict involving the other services, but assigned the

primary role to strategic bombing. Later these differences were finessed

by submerging them in more general phraseology, and the JSCP was

updated and issued in April 1954 as the plan for the following year. It

retained the focus on general war, with no provision for limited conflict except a statement that ready mobile forces should be on hand to

deal with limited aggression anywhere. 13

Later, dUring discussion of the JMRWP in October 1954, the Air Force

planners asserted that the initial atomic phase of the war. must be the

"primary consideration in military planning." The other services, conceding the probability of an initial Soviet nuclear surprise air attack, still

insisted that a large-scale buildup of forces after D-day should be planned

in order to provide flexibility for whatever strategy the situation might

dictate. Deadlocked, the Joint Chiefs sent up individual views. Radford

took a position close to that of the Air Force but with a difference.

Accepting the remote possibility of extensive post-D-day operations, he

stressed as more likely that both sides would be for some time too

"devastated and stunned" to fight back effectively. Since the first to recover would have the upper hand, it was imperative in any event to

ensure maximum mobilization of reserves up to six months after D-day

"to absorb the initial shock, to deliver our own atomic offensive, and to

form the nucleus" for further offensive action. In November Wilson

endorsed Radford's view. 14

Arguments over the opening and subsequent duration of a general

war held up preparation of the FY 1956 JSCP. During the debate the
Strategic Perspectives 661

Army surfaced for the first time an alternative view that general war

might emerge by unintended escalation from conventional local origins

and perhaps even remain conventional. In the final version the JCS

quashed the view that general war might thus flower from a very small

seed, but left open the (remote) possibility of a prolonged aftermath.

In January 1955, six months before the joint planners began work on the

FY 1957 JSCP, NSC paper 5501 endorsed as a "possibility the Army's smallorigins theory of general war."15

On 15 March 1956, two days after the joint planners submitted to

the chiefs a draft of the FY 1957 JSCP, the president approved NSC 5602/1,

which repeated verbatim (par 11) the small-origins theory of general war.

It also asserted, however, that nuclear weapons would be integrated with

conventional weapons and used with them "in general war and in military operations short of general war as authorized by the President."

Radford sprang into action. On 28 March he wrote his colleagues criticizing as "a radical departure" from the new policy affirmed in NSC

5602/1, the statement in the draft FY 1957 JSCP that it was possible that

atomic weapons would not be used from the outset in a general war.

Two days later, at a meeting in his office, the president obligingly told

the Joint Chiefs he was "clear in his own mind" that nuclear weapons

(including air defense weapons as soon as available) would be used "in

any war with the Soviets." Radford pointedly remarked that the reluctance "in some quarters" to plan on this basis flew in the face of the "actual

fact" that "we are already largely committed as regards our force structure, and will become increasingly so as time goes on."16

Following up quickly, Radford met with his fellow chiefs in his office

on 3 April to discuss new guidance for the JSCp' They approved a formulation that atomic weapons would be used "against the USSR" in the event

of a Soviet attack on the United States or on U.S. forces and also, as

authorized by the president, in other military operations not against the

USSR (presumably Communist China or other Soviet allies) when to the

advantage of the United States. On 5 April Radford directed that, as he

had implied in his 28 March memo, this guidance should apply to all

joint strategic planning-more particularly to Jsop-60, on which the

planners had been working since August 1955. 17

Taylor Challenges Massive Retaliation

This move brought Taylor back into the fray. On 12 April he formally

objected to the application of the new policy to mid-range as distinct

from short-range planning. Within the time frame of JSCP-57, he pointed
662 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

out, when the United States would still enjoy a comfortable nuclear

superiority over the USSR, the threat of massive retaliation for even a small

Soviet aggression would probably have enough credibility to deter an

attack. But by 1960, when the Soviets were expected to attain nuclear

parity, the threat of massive nuclear retaliation against any level of Soviet

aggression would have very low credibility indeed. For a "massive retaliation for anything" strategy to command an iota of credibility it would

require continued U.S. air-nuclear superiority well into the period in

which the USSR was expected to enjoy parity with the United States.

This would require beefing up SAC even beyond the level LeMay was

demanding, soaking up the already meager portion of the budget available for limited war forces. Taylor warned that the USSR, "recognizing

the unprofitable character of general nuclear war, will seek to achieve

its ends through subversion, infiltration and local aggression in situations

in which general atomic warfare ... is not an. appropriate response." He

proposed an amendment to the recently approved gUidelines for JSOP-60

to provide not only a deterrent nuclear capability but also "ample forces

of all services with the capability of waging limited war with conventional weapons or tactical atomic weapons." But on 17 April, in

revised guidance for JSOP-60 and JSCP-57, Taylor's fellow chiefs rejected

his proposal, stating merely that the existing force structure was "adequate to cover the military contingencies we might face in the planning

period to be covered."18

As it turned out, even this decision was not final. Three weeks of

debate ensued. At the White House on 14 May Radford alluded to his

current difficulty in extracting unanimous decisions from the Joint Chiefs

on the JSOP, especially on the question of whether atomic weapons

would be used in "small wars." To suggest in a plan that atomic weapons

would not be used, he stated, would leave "the way ... for a building up

of service requirements." The president took the hint. He felt "that we

would not get involved in a 'small war' extending beyond a few Marine

battalions or Army units. If it grew to anything like Korea proportions,

the action would become one for use of atomic weapons."19

Thus armed, Radford had no difficulty two days later in mustering a

majority-himself, Twining, and Burke-to redefine general war as any

war "in which the armed fo·rces of the USSR and of the U.S. are overtly

engaged." In any armed clash between the two, the United States would

use atomic weapons from the outset. Taylor and Marine Corps Commandant Pate held to the 17 April guidance limiting use of atomic weapons to the response to a Soviet attack on the United States or its forces

overseas that, in the latter case, threatened their survival. They also insisted on the possibility, based on NSC 5602/1, of a major conventional
Strategic Perspectives 663

conflict with the USSR restrained on both sides by awareness of the risk

of mutual annihilation. Taylor and Pate reaffirmed the view, which the

chiefs had held in earlier plans, that operations of substantial scope could

be expected in the later phase of the war. Even during the initial phase,

there should be preparations and deployment for a general offensive

in Europe. 2o

Radford lost no time in wrapping up his victory, in meetings with

Wilson on 21 May and the two of them with the president the next day.

Wilson then notified the chiefs of his concurrence with the chairman's

position and directed them to proceed with planning on the assumption

that "in a general war, regardless of the manner of initiation, atomic

weapons will be used from the outset," and in lesser hostilities "when

required in order to achieve military objectives"-Le., without requirements for presiden~ial authorization. 21

There was an epilogue. Taylor solicited and gained an audience with

the president and Radford on 24 May (the president had told the Joint

Chiefs on 30 March that any of them "could always come along with

Admiral Radford to see him," i.e., not alone). Taylor asserted that the

JCS majority's emphasis on a big war starting with a Big Bang was

contrary to the NSC's view (Le., as stated in NSC 5602/1) that the two

powers were more likely to back into war through a series of small

actions and counteractions. Moreover, the argument that if the worst case

was provided for, lesser ones could be handled in stride, was not supported by experience; brush fires must be dealt with at their own

level. Moreover, the costs of building up "tremendous atomic forces and

the defenses against them" would leave no funds for the kinds of forces

needed to handle small wars.

The president heard Taylor out, then replied at length. He made no

concessions. "It was fatuous to think that the U.S. and the USSR would

be locked into a life and death struggle without using such weapons." The

definition of general war to which Taylor objected was not important:

"the question was simply one of a war between the United States and the

USSR," and it must be assumed that atomic weapons would be used by

both sides and at once. As for local wars, the president asserted that the

use of tactical atomic weapons would be no more likely than oldfashioned "block-busters" to trigger the Big War. The United States must

rely on countries attacked or threatened to defend themselves, with

American help in organizing and equipping their forces, and on small

U.S. mobile support forces armed with tactical atomic weapons that "have

come to be practically accepted as integral parts of modern armed forces."

But the United States would not "deploy and tie down our forces around
664 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

the Soviet periphery in small wars." Massive retaliation, though maligned

by some, would be the key to survivaU2

As he listened to Radford's follow-on remarks enumerating some of

the "far-reaching effects" of the president's decisions, Taylor knew that

on these issues he was playing against a stacked deck: a built-in adverse

majority in the JCS, a defense secretary who reflexively supported his

boss and usually the JCS chairman as well, and a president who had made

up his mind. On 29 May the Joint Chiefs received a revised draft JSOP-60.

Subsequently, they deadlocked on the issue of the Air Force's demand,

resisted by the other services, for more B-52s to replace B-47s. Radford

noted that the aggregated cost estimates of the services far exceeded

what the nation could afford. On 20 June Wilson once again sent back

the draft paper to the JCS for further study, stipulating budget ceilings of

$38 billion, $39 billion, and $40 billion, respectively, for FYs 1958-60. 23

The Eisenhower-Radford Plan

Two weeks later, on 5 July, Radford gave his colleagues a paper outlining what Taylor later characterized as "the most drastic proposal of the

New Look period." It declared that the essential aims of current military

policy-capabilities to wage both general and limited war, reduction of

overseas deployment, support of allies with atomic weapons if attacked,

continued economic strength-now dictated certain measures. Beginning

in 1957 Army forces in Europe and Asia would be reduced to small atomic

task forces* responsible, with allied forces, for dealing with limited Communist aggression in those areas. Elsewhere, air and naval forces and a

slimmed-down Marine Corps, all armed with atomic weapons, would take

over the limited-war mission. At home the Army, with drastically reduced

strength, would devote itself mainly to civil defense. Tactical air forces

and airlift and sealift would also be severely cut back, but SAC and the

Navy's antisubmarine warfare and strategic striking forces would be

modernized at current levels. The "Radford Plan," as it was soon called,

probably came as no great surprise to the other members of the JCS.

Radford had ample warrant for his boldness, for every significant feature

of the plan could be traced to the president himself. There was no need

to worry that the plan went too fast or too far for the president. 24

The Joint Chiefs considered Radford's paper on 9 July. Taylor "took

the offensive at the start," stressing the plan's inconsistency. If it went into

* Ironically, the model for these groups was similar to the future "battle groups" Ridgway

described in his memoirs.
Strategic Perspectives 665

effect, he pointed out, by 1960 U.S. forces would be shaped mainly to

fight a general war with the USSR, beginning with a surprise nuclear

attack on the United States. For the kinds of conflict, ranging from small

local aggressions to regional wars on the scale of Korea, such components

as SAC and continental air defense forces would become, in large part,

"sterile assets." In lower-level conflicts, "small atomic task forces ... cannot substitute for forces [eliminated in the plan] able to seize and hold

ground." The plan was militarily unsound. It might deter the Soviets

from initiating general war, but it could not deter or effectively combat

infiltration, subversion, coups d'etat, or limited aggression. Politically,

Taylor feared, the plan threatened disaster-a wave of force reductions

among allies, defections from NATO, increasing neutralism. 25

Taylor was fighting more than concepts at this meeting. Radford's

manpower figures showed that by 1960 the armed forces would take a

one-third cut of about 800,000. The Army would, of course, bear the brunt,

losing between 400,000 and 500,000 men, while the Navy would be cut

200,000 and the Air Force 150,000. Reportedly Radford did not circulate

this manpower plan to the services, but he did send it to Assistant

Secretary McNeil to provide the basis for a costing analysis. It is likely

that Taylor-and perhaps the other chiefs as well-were aware before

the meeting of the scale of the proposed manpower cuts. Taylor's account of the 9 July meeting, however, gave no hint that the information

was discussed. His presentation, he wrote, was "received in strained

silence. The other Chiefs gave me no support, the Chairman undertook

no defense. The meeting broke up with no final action."26

The immediate aftermath, however, brought important consequences.

On 13 July the New York Times carried on its front page the first of a

series of articles by veteran reporter Anthony Leviero, giving a generally

accurate account of the whole episode. Leviero, using the 800,000 figure

for the total cut, accurately cited the Navy and Air Force cuts and split

the difference to arrive at the Army cut of 450,000. But his most startling

"revelation" was that Radford's proposal had precipitated a "revolt" by

the other chiefs, who "united in vigorous protest." Top Defense officials,

Leviero reported, had also reacted with alarm to what they perceived as

a proposed "withdrawal to a Fortress America."27 The New York Times

story provoked alarmed reactions at home and abroad also and apparently influenced Wilson to order an indefinite suspension of the

preparation of JSOP-60. On the 15th, the Times claimed that it had been

assured by "competent Defense Department sources" that its published

account was "entirely accurate."28

Taylor's assumption during the 9 July meeting that his colleagues'

silence following his aggressive rebuttal signified support of the
666 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

chairman, was not necessarily correct. For them, Taylor's vigorous counterattack may have been an unexpected boon. Although the reasons of the

other chiefs for opposing Radford probably differed significantly from

Taylor's, all wanted at least to keep their existing programs, with their

built-in tendency to grow instead of shrink. Radford's plan would make

hash of existing mission assignments and called for a leap into a very

cloudy future. The JCS eVidently preferred the traditional incremental approach, one year at a time, fighting each budget battle as it came.

By the time the Leviero articles appeared, Radford's plan was on the

shelf. Nevertheless, Leviero's revelations caused a "tremendous hullabaloo," as Taylor put it. Radford promptly issued a statement characterizing as "a mixture of fact and pure speculation" the views attributed

to him. He did concede that manpower needs might well be reduced in

the future by the introduction of new weapons, and he did not specifically

deny any of the particulars of the articles, including the reported "revolt"

of the service chiefs. Wilson on 7 August said that he had never seen the

reported Radford paper and denied that any personnel reductions had

been decided on. 29

In Congress leading legislators hastened to voice their alarm loudly

and publicly: an 800,000-man cut would be a national security disaster,

and adoption of the plan would dictate a revision of foreign policy. Similar outcries came from NATO leaders, particularly West Germany's

Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who sent his highest-ranking general, Lt.

Gen. Adolf Heusinger, to Washington to gain assurances that U.S. troop

withdrawals were not in the offing. Taylor must have taken particular

pleasure in speaking to Heusinger for the Joint Chiefs on this point. 30

Air Force Perspectives

The abortive Eisenhower-Radford plan was the administration's first

major response to the multiple challenges that would soon produce the

so-called "New New Look." Had the plan not been foiled by the explosive

domestic and international response to Leviero's journalistic coup, it

might have superseded the New Look as the approved national strategy

in the summer of 1956. As the revolt precipitated by its unveiling showed,

however, it would, like the New Look before it, have been imposed on

four, in varying degrees, dissenting and resisting services.

In the Air Force, the strategic air offensive, spearheaded by SAC,

reigned supreme as the dominant war doctrine. Before 1950, when 'the

Soviets had no atomic stockpile, the envisaged priority targets were

population centers and war industries. When the Soviets acquired an
Strategic Perspectives 667

atomic stockpile and a growing delivery capability, SAC's primary mission increasingly came to be seen, as General LeMay explained, to "fight

the air battle first, ... [and] as qUickly as possible destroy their capability

of doing damage to US."31

By 1955, as the expectation grew that within a few years both sides

would possess ready combat forces able to destroy each other's cities

and industries, that target system seemed to be losing its utility. As long

as the United States had a larger and varied stockpile of atomic weapons,

as currently it did, the alternative "counterforce" strategy of attacking

only key military targets promised to give it the upper hand. Objections

to counterforce included the requirement for large numbers of nuclear

weapons and delivery vehicles and their cost, and the need for more

accurate advance identification and location of Soviet forces than the

Air Force possessed in mid-1956. Theoretically, a U.S. counterforce strategy

could be effective only during a stage in the superpower arms race when

U.S. offensive forces, even if vulnerable (like their adversaries) to a surprise attack, were still capable of overwhelming enemy defenses. In

October 1955 Air Force Secretary Quarles referred to the next stage of

the arms race, commonly labeled mutual deterrence, as "a stalemate that

would be paradoxically, our best hope for peace."32

In the Air Force few agreed with Quarles. The prerequisites seemed

too daunting and complex to be sustained for more than a brief period.

An effective nuclear deterrent required offensive forces of sufficient power

to overcome enemy defenses, plus defenses invulnerable to surprise or

counterattack. Such forces seemed impossible for both sides to possess at

the same time. To maintain a stalemate, on the other hand, both sides

must have major offensive nuclear capabilities while "lacking defenses

capable of protecting their vital areas from destruction by the enemy"-

a theoretical standoff that would later be called "mutual assured

destruction." 33

Doctrinal thinking in the Air Force was not wholly preoccupied with

the Big War. Not surprisingly, SAC's institutional rival, the Tactical Air

Command (TAC), became a hotbed of concern for the problems of limited

war, in part in an effort to broaden TAC's mission orientation beyond a

defensive strategy. At an Air Force Commanders' Conference in May 1954,

General Otto P. Weyland, the TAC commander, proposed that his command

be authorized to create a mobile tactical air force, based in the United

States, to deter brushfire conflicts abroad. In July 1955 Weyland's original

proposal for tactical mobility took on reality when TAC activated the Nineteenth Air Force at Foster AFB, Texas, as an operational headquarters for

what would later be called the Composite Air Strike Force. It reflected,

announced Vice Chief of Staff General White, the "new look" in tactical
668 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

air forces resulting from TAC's new nuclear strike and aerial-refueling

capabilities, "to meet the threat of lesser wars." The following year

Weyland told the Symington airpower hearings that the United States

needed adequate tactical air forces in being to deter brushfire wars, just

as SAC deterred global wars. SAC's "postures and concepts," he asserted,

were "limited to major war situations."34

Actually, current intelligence in 1956 indicated that the Soviets had

no small-wars aim in view, but were going all out to develop long-range

air and rocket forces and had prospects of forging ahead of the corresponding American efforts. In the Suez crisis later in 1956 the Soviets

threatened to unleash IRBMs against the British and French, raising the

ominous prospect of major local aggressions by Soviet client states,

backed by the Soviets. Responding to this challenge, by late 1956 Secretary Quarles was publicly arguing that the ability to deter general war

included also the ability to deter little wars, and the following February

Twining asserted that local aggression would be dealt with by all appropriate U.S. resources, including "part of the strategic force," to end it

quickly before it spread. 35

Flexible Response and OtherArmy Strategies

Like the Air Force, the Army claimed a dominant role in the next Big

War and lesser ones as well. For the Air Force the "Big" one was a short

war, an all-out "exchange" of thermonuclear strikes that might leave "our"

side not too damaged to declare victory. To the Army the Big War was

a probably long, escalating, nuclear and conventional war, a replay of

World War II with modern trappings. Army planners also foresaw a variety

of less than all-out conflicts, some with a nuclear component, but all

likely to thrust the Army into a leading role. 36

During General Ridgway's tour as Army chief of staff he launched an

ambitious retraining and doctrinal development effort to begin the

task of readying his forces to operate in the presumed nuclear environment of the 1960s. The army of that period, he later wrote, would be

"a streamlined, hard-hitting force, armed with a wide variety of nuclear

weapons . . . and greatly improved non-nuclear weapons," and organized

in "aggregations of small 'battle groups' of all arms-infantry, armor,

artillery, and engineers." In both offensive and defensive maneuver, dispersion would be the basic rule for survival. In the face of the airpower

orientation and Air Force domination of approved national military

strategy, Army thinking, as presented by Ridgway, tended to assume a

defensive, reactive cast aimed primarily at discrediting the strategy of
Strategic Perspectives 669

massive retaliation. Ridgway pointed out that the United States had

reacted defensively to Communist hostility by building a network of

alliances around the world, involving commitments, "some vague, some

specific, to take action, to deploy forces, or to provide materiel support .

Those ... pledges ... express our intent to meet force with force in

local or global wars, with or without the use of nuclear weapons." By

developing their own adequate nuclear deterrent, Ridgway believed, the

Soviets could force the United States in a big war to confront them

where they were stronger, in ground forces and supporting air forces, and

on large land masses where superior American naval power could not

be brought effectively to bear. Ridgway's proposed solution was "a fastmoving, hard-hitting, joint force in which the versatility of the whole

is emphasized, and the preponderance of anyone part [read, SAC] is

de-emphasized." 37

Ridgway and his successor, General Taylor, thought much alike on

most aspects of the Army's role in modern warfare. The purpose of a

"proper" national strategy, in Taylor's stark definition, was "to deter war,

particularly the general atomic war which will be so mutually destructive

as to offer little choice between the fruits of victory or defeat." So compelling was this aim that its requirements must be "amply" satisfied before

additional preparations were undertaken to fight and win an all-out

nuclear war. It should not be difficult, Taylor thought, to deter the

deliberate initiation of all-out war by either the USSR or the United States/

because both were aware of the "unremunerative character" of such a

contest. The greater danger was that the superpowers might back into

the Big War, "either by mistake or by way of a series of smaller military

undertakings which expand into general war." It followed, therefore, that

the national strategy must provide for deterring not only general war

but limited aggression as well, "or of quickly suppressing it before it can

grow"-without threatening or resorting to retaliation so massive as to

provoke a like response.

In order of emphasis (not as preclusive priorities) Taylor listed the

essential aims of his strategy: "to deter general war, to deter or win local

war, and, finally, to cope with a general war if deterrence fails." This

strategy required-in order of emphasis-maintenance of technological

superiority over the Communist bloc, an effective atomic retaliatory

capability and continental defense system, adequate (not merely token

or "tripwire") ready forces deployed abroad to prOVide a buffer against

aggression, other ready mobile forces at home, armed for both conventional and atomic combat and prepared to move rapidly to danger spots

as needed, naval forces to keep important sea lanes open, and indigenous allied forces supported in part by military aid. To these he cautiously
670 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

added a requirement for limited mobilization of backup forces to reinforce the active forces during a period of tension either before or after

hostilities began. The total bill would surely "exceed any peacetime budget in United States history." But the money would go mainly to buy

deterrent strength. 38

Taylor's strategy thus eschewed a "fixation on the requirements of

survival in general atomic war," concentrating instead on measures to

deter such a war. 39 Among these measures, perhaps second only in importance to the air-nuclear retaliatory capability, was the deterrence or

quick suppression of limited and local wars precipitated by Communist

aggression. Such conflicts were prone to escalate. Radford's plan, much of

current Air Force planning, and the approved massive retaliation strategy

disposed of general war costs simply by positing a presumably victorious

war ending shortly after an opening nuclear exchange. But the rigid

rejection by Taylor's critics, notably the president, of even the possibility

of a long war, conventional or less than apocalyptically nuclear, surely

placed them well below the conceptual level of Taylor's hypothesis,

which stressed the unpredictability of such events and candidly accepted

calculated risks.

The Navy: Independent Player

In this period of trenchant debate over national security policy, the

Navy occupied a middle position between the Air Force's primary emphasis on strategic nuclear airpower and the Army's reliance on multiservice

forces. This position began to emerge late in 1953 when the chief of

naval operations, Admiral Robert Carney, became Ridgway's quasi-ally in

resisting the drastic force cutbacks imposed on the Army and Navy in the

so-called "Interim Look." Carney protested, although in the end he accepted the massive retaliation strategy, but with reservations that went

to the heart of the Navy's perceived role in the New Look. "The new

emphases," he said at budget hearings in 1955, "have in no way altered

the roles and missions of the Navy. It is still responsible for the accomplishment of its fundamental assigned mission: To gain and maintain

control of the seas.,,40

Carney's successor, Admiral Burke, who took office on 17 August

1955, had previously registered his opposition to massive retaliation. He

criticized as excessive and counterproductive its reliance on nuclear

strategic airpower and its failure to provide adequate conventional forces

to deal with the multifaceted threat of limited Communist aggression.

But he supported the use of nuclear weapons in limited conflicts,
Strategic Perspectives 671

when appropriate. In 1"956, as the junior member of the Joint Chiefs and

an old friend of Radford, he refrained from active support of Taylor's

views. Broadly speaking, the New Look and its impending revisions

seemed unlikely to threaten the Navy's independent strategic mission

of controlling the seas. Dissent might have jeopardized the Navy's

interests as the lesser victim, after the Army, of prospective budget and

force cuts. In a nuclear war, carrier striking forces, while unable to penetrate to the enemy's continental heartland, could complement SAC's

bombers by attacking port and coastal installations. But until the development, several years down the road, of the 1,500-mile ballistic missile fired

from a submerged nuclear-powered submarine, the Navy had no competitive alternative to the Air Force's long-range nuclear bomber.

Burke moved energetically to hasten that day. With Nautilus, the first

nuclear sub, already at sea, Burke actively promoted the building of a

nuclear-powered fleet. Against considerable resistance in his own service,

he also put his weight behind the Navy's participation with the Army in

the Jupiter IRBM development directed by Secretary Wilson in November 1955. A year later the Navy withdrew from the joint effort in order

to build its own solid-propellant Polaris fleet ballistic missile.

Burke's strategic views matured steadily during this period and

drew closer to those expounded by Taylor in the spring of 1956. During

the Senate airpower hearings in June 1956 he asserted that the Navy

planned not to rival, but to complement the Air Force's capabilities by

preparing "to deal with isolated danger spots during periods of cold war

as well as limited or global war." In November, protesting a proposed

drastic reduction by OSD in the Navy's FY 1958 budget, he reasserted

the unlikelihood of all-out nuclear war. Overemphasis on strategic

bombers and nuclear weapons drained funds from other, more needed

limited-war defense forces. Noting that several local conflicts had been

contained or averted in recent years "without recourse to nuclear weapons," Burke recognized that quick settlement of such conflicts might

require use of tactical nuclear weapons, but only as a last resort, with

utmost care to avoid escalation to all-out war. A year and a half later,

when Taylor renewed his attack on the massive retaliation strategy,

Burke endorsed it fully, creating for the first time a majority of the Joint

Chiefs favoring a primarily limited-war orientation of national strategy.41

The outcome of this prolonged debate between the services was once

again, as in previous years, delay in acceptance and approval of the two

war plans under consideration by the JCS. JSCP-57, on which work had

begun in July 1955, and the initial draft of which had been submitted

to the JCS on 13 March 1956, was not approved by the Joint Chiefs until
672 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

21 December 1956. As for the hotly debated JSOP-60, it experienced an

even longer delay. In July 1956 Secretary Wilson ordered indefinite suspension of its preparation, and planning was not resumed until 1957.

The differences in strategic perspective between the major elements

of the national security structure became sharper and more pronounced

as the president, Wilson, and Radford sought to impose their strategic

views on the military services. The administration's avowed intent to

give what seemed overriding priority to strategic nuclear forces caused

fear in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps that their status vis~a-vis the Air

Force would be seriously diminished. Changes in strategic direction and

large cuts in funds and manpower could seriously impact their operational capabilities and their missions. Under the pressure of tight ceilings

for money and manpower the services felt compelled to battle for their

own interests. Able to secure only minor modifications in the thrust of

administration policy, the services engaged in intense, sometimes desperate, competition to secure larger shares of the limited resources made

available. The issues that erupted from this competition in turn became the

subject of heated public and congressional debate that clearly influenced policy decisions.

This period provides a fascinating and classic object lesson, and an

instructive paradigm, of how American national security policy and its

military strategy elements are fashioned. The events of these years seemed

to lend point to the sardonic view that the real war was not between the

United States and the Soviet Union but between the U.S. military services.

Still, the continuing interaction of the policymaking process, with all of

its twists and turns, uncertainties, and retreats, exemplified the American

democratic process. From it emerged a synthesis that, even if it left most,

if not all, parties dissatisfied in some measure, nevertheless was accepted

as a workable modus vivendi.
CHAPTER XXX

Conclusion

United States defense policy during the years 1953-1956 reflected a

surprising persistence of dear purpose: the New Look had a well-defined

direction. Three paramount convictions, staunchly held and frequently

invoked by President Eisenhower, constituted its essential foundations.

First, the United States must shape its defense structure to deter a nuclear

attack. Second, the country must maintain a healthy economy while meeting the requirements for national defense deemed acceptable by the

administration. Third, Europe must be safeguarded from Communist attack

bya strong NATO defense under the U.S. nuclear shield. The military

strategy that emerged from this context accorded airpower,especially

strategic nuclear forces, the highest priority. But it also clearly diminished

the size and importance of land forces, with troublesome consequences

for the Army. The diplomatic strategy that supported this posture emphasized the preeminence of European security.

Convinced that the combination of American and European arms

constituted the best defense against the Soviet military challenge, Eisenhower continued the Truman administration's policy of bolstering

Europe's defense capabilities and economic strength. More important,

he undertook strategic initiatives, especially the development of ballistic

missiles, that were intended to reassure the European states of the U.S.

commitment to deter nuclear conflict in the NATO theater while continuing the objective of containing any further Soviet advance. Guided by

the priorities of European defense, nuclear arms enhancement, and budget restraint, the administration studiously avoided deep entanglements

in other zones of conflict, including the Far East, Southeast Asia, and

the Middle East. This avoidance reflected also Eisenhower's instinctive

aversion, shared by Wilson, to U.S. involvement in areas of the world that

673
674 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

he believed did not warrant the commitment of u.S. military resources

that could be better used elsewhere.

During the 1950s the USSR maintained large ground forces and

tactical air units in Eastern Europe that appeared to pose a clear threat

to Western Europe. The Soviet Union also acquired nuclear weapons and

delivery vehicles and built an extensive air defense system for protection

of the Russian heartland. Confronting this burgeoning threat posed a

challenge for the United States to establish a defense structure to counter

the concentration of Soviet military might that imperiled not only Europe

but also the United States. The question the Eisenhower administration

addressed was straightforward: how to achieve the long-term security of

the U.S. and its allies at minimum cost. The answer centered on two essential components: massive nuclear offensive power and protection of the

air arm to assure its capacity for retaliation. This posture would be further

enhanced by an air defense system for the whole United States. Uncertainties about the scope and cost of air defense delayed decisions and

effective actions. The proposed posture also included the shaping of a

diminished land force whose foundation rested in large part on a mobilization base and a reserve program. Such a combination of military elements had the attraction of providing for the defense of Europe and

the United States while offering the possibility of reducing the number

of Americans under arms both abroad and at home.

The predominance of American nuclear power, however, created

tensions between the United States and its European allies and revealed

conflicts that were inherent in the Eisenhower administration's priorities.

Europe was both reassured and alarmed by U.S. nuclear strategy that, by

the mid-1950s, saw the stationing in Europe of a number of B-47s

equipped with an arsenal of atomic bombs. Fearful of the obvious danger

to their countries from a European war, European leaders pushed for

greater authority in any decision to employ these weapons. Washington

opposed these requests, believing that such an arrangement would

undermine the credibility of the airpower deterrent. Washington also

encountered a second setback. As the U.S. strategic nuclear force took

shape the allies tended to slacken their buildup of conventional forcesa situation that prevented the United States from sharply drawing down

its own military manpower posted abroad. The administration found this

especially disappointing. In an effort both to strengthen the allies' military

power and to stimulate their economies so that these nations could

assume more of their defense burden, the United States not only expanded its military and economic assistance but also increased its offshore

military procurement. Although these programs worked, their success

did not translate into a reduced U.S. military role abroad.
Conclusion 675

The president's defense policies and the tight budget ceilings required

to free up financial resources for his priorities caused resistance within

all the services, especially the Army, which mounted an assault on the

New Look that intensified once Eisenhower made known his belief

that in future wars the Army's role would consist chiefly of keeping

domestic order in the United States. Both Generals Matthew Ridgway

and Maxwell Taylor-the Army's chiefs of staff during the years 1953-

1956-argued vigorously that the most likely form of future conflict

would be incremental land aggression rather than nuclear war, since

the prospect of mutual atomic devastation would deter combatants from

using these weapons.

The president categorically rejected this reasoning and dismissed the

Army's position as self-serving. Should a conflict occur with the USSR,

he believed the Soviets would immediately resort to nuclear arms and

the United States had to be prepared to do the same. The Army's position-that the United States should maintain a broad range of military

options from nuclear to conventional-was, in his judgment, too expensive. Adamant in this conviction, Eisenhower pursued policies that

diminished the capacity of U.S. conventional military response to defense

crises by nuclearizing American forces. He intended that America's military strength be designed primarily for deterring nuclear attack and

protecting the nation if attack should occur. Other goals, such as halting

low-level insurgency, might be desirable, but they were preferably to be

pursued by less costly means-covert actions, surrogate forces-that did

not place a heavy financial burden on the U.S. economy.

Although the New Look had clear objectives, the years from 1953 to

1956 were marked by uncertainty. After Stalin's death in March 1953,

some evidence indicated that Russian officials were placing a greater

emphasis on meeting consumer needs. Even more hopeful were reports

suggesting a greater willingness on the part of Russian officials to

negotiate. But these impressions had at best a gossamer textureRussia's true intentions remained inscrutable. Was the Soviet Union

preparing for an inevitable war with the United States or was it willing

to coexist? Was the Soviet bloc content with piecemeal expansion or did

it intend to launch a major attack on Western Europe? Admittedly far

behind the West in economic strength, the Soviet economy appeared to

be growing; certainly its advances in weaponry could not be denied. By

1956 the USSR possessed a formidable array of planes, ships, and men

under arms and a growing arsenal of atomic and hydrogen bombs.

Administration critics intoned a constant refrain that emphasized Soviet

airpower, a mass of aircraft capable of hitting U.S. cities with thermonuclear destructive power.
676 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Seemingly confident that it was riding the crest of history, the Soviet

Union deliberately cultivated an aggressive image. Its influence appeared

to be spreading to all parts of the globe. Members of the press along

with Democrats in the House and Senate painted a grim picture. The

United States was vulnerable to air attack; its allies in Europe were weak

and dispirited. Communism had triumphed in China; Western influence

in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East was in decline; domestic

subversion was on the rise, not only in Central and Latin America but

also within the United States itself. Perhaps the American century had

already passed.

Eisenhower and Wilson would not be stampeded by this litany of

doom. Eisenhower brought to the presidency a thorough knowledge of

defense strategy, a deep understanding of the structure of forces, and

perhaps most important, a well-developed skepticism of the military budget process. He believed that too often the services advanced programs

and interests inspired as much by interservice rivalry for funds as by a

genuine concern for achieving the best national defense. As commander

in chief he remained confident in the military superiority of the United

States and its allies. He was especially impressed by the persuasive power

of atomic weaponry, a conviction confirmed in his judgment by the

successful settlement of the Korean conflict. Eisenhower's faith in the

technological lead enjoyed by the United States in advanced weaponry

received important reinforcement from his secretary of defense.

Chosen by Eisenhower to manage the Department of Defense, Wilson

prided himself most on being an engineer and on understanding that

government-supported science and technology constituted critical components of the nation's security. Wilson also knew his limitations-he was

no strategist, although he did not believe that the United States would

confront a potent strategic threat until after 1960 at the earliest. Like the

president, Wilson also recognized the growing power of the USSR and

remained committed to reaching an accommodation along the lines of

mutual deterrence. Wilson defined his primary role as executing the policy

of the president. Eisenhower set the budget ceilings, embraced the concept of deterrence, and decided on the structure of forces.

But Eisenhower also understood his own limitations-he was not

an engineer, he could not know with confidence what was technologically

possible. That recognition on the part of the president prOVided the core

ingredient for his and Wilson's successful relationship. Although at times

irritated with his secretary of defense, Eisenhower accepted that on

matters of engineering, science, and technology, Wilson was more

deeply informed. Nowhere was this more important than in dealing with

ballistic missiles.
Conclusion 677

In 1953, the biggest liability with regard to missiles was that their

target error was still estimated in miles. The prevailing wisdom that the

problems of accurate targeting could not be overcome soon came under

challenge from several high-level studies in 1953 and 1954 that argued

for the feasibility of effective long-range missiles. Current intelligence

estimates put the USSR well ahead of the United States in long-range missile development. These estimates projected that the Soviets would have

an intermediate-range ballistic missile (lRBM) by 1957 to 1959 and an

intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as early as 1960.

Influenced by these developments, the president commissioned the

Killian Panel, whose February 1955 report strongly recommended that,

given the danger to the European alliance posed by these weapons, the

United States should simultaneously pursue the building of an ICBM and

a land- and sea-based IRBM. The president initially expressed skepticism

of the recommendation for a variety of reasons, including cost, but most

especially because of its potential for setting off another round of fierce

interservice rivalry. Nonetheless, in this critical matter he deferred to the

secretary of defense. Here Wilson made his greatest contribution-and

most important defense decision-by persuading the president to authorize the parallel. and concurrent development of the IRBM and the ICBM.

Wilson's confidence that this was the right course of action came from

his understanding that what drove advances in the technology of weaponry came not only as a consequence of the competition between the U.S.

and USSR, but just as importantly because of the rivalry between U.S.

defense contractors. The president's trust in his secretary's judgment in

this matter could not have been stated more explicitly than in an

authoriZing memorandum to Wilson:

It was with some qualms that I approved the plan of allowing

the three different Services to work on the problem of long-range

ballistic missiles. This doubt was inspired not only by historical

difficulties in achieving adequate coordination among the

Services, but because of the uneasy feeling in my own mind that

the August-to-November delay in issuing the necessary Defense

directives in this matter had been occasioned by arguments among

them as to who was to carry the responsibility. All this seemed

to me to presage similar difficulties in the future. However, on

your assurance that in the current plan all such differences were,

and would continue to be, eliminated and that in your opinion

two separate programs could be carried on simultaneously and

with the resulting benefits of competition, all to be achieved

without mutual interference, I approved the system that the

Defense department suggested. 1
678 STRATEGY, MONEY, AND THE NEW LOOK

Perhaps more than any other move, this reassured the European

nations that the United States could provide for their protection even

though it also caused them to fear that Europe might become a nuclear

battleground. The consequences of Wilson's actions extended beyond his

term in office. By the early 1960s it became clear that the United States

held a commanding lead over the Soviet Union in missile capability.

Conceivably the lead would have opened without the accelerated effort

promoted by Wilson. But his conclusion to move ahead on the twin

trajectory of IRBM and ICBM development may have been the single most

important U.S. decision in the history of strategic arms competition

between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Wilson's decision foreclosed or severely constrained other options,

particularly continental defense. Although dire forecasts with respect to

U.S. vulnerability were made repeatedly, the administration refused to

pursue a crash continental defense policy, in part because continental

defense had no strong constituency pushing it within the services. Hence

no real parallel constituency existed in Congress or among the broader

public. Moreover, the ]CS consistently favored an offensive as opposed to

a defensive posture; continental defense would compete for money with

the much-preferred offensive systems. Only after the 1955 "bomber gap"

scare and intelligence reports of growing Soviet airpower and advances

in missilery did the administration and ]CS agree to provide defenses to

insure the Strategic Air Command's capacity for retaliation. Even within

the Air Force-the service that continental defense would have most

benefited-the weight of official opinion resisted any programs that might

result in reduced B-52 and other aircraft procurement. The staggering

costs associated with a massive continental defense effort constituted

another major impediment. Such a program would have to feature as a key

component a broad civil defense structure that not only entailed huge expenditures but would probably also be politically unacceptable.

One further consequence of the decision to accelerate the ballistic

missile program was to make any talk of disarmament or arms reduction moot. In reality no real potential for meaningful action ever existed.

The need to protect Europe and the United States restricted whatever

small fleXibility might have been possible. Although the Soviet "peace

offensive" of 1953-54 demanded some response from the United States,

no real constituency interested in exploring it existed anywhere except

perhaps in some circles of the Department of State. But within the defense

establishment all parties, including the president and his defense secretary, believed the only realistic course was to stay ahead of the USSR
Conclusion 679

in military strength, particularly airpower. That they did, through their

energetic exercise of the power and authority vested in their offices.

The effort to create a smaller and more technologically advanced military machine that would stay ahead of the Soviets and yet be affordable

for defense of the country engaged Wilson's full-time attention and received close and constant guidance from a greatly concerned Eisenhower.

Confronted in 1953 with a budget that allocated almost three-quarters of

the government's income to national defense, the Eisenhower administration experienced enormous pressures to rein in the heavy requirements of the military establishment. The Korean War armistice in July 1953

made it possible to effect large reductions in the size and cost of the

armed forces. Military manpower was reduced by 20 percent between

1953 and 1956-from 3.5 million to 2.8 million. This should be compared with the fewer than 1.5 million in uniform at the beginning of

the Korean War. Budgets (total obligational authority) declined from $57

billion in FY 1952 to $44 billion in FY 1953 and $30 billion in FY 1954.

Thereafter they rose steadily to almost $34 billion in FY 1955 and $38

billion in FY 1956 and would continue to rise.

Domestic critics-foremost among them within the administration

Treasury Secretary George Humphrey-demanded large cuts in the military establishment in the name of fiscal responsibility. But the cold war

exerted powerful pressures in the opposite direction. Perception of the

Soviet Union and the spread of communism as an enduring and growc

ing threat to the security of the United States diminished the thrust of

the budget cutters. The need to maintain large U.S. forces in Europe and

Korea to help protect those areas from attacks effectively slowed and

diluted efforts to make huge cuts in manpower. The constant demand for

new and improved weapons-especially ballistic missiles and aircraftcreated by a dynamic technology at ever-increasing cost constituted a

powerful offset to the efforts to hold down the national defense budget.

Eisenhower and Wilson walked a narrow line as they sought to get the

balance right. Decisions on manpower and money generally represented

compromises between what seemed desirable and what was deemed

possible. This was the essence of the process of decisionmaking in a

democracy. While the allocation of the means ebbed and flowed in the

volatile domestic and international context, the aim remained constantsafeguarding the nation and its democratic foundations. In this the Eisenhower administration succeeded admirably through pursuit of careful

and cautious policies during these years-1953-1956-that in retrospect

appear to have served the nation well.
Acc

ADC

AEC

AEW

AEW&C

AFB

AFPC

AMAS

AMAY

ANG

ARDC

ASD

ATSD

AWF

BNSP

BoB

C

CenDec

CIA

CINCEUR

CINCFE

CINCPAC

C]CS

CNO

CONAD

DCI

DDEL

DEFREPNAMA

List of Abbreviations

Accession

Air Defense Command

Atomic Energy Commission

Airborne Early Warning

Airborne Early Warning and Control

Air Force Base

Armed Forces Policy Council

American Military Assistance Staff

American Military Assistance, Yugoslavia

Air National Guard

Air Research and Development Command

Assistant Secretary of Defense

Assistant to the Secretary of Defense

Ann Whitman File

Basic National Security Policy

Bureau of the Budget

Comptroller

Central Decimal

Central Intelligence Agency

Commander in Chief, Europe

Commander in Chief, Far East

Commander in Chief, Pacific

Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Chief of Naval Operations

Continental Air Defense Command

Director of Central Intelligence

Dwight David Eisenhower Library

Defense Representative, North Atlantic and

Mediterranean Areas

680
DepSecDef

DEW

DoD

DRV

EDC

EUR/RA

EUR/WE

FCDA

FEC

FMA

FOA

G/PM

GAO

HCFA

HSCA

lAC

ICA

ICBM

ICC

IRBM

ISA

JCAE

JCS

JLRSE

JMRWP

JSCP

JSOP

JSPC

JSSC

LOFAR

M&RA

MAAG

MAP

MATS

MC

List of Abbreviations 681

Deputy Secretary of Defense

Distant Early Warning

Department of Defense

Democratic Republic of Vietnam

European Defense Community

Office of European Regional Affairs,

Department of State

Office ofWestern European Affairs,

Department of State

Federal Civil Defense Administration

French Expeditionary Corps

Office of Foreign Military Affairs,

Office of the Secretary of Defense

Foreign Operations Administration

Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State

for Politico-Military Affairs

General Accounting Office

House Committee on Foreign Affairs

House Subcommittee on Appropriations

Intelligence Advisory Committee

International Cooperation Administration

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

International Control Commission

Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense

for International Security Affairs

Joint Committee on Atomic Energy

Joint Chiefs of Staff

Joint Long-Range Strategic Estimate

Joint Medium-Range War Plan

Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan

Joint Strategic Objectives Plan

Joint Strategic Plans Committee

Joint Strategic Survey Committee

Low-Frequency Acquisition and Ranging

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense

for Manpower and Reserve Affairs

Military Assistance Advisory Group

Military Assistance Program

Military Air Transport Service

Military Committee
682

MDAP

MFR

MS

MSA

MSTS

NAC

NATO

NESC

NIE

NOA

NSC

NSTC

O&M

OASD

OCB

ODM

OSD

PL

PIng Bd

Pol PIng

PP

R&D

RCT

RG

ROK

RVNAF

S&L

SIP

SIS

SAC

SACEUR

SAGE

SCAS

SCFR

SEATO

SETAF

SG

SHAPE

SSCA

TAC

TCP

List of Abbreviations

Mutual Defense Assistance Program

memorandum for the record

Mutual Security

Mutual Security Agency

Military Sea Transport Service

North Atlantic Council

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Net Evaluation Subcommittee

National Intelligence Estimate

New Obligational Authority

National Security Council

National Security Training Commission

Operation and Maintenance

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense

Operations Coordinating Board

Office of Defense Mobilization

Office of the Secretary of Defense

Public Law

Planning Board

Policy Planning

Papers as President

Research and Development

Regimental Combat Team

Record Group

Republic of Korea

Republic of Vietnam Air Force

Supply and Logistics

Policy Planning Staff, Department of State

Executive Secretariat, Department of State

Strategic Air Command

Supreme Allied Commander, Europe

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment

Senate Committee on Armed Services

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

Southern Europe Task Force

Standing Group

Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers, Europe

Senate Subcommitee on Appropriations

Tactical A,ir Command

Technological Capabilities Panel
TERM

TRIM

TRUST

UMT

USARIT

USCINCEUR

USec

VNA

WDD

WEU

List of Abbreviations 683

Temporary Equipment Recovery Mission

Training Relations and Instructions Mission

Trieste United States Troops

Universal Military Training

United States Army, Italy

United States Commander in Chief, Europe

Under Secretary

Vietnamese Army

Western Development Division

Western European Union
Notes

The citations that follow represent a wide variety of published and unpublished sources. Detail has been kept to a minimum without sacrificing

essential information. Full publication information is in the bibliography.

Unless otherwise noted, all citations of archival documents refer to the

retired records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Record Group (RG)

330. Also used were the General Records of the Department of State (RG 59)

and Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (RG 218).

At the time the author conducted his research, the National Archives

buildings-in downtown Washington, D.C., and later also in College Park,

Maryland-in general housed RG 330 materials only through 1954. Records

for subsequent years remained under OSD control and had to be consulted at the Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland.

Many collections for this later period have since been transferred to the

College Park facility, where they will be reboxed and incorporated in RG

330. In the notes, however, these collections are identified-as they were

when researched-by their Washington National Records Center accession

and box numbers.

Files identified as "OSD Hist" are in the custody of the OSD Historical

Office. References to the Congressional Record are either to the version published on a day-by-day basis, with date and page numbers, or to the record

version published subsequently, with part and page numbers. Principal

abbreviations used in the notes are identified in the List of Abbreviations.

PROLOGUE: ATOMIC WEAPONS AND THE END OF THE KOREAN WAR

1. Doris M. Condit, The Test of War, 1950-1953, vol II in History of the Office of the

Secretary of Defense, 155-57, 165-72.

2. Ronald Hoffman, "The Ammunition Supply Problem and the Van Fleet Mission,"

OSD Hist.

3. "Memorandum for the Joint Chiefs of Staff," sub: Further expansion of the Republic

of Korea forces, 13 May 53, fldr CD 091.3, Korea 1953, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

4. Roger Dingman, "Atomic Diplomacy During the Korean War," International Security

~Winter 88/89), 50-91. In this connection see also Edward C. Keefer, "Truman and

Eisenhower: Strategic Options for Atomic War and Diplomacy in Korea," in Lester H.

Brune, ed, The Korean War: Handbook of the Literature and Research, 285-305.

5. James F. Schnabel and Robert J. Watson, The joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy,

1951-1953, The Korean War, pt 2,935.

684
Notes to Pages 2-10 685

6. MFR, 30 May 53, "Eyes Only-Mr. Nash," fldr Korea, box 3, ASD(ISA) files,Acc 65A-3500.

7. FRUS 1952-54, XV, pt 1:1059-63.

8. Memo of disc at 145th NSC mtg, 20 May 53, ibid, 1065-68, 1068-69, 1071; memo of mtg

w/Pres Johnson, 17 Feb 65, FRUS 1964-68, 1I:300-01. The participants at the latter

meeting included President Lyndon B. Johnson, Eisenhower, Secretary of Defense

Robert S. McNamara, JCS Chairman General Earle G. Wheeler, Johnson's national

security adviser McGeorge Bundy, and General Andrew J. Goodpaster. At that meeting

Eisenhower recounted how he passed a series of messages to the Koreans and the

Chinese that brought the Korean War to a close.

9. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-1956, vol I in The White House

Years, 180-81; James Shepley, "How Dulles Averted War," Life, 16 Jan 56,70-72 ff.

10. The president cited the relationship between Operation Solarium and the administration's discussions regarding continuing the use of atomic weapons in Korea in the

NSC meeting of 13 May 1953. See FRUS 1952-54, XV, pt 1:1016.

11. Dingman, "Atomic Diplomacy," 85-89.

12. Rosemary J. Foot, "Nuclear Coercion and the Ending of the Korean Conflict," biternational Security (Winter 88/89),92-112.

13. MFR, cited in n 6.

I. NEW BOSSES IN THE E RING

1. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 100-01; Robert J. Donovan, Eisenhower: The Inside

Story, 20-23; Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department, 721; Richard S. Kirkendall, ed, The Harry S. Truman Encyclopedia, 109, which

contains the remark by Stephen E. Ambrose about the transition.

2. New Republic (Dec 52), 15. Columnist "TRB" here labeled the incoming cabinet as comprising "eight millionaires and a plumber." The "plumber" was Martin Durkin, president

of the AFL plumbers' union, the only Democrat and the only Catholic in the cabinet.

3. E. Bruce Geeihoed, Charles E. Wilson and Controversy at the Pentagon, 1953 to 1957,

34-37,42; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 86.

4. Stephen E.Ambrose, The President, vol II in Eisenhower, 20-24; Geeihoed, Wilson, 41-42..

5. Geelhoed, Wilson, 19 (citing James D. Barber, The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House, 163),38-39,42.

6. Duncan Norton-Taylor, "The Wilson Pentagon,~ Fortune (Dec 54), 96; Carl w: Barklund,

Men of the Pentagon: From FOrrestal to McNamara, 147.

7. McNeil had been the department's chief fiscal officer since 1947. See Norton-Taylor,

"The Wilson Pentagon," 224, and Charlotte Knight, "Mystery Man of the Pentagon,"

Collier's (22 Jan 54), 30-36.

8. Condit, Test ofWar, 51'0; Norton-Taylor, "The Wilson Pentagon," 220-22.

9. Norton-Taylor, "The Wilson Pentagon," 224-26.

10. In 1958 the chiefs were to oppose successfully a move to incorporate them in the

Office of the Secretary of Defense. See Robert J. Watson, Into the Missile Age, 1956-

1960, vol III in History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 279-83.

11. The other two chiefs were General J. Lawton Collins, Army chief of staff, and General

Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Air Force chief of staff. See Department of Defense Key Offidals,

1947-1995,60-61; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 582-83.

12. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 96, 448-49, 582.83.

13. For this discussion of Wilson's confirmation hearings I have drawn heaVily on the

excellent, more detailed treatment in chapter 3 of Geelhoed, Wilson, 40-58.

14. U.S. Code, Title 18, Sec 434 (1863).

15. Geelhoed, Wilson, 45; Borklund, Men of the Pentagon, 79, 141-42.

16. Public Statements of Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, 1953 (hereafter Wilson

Public Statements), 1:27 (emphasis supplied). At the time even many of those who

had seen or heard of the actual statement regarded the inversion, i.e., "What was good

for General Motors was good for the country," as Wilson's real view.
686 Notes to Pages 10-19

17. Geelhoed, Wilson, 47 and n 14 (citing document in Wilson Archive at Anderson

College, Anderson, Ind.).

18. Borklund, Men of the Pentagon, 141; Geelhoed, Wilson, 48; Eisenhower, Mandate for

Change, 111-12.

19. Wilson Public Statements, 1953,1:52; Geelhoed, Wilson, 48-49.

20. Wilson Public Statements, 1953,I: 53,84,86-87,91; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 112.

21. Geelhoed, Wilson, 54-58; see also Itr Wilson to ].B. Hall, 3 Feb 53, fldr Sec Wilson's

Reading File Jan-Jun 53, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1802; Eisenhower, Mandate

for Change, 111 (quote).

22. This section is based on a draft study prepared by Ronald Hoffman, OSD Hist.

23. Ltr Wilson to Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., 28 Jan 53, fldr Sec Wilson's Reading File Jan-Jun 53,

Wilson Misc files 1953-57,Acc 63A-1802.

24. Chicago Tribune, 23 Jan 56.

25. Elmo Richardson, The Presidency of DWight D. Eisenhower, 32.

26. Douglas Kinnard, The Secretary of Defense, 48.

27. James Schlesinger, "Some Ruminations on the Office of the Secretary of Defense," OSD

Hist, 16.

28. Christian Science Monitor, 1 Dec 87.

29. Ambrose, President, 23, 36-37 (quote), 299, 441.

30. Charles C.Alexander, Holding the Line: The Eisenhower Era, 1952-1961,31-32.

31. George B. Kistiakowsky, A Scientist at the White House: The Private Diary of President

Eisenhower's Special Assistant for Science and Technology, xxxv.

32. GeeIhoed, Wilson, 14, 180-82.

33. Emmet John Hughes, The Ordeal of Power: A Political Memoir of the Eisenhower

Years, 50, 69, 75-77.

34. Sherman Adams, Firsthand Report: The Story ofthe Eisenhower Administration, 68, 403.

35. For Dulles quote, see Arthur Larson, Eisenhower: The President Nobody Knew, 77; for

Gavin quote, Kistiakowsky, Scientist at the White House, xxxv.

36. For press views, see US News & World Report, 29 Jul 55;James S. Haswell, Miami Herald,

25 Aug 55; Joseph Alsop, Washington Post, 4 Sep 55. For comment on cartoons, see

interv with Carey A. Randall by Alfred Goldberg et aI, 26 Apr 88, OSD Hist, 58-59.

37. New York Times, 24 Mar 54; Chicago Tribune, 23 Jan 56.

38. William B. Ewald, Jr., Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 252-54, 299.

39. William B. Ewald, Jr., Eisenhower the President: Crucial Days, 1951-1960, 192.

40. Hughes, Ordeal of Power, 76; Robert H. Ferrell, ed, The Eisenhower Diaries, 237, 296.

41. Ewald, Eisenhower the President, 192-93; Hr Wilson to Pres, 27 Jan 55, fldr Sec

Wilson's Reading File Feb-Dec 55, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1802; Itr Wilson

to Pres, 19 Feb 54, fldr Sec Wilson's Reading File Jan-Jun 54, ibid.

42. Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader, 84-85; Ewald,

Eisenhower the President, 244-45.

43. Wilson Public Statements, 1954, 11:596; memo of disc at 204thNSC mtg, 24 Jun 54,

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954 (hereafter cited as FRUS with

appropriate years), II, pt 1:690.

44. Draft Itr Wilson to Pres, 6 Jul 54, fldr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines Under NSC

162/2-FY 1956 (2), ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

45. Stephen Jurika, Jr., ed, From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: The Memoirs ofAdmiral Arthur

W. Radford, 304; GeeIhoed, Wilson, 38-39, 65; Itr Wilson to Pres, 13 Feb 53, fldr Sec

Wilson's Reading File Jan-Jun 53, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1802; interv

with McNeil by Alfred Goldberg and Harry Yoshpe, 31 May 74, OSD Hist, 32; Itr Wilson

to Arthur Godfrey, 24 Jun 53, fldr Sec Wilson's Reading File Jan-Jun 53, Wilson Misc

files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1802; see also Address at Wayne County Republican Finance

Committee Dinner, 11 Oct 54, Wilson Public Statements, 1954, IV: 1053-68.

46. Randall interv, 26 Apr 88, 33-34, 45.

47. Ltr Wilson to Godfrey, 24 Jun 53, cited in n 45; memo Ralph Moore for Col Don Hayes,

10 Aug 53, fldr Sec Wilson's Reading File Jul-Dec 53, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc

63A-1802.
Notes to Pages 19-29 687

48. Ltr Randall to Mr. Ross, 19 Aug 55, fldr Sec Wilson's Reading File Feb-Dec 55, Wilson

Misc files 1953-57,Acc 63A-1802; Randall interv, 26 Apr 88, 48; Geelhoed, Wilson, 156.

49. Randall interv, 26 Apr 88, 62-70; memo SecDef for SecNavy, 19 Oct 55, fidr Sec

Wilson's Reading File Feb-Dec 55, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1802; see for

example memo Wilson for SecNavy and SecAF, sub: Directive governing policy

of development of turbine jet engine of aircraft, 22 Dec 54, fidr Sec Wilson's Reading

File Jul-Dec 54, ibid.

50. Ltrs R.B. Anderson, 10 Apr 53, R.T. Stevens, 15 Jun 53, H.E. Talbott, 12 Jun 53 to Wilson,

fldr "Military Secretaries Approval of the Rockefeller Report," 1953 Rockefeller Committee Files, OSD Hist.

51. Wilson Public Statements, 1957, II:625.

II. REORGANIZING DEFENSE

1. Alice C. Cole et ai, eds, The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and

Organization, 1944-1978, 124.

2. Eisenhower speech to Republican Party rally in Baltimore, 25 Sep 52, cited in New York

Times, 26 Sep 52; ltr Eisenhower to Wilson, 9 Feb 53, 1953 Rockefeller Committee Files,

OSD Hist. Eisenhower gave him the options of a reorganization commission or a "continuing advisory body."

3. The other staff members were Carl H. Pfuntner, Rudolph A. Winnacker, George A.

Wyeth, and John D. Young. See "Rockefeller Committee Background Paper," nd, 1953

Rockefeller Committee Files, OSD Hist.

4. Committee on Department of Defense Organization (hereafter Rockefeller Committee),

2 Mar 53, Agenda Minutes File, ibid.

5. Ltr Lovett to Truman, 18 Nov 52, in Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 115; JCS Hist

Div, "A Concise History of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1942-1978,"

Mar 79,28.

6. Ltr Lovett to Truman, 18 Nov 52, in Cole et ai, Department of Defense, 115-26; ltr Price

to Lovett, 12 Mar 53, ltr Coolidge to Foster, 22 Sep 52, summary statement of Outline

of Coolidge Proposals: fldr Reading Files Original, 1953 Rockefeller Committee Files,

OSD Hist. A good summary is in Condit, Test of War, 525-29.

7. Memo Wilson for Nelson Rockefeller, 26 Feb 53, ltr Rockefeller to Wilson, 18 Feb 53:

1953 Rockefeller Committee Files, OSD Hist.

8. Memo Wilson for Rockefeller, 26 Feb 53, ibid.

:J. H. Struve Hensel, "Changes Inside the Pentagon," Harvard Business Review OanFeb 54), 105.

10. Other members of the committee included Ferdinand Eberstadt, Wilfred 1- McNeil,

John J. McCloy, Charles A. Coolidge, Walter G. Whitman, John C. Houston, Jr., and

Acting Chairman of the Munitions Board Lewis L. Strauss. See correspondence in

Chron File and Agenda Minutes File, 1953 Rockefeller Committee Files, OSD Hist.

11. Cole et ai, Department of Defense, 126-28.

12. Ibid, 127, 153.

13. Ibid, 128-29.

14. Memo Roger Kent for Roger Kyes, 26 Feb 53, 1953 Rockefeller Committee Files,

OSD Rist.

15. Memo C.W. Nimitz for Rockefeller, 28 Mar 53, ibid.

16. Memo Kent for Kyes, 26 Feb 53, ibid; Cole et ai, Department of Defense, 143-49.

17. Cole et ai, Department of Defense, 129-30.

18. Ibid, 130-31.

19. Memo Coolidge for Lovett, Sep 52, memo Kent for Kyes, 26 Feb 53: 1953 Rockefeller

Committee Files, OSD Hist; Itr Lovett to Truman, 18 Nov 52, in Cole, et ai, Department

of Defense, 122; Hensel, "Changes Inside the Pentagon," 105.

20. Memo Frank Nash for SecDef, 15 Jan 53, memo Kent for BrigGen R.B. Beebe (Dir Office

of NATO Affairs), 10 Mar 53: 1953 Rockefeller Committee Files, OSD Hist; Cole et ai,

Department of Defense, 136.
688 Notes to Pages 29-43

21. Ltr Rockefeller to Gen Marshall, 11 Apr 53, Chron File, 1953 Rockefeller Committee

Files, OSD Hist; Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 136.

22. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 447-48; Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 131.

23. Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 132, 134; "Concise History of the Organization of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff," 32; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 448.

24. Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 134-35.

25. Ibid, 135.

26. Statement of Walter G. Whitman, 19 Mar 53, 1953 Rockefeller Committee Files, OSD

Hist; Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 137.

27. Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 137-42.

28. Ibid, 153-54.

29. Ibid, 142-43.

30. Ltr Wilson to Pres, 13 Apr 53, Chron File, Partial Log of Progress of Rockefeller Committee Report, Mr. Wyeth File: 1953 Rockefeller Committee Files, OSD Hist.

31. Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 149-57.

32. Geelhoed, Wilson, 64; Walter Millis, Harvey C. Mansfield, and Harold Stein, Arms and

the State: Civil-Military Elements in National Policy, 385-86.

33. Ltr Arends to Pres, 20 May 53, 1953 Rockefeller Committee Files, OSD Hist. Eisenhower's

reply was dated 25 May. "Prussian General Staff" was a term widely used as a pejorative

by opponents of unification and a strengthened JCS chairman.

34. Kyes statement, 17 Jun 53, US Cong, House Cte on Govt Ops, Reorganization Plan No.6

of 1953, Hearings, 18-21.

35. Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 157-59; Geelhoed, Wilson, 64.

36. Roger R. Trask and Alfred Goldberg, The Department of Defense, 1947-1997: Organization and Leaders, 23.

37. Paul Y. Hammond, Organizing for Defense: The American Military Establishment in

the Twentieth Century, 302, 321-26.

38. Ibid, 288-90, 325-27.

39. Ltr Lovett to Truman, 18 Nov 52, in Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 115-26.

40. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 448-49; notes on mtg w/Pres, 29 Mar 56, FRUS 1955-

57, XIX:278; memo of conf w/Pres, 18 May 56, ibid, 305.

41. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 96; Ambrose, President, 90; Ewald, Eisenhower the

President, 248.

42. Notes on mtg w/Pres, 29 Mar 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:277-79; memo of conf w/Pres,

30 Mar 56, ibid, 281.

43. See Chapter XXVII.

44. Memo of conf w/Pres, 5 Apr 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:286-88.

45. Memo of conf w/Pres, 30 Mar 56, ibid, 281; memo of conf w/Pres, 5 Apr 56, ibid, 285-90.

46. See Chapter XXVII.

47. Ibid.

48. Maxwell D. Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet, 130-64.

49. Memo of conf w/Pres, 24 May 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:311-15. See also Chapter XXVII.

50. Memo of conf w/Pres, 24 May 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:312-14; Taylor, Uncertain

Trumpet, 38-39.

51. Memo of conf w/Pres, 24 May 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:315. Lt. Gen. James M. Gavin

stated: "Usually, and I know of no case to the contrary, he [Wilson] took the advice of

the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, regardless of the views of the separate

service chiefs." See James M. Gavin, War and Peace in the Space Age, 168,259 (quote).

52. Memo of conf w/Pres, 30 Mar 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX: 281.

53. Memo of disc at 280th NSC mtg, 22 Mar 56, ibid, 269-70.

54. Memo of disc at 285th NSC mtg, 17 May 56, ibid, 310.

55. Memo of conf w/Pres, 14 May 56, ibid, 302.

56. Ibid; memo of conf w/Pres, 18 May 56, ibid, 304; Hammond, Organizing for Defense,

288-90.

57. Memo of conf w/Pres, 5 Apr 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:288.

58. Wilson Public Statements, 1957,11:472-73.
Notes to Pages 44-59 689

III. MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

1. Gee1hoed, Wilson, 41 and n 4, citing papers in the Wilson Archive at Anderson College,

asserts they had known each other and had corresponded for several years. Ambrose,

President, 23, states they had never met. He cites Gee1hoed's book, but not the references noted above.

2. Ambrose, President, 23; Geelhoed, Wilson, 19,34-36,41 and n 4.

3. Memo McNeil for McElroy, 23 Apr 58, fldr House Approp Cte FY 1958, ASD(C) Testimony, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Rist.

4. Interv with McNeil by Doris M. Condit and Ronald Hoffman, 7 Jun 76, OSD Hist.

5. Memo of disc at 132d NSC mtg, 18 Feb 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

6. For the Indochina crisis of 1954, see Chapter XXIII.

7. Memo McNeil for DepAsstSec for Nat Sec Affairs and Plans, OSD(ISA), 23 May 57, fldr

FY 1958 Budget File #lA, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

8. McNeil testimony, 19 Mar 57, HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1958, 1981.

9. Briefing of American Society of Newspaper Editors, 15 Apr 54, fldr Preparation of the

FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; McNeil intervs, 31 May 74 and

7 Jun 76, OSD Hist, passim.

10. McNeil intervs, 31 May 74, 7 Jun 76, OSD Rist, 25.-

11. Memo McNeil for Murray Snyder, 27 Jun 57, fldr FY 1958 Budget File #3, ATSD and

DepSecDef files, OSD Rist.

12. Paper, "Unobligated Funds," ibid.

13. Memo McNeil for Snyder, 27 Jun 57, cited in n 11.

14. Memo W. F. Schaub for DirBoB, 25 Oct 56, fldr FY 1958 Budget (McNeil File), ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid; McNeil interv, 7 Jun 76, OSD Hist, 65 (quote).

17. Ibid; The Budget of the United States for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1957, M26-27.

18. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956,541; HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957, 1110.

19. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956, 54, 78 (table).

20. Ibid, 105, 541.

21. Ibid, 129-30, 132 (quote), 559.

22. Ibid, 541-42.

23. Ibid, 542-44.

24. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957, 1073; memo Max Lehrer for F. Bordner, 28 Feb 56, fldr

House Approp Cte FY 1957, table, Unobligated Balances and Obligations Incurred FY

1951-58,6 Dec 57, fldr Missiles Inquiry, Senate Preparedness Subcte: ATSD and DepSec

Def files, OSD Hist.

25. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956, 55, 542-45.

26. SCA, DoD Approp Bill, 1956, 14 Jun 55 (S Rpt No 545).

27. McNeil statement, HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957, 968; memo Markley Shaw for William

Mautz, 7 Mar 55, fldr House Approp Cte FY 1956, ASD(C) Hearings, ATSD and DepSec

Def files, OSD Hist.

28. Memo Henry Glass for C.D. Orescan, 19 Aug 57, fldr House Approp Cte FY 1958,ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

29. Ltr Wilson to Dodge, 15 Oct 53, memo Glass for Orescan, 19 Aug 57: ibid; McNeil statement, cited in n 27.

30. ASD(C) paper, "FY 1956 Justification of Army's Unobligated Funds," fldr House Approp

Cte FY 1956, SecDef Testimony, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

31. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957,976,978.

32. Ibid, 970-71, 974-75, 1041.

33. Ibid, 1032 (foldout table).

34. Ibid, 1088-90.

35. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1958, 1908-11, 1984-86, 1987-90.

36. Address by Floyd S. Bryant (SpecAsst to SecDef) to Soc for Advancement of Mgt, 18 Apr

56, memo SecDef for SvcSecs, ASDs, GenCoun, and SpecAssts to SecDef, 9 Mar 55:

fldr "Hoover Commission, 1955-58," OSD Hist; Cole et aI, Department of Defense, 166-

70,172.
690 Notes to Pages 60-68

37. Cole et ai, Department of Defense, 166-70.

38. DoD Action on Hoover Cmsn Mgt Recoms, Prog Rpt, Feb 57, "Hoover Commission, 1955-

58," OSD Hist. For articles on the oversupply problem, see Washington Post, 4, 18, 24,

25,27 Apr, 6, 11 May 55.

39. DoD Action on Hoover Cmsn Logistics Recoms, Prog Rpt, Oct 56, 51, DoD press

release, 12 Jan 56: "Hoover Commission, 1955-58," OSD Hist.

40. DoD Comments on Hoover Cmsn Rpt on Business Orgn of DoD, DoD Action on

Hoover Cmsn Mgt Recoms, Prog Rpt, Feb 57: ibid.

41. DoD press release, 18 Aug 53, McNeil Reading File, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist.

42. Memo McNeil for Charles P. Cooper, 22 Mar 54, memo McNeil for Shelmerdine, 17 Apr

54: ibid.

43. Ltr McNeil to Cooper, 25 Aug 54, memo McNeil for Garlock, 7 Sep 54: ibid.

44. Memo McNeil for Cooper, 15 Sep 54, memo Wilson for SvcSecs,ASD(C), 21 Sep 54: ibid.

45. Ltr McNeil to Cooper, 23 Sep 54, ibid.

46. Memo McNeil for SecDef, 26 Oct 54, ibid.

47. Memo McNeil for Anderson, 27 Dec 54, ibid.

48. Tekon Lovett and McNeil, nd, Itr Wilson to Herbert Hoover, 3 Mar 55: ibid.

49. DoD Comments on Hoover Cmsn Rpt on Business Orgn of DoD, DoD Action on

Hoover Cmsn Mgt Recoms, Prog Rpt, Feb 57: "Hoover Commission, 1955-58," OSD Hist.

50. See Chapter II; Washington Daily News, 5 Nov 57.

51. "DoD Comments on Specific Examples of Savings Cited in Special Research Memorandum No. 11, Citizens' Committee for the Hoover Report, as Resulting from Reports

and Recommendations of the Second Hoover Commission," atchd to Itr Wilson to

Clarence Cannon (Ch House Cte on Approp), 28 Jun 57, "Hoover Commission, 1955-

58," OSD Hist.

52. Ibid. See Recommendation No. 17.

IV. SHRINKING THE TRUMAN BUDGET

1. Annual Budget Message to the Congress, FY 1954, Truman Public Papers, 1952-

53,1129.

2. For a good survey of the federal budgetary process in the post-World War II period,

see Congress and the Nation 1945-1964: A Review of Government and Politics in

the Postwar Years. For preparation of the FY 1954 Defense budget, see Condit, Test

ofWar, 285-305.

3. Budget figs, 15 Jan 53, in OSD(C) table, Budget Bureau Estimates of New Authority ...,

17 Feb 53, fldr Effects of Balanced Budget Expenditures 1954-55, ATSD and DepSec

Def files, OSD Hist. More generally, see Charles J. V. Murphy, "The Eisenhower Shift,

I," Fortune Gan 56), 87ff.

4. Annual Budget Message to the Congress, FY 1954, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953,

20; table, 17 Feb 53, cited in n 3;<summary table, Government Expenditures, in memo

Henry Glass for LtGen C.P. Stone, 17 Feb 53, ibid. See also Eisenhower, Mandate for

Change, 128-29.

5. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 128; Murphy, "The Eisenhower Shift, I," 206.

6. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 201; Donovan, Eisenhower: The Inside Story, 59-60;

memo Glass for LtGen Stone, 17 Feb 53, cited in n 4.

7. Murphy, "The Eisenhower Shift, I," 206; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 128.

8. Murphy, "The Eisenhower Shift, I," 206.

9. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 201-02; Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953,21.

10. Ltr Dodge to SecDef, 3 Feb 53, fldr CD 111 (1954) 1953, box 18, Def Exec Off, CenDec

Files 1953; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 129.

11. Memo of disc at 132d NSC mtg, 18 Feb 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; Eisenhower,

Mandate for Change, 129-30.

12. OSD(C) paper, "Budget Projection through FY 1958 ...," 17 Feb 53, w/atchd memo

Mautz for McNeil, 17 Feb 53, fldr NSC 141, box 9, ASD(C) files,Acc 65A-3552.

13. Ltr Dodge to SecDef, 3 Feb 53, cited in n 10.
Notes to Pages 68-75 691

14. Congress and the Nation, 392-94.

15. In his memoirs Eisenhower stated the figure of "something like" $60 billion was

mentioned in the conversation. In Taft's prepared text issued to the press, however,

which Eisenhower had gone over in advance, the senator stated that they had agreed

on the desirability of reducing spending to "about $70 billion" in FY 1954 and to

$60 billion in FY 1955. See Mandate for Change, 64; Murphy, "The Eisenhower Shift,

I," 87; table, Budget Bureau Estimates of New Authority ..., 17 Feb 53, cited in n 3.

16. Memo of disc at 131st NSC mtg, 11 Feb 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL, extract in FRUS

1952-54, II, pt 1:236-37; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 131-32.

17. Memos of disc at 131st and 132d NSC mtgs, 11, 18 Feb 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

18. Dodge mentioned this figure at the NSC meeting on the 18th (memo of disc cited in n

17). See also memo Glass for Stone, 17 Feb 53, cited in n 4.

19. NSC 141, Report by the Secretaries of State and Defense and the Director for Mutual

Security on Reexamination of U.S. Programs for National Security, 19 Jan 53, FRUS

1952-54, II, pt 1:209-22.

20. "Budget Projection through FY 1958 ...," 17 Feb 53, cited in n 12. For Dodge's estimate, given to the NSC on 18 February, see OSD briefing paper for 132d NSC mtg,

18 Feb 53, f1dr CCS 334 NSC (9-25-47), boxes 67-68, RG 218.

21. "Budget Projection through FY 1958 ...," 17 Feb 53, cited in n 12; briefing for 132d

NSC mtg, 18 Feb 53, cited in n 20; memo of disc at 132d NSC mtg, 18 Feb 53, cited

in n 17.

22. "Budget Projection through FY 1958 ...," 17 Feb 53, cited in n 12.

23. Memo of disc at 132d NSC mtg, cited in n 17.

24. Memo Glass for Stone, 17 Feb 53, cited in n 4; papers, "Brief statement of Effect of

Balancing the Budget in FY 1955 on Military Programs" and "Effects of US Military

Programs Including Military Assistance on Balanced Budget by FY 1955," nd, both in

f1dr Effects of Balanced Budget Expenditures 1954-55, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Rist.

25. Ibid.

26. RSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954,3-4,25-26.

27. Ibid, 6, 7. Miffed by Wilson's cool response to his idea of procurement savings, Mahon

later complained to McNeil (ibid, 133).

28. Ibid, 21-26, 31, 32.

29. Ibid, 4.

30. See Current News file, Feb-May 53, OSD Rist.

31. Memo of disc at 133d NSC mtg, 24 Feb 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

32. Ltr Dodge to Wilson, 3 Feb 53, cited in n 10; memo Wilson for SvcSecs, 4 Feb 53, memo

Kyes for SvcSecs, 7 Feb 53, memo DirInstIns for SecNavy, 5 Feb 53: wi other corres in

f1dr CD 111 (1954) 1953, box 18, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953; memo Wilson

for SvcSecs, sub: Review of budget, 4 Feb 53, f1dr Effects of Balanced Budget Expenditures 1954-55, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Rist.

33. Memo McNeil for SvcSecs, 9 Mar 53, f1dr Effects of Balanced Budget Expenditures

1954-55,ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Rist.

34. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs, 4 Feb 53, memo Kyes for SvcSecs, 9 Mar 53: ibid. For the

figures cited in this paragraph, see Wilson's testimony to the Rouse Appropriations

Subcommittee on 11 May (RSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, 319-20).

35. RSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, 26 Feb 53,93.

36. Ibid, 112-13.

37. Memo Garlock for Wilson, Kyes, McNeil, 5 Mar 53, f1dr Effects of Balanced Budget

Expenditures 1954-55, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Rist.

38. Washington Post, 22 Mar 53; Wilson Public Statements, 1953,1:150.

39. FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:244-45; memo of disc at 135th NSC mtg, 4 Mar 53, NSC ser, PP

(AWF), DDEL; memo Kyes for SvcSecs, ASD(C), JCS, 9 Mar 53, f1dr Effects of Balanced

Budget Expenditures 1954-55, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Rist. In the president's

absence, Vice President Nixon presided over this NSC meeting; probably the president

had approved the proposal before the meeting.
692 Notes to Pages 75-86

40. ASD(C) paper, "Informal Suggestions as to Response to NSC Action 730-c," 6 Mar 53,

fldr Effects of Balanced Budget Expenditures 1954-55, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist.

41. Memo Kyes for SvcSecs et ai, 9 Mar 53, cited in n 39.

42. Memo Stevens for SecDef, 17 Mar 53, end "Statement of Effect on Army Programs of

Expenditure Limit ...," memos Talbott for SecDef, 14, 16 Mar 53, memos SecNavy for

SecDef, 13, 16 Mar 53: fldr CD 111 (954) 1953, box 18, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

43. Memo Bradley (for JCS) for SecDef, 19 Mar 53, ibid.

44. Memo McNeil for Wilson, 19 Mar 53, ibid.

45. Handwritten note on memo LtCol Orwin C. Talbot for McNeil, 12 Feb 53, ibid.

46. Memo McNeil for Wilson, 19 Mar 53, ibid.

47. Memo Wilson for ExecSecNSC, 24 Mar 53, fldr CD 111 (954) 1953, box 18, Def Exec

Off, CenDec Files 1953.

48. Memo of disc at 138th NSC mtg, 25 Mar 53, PRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:258-64.

49. See Itr Robert Cutler to Kyes, 5 Jun 53, w/atchd draft memo summarizing NSC actions

and discussions on budget in March and April, fldr CD 111 (954) 1953, box 19, Def

Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

50. Paper by Philip Odeen (Off of Econ Adviser), "Revision of the FY 1954 Budget by

the Eisenhower Administration," 17 May 61, in fldr Budget History (Summary), ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

51. Memo of disc at special NSC mtg, 31 Mar 53, PRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:264-81.

52. Memo atchd to Itr Cutler to Kyes, 5 Jun 53, cited in n 49. The final version of NSC 149

was NSC 149/2, dated 29 April 1953, Basic National Security Policies and Programs in

Relation to their Costs, in PRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:305-16.

53. PRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:308·12.

54. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs, 13 Apr 53, fldr CD 111 (954) 1953, box 19, Def Exec Off,

CenDec Files 1953. Wilson communicated the directive orally during a conference in

his office on the 11tho

55. Memo Douglas for ASD(C), 17 Apr 53, ibid.

56. Earlier in April the Air Force had used a similar tactic in resisting the OSD staff

analysis of the FY 1954 budget issued on 26 and 27 March. See memo H. Lee White

for SecDef, 9 Apr 53, ibid.

57. Unsgd paper, 27 Apr 53, in fldr FY 1954 Budget Fact Book, memo Garlock for SecDef,

18 Apr 53, fldr Revised FY 1954 Budget: ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

58. Unsgd paper, 21 Apr 53, fldr NSC 149 Security Policies and Programs, ATSD and Dep

SecDef files, OSD Hist; note by ExecSec to NSC, w/ NSC 149/2,29 Apr 53, PRUS 1952-

54, II, pt 1:306. See also memo ExecSec for NSC, 24 Apr 53, fldr CD 381 War Plans NSC

149 ..., box 34, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

59. Unsgd paper, "Discussion of Possibilities ...," nd, in fldr FY 1954 Budget Fact Book,

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

60. Table, Summary of Air Force Units, 27 Apr 53, fldr FY 1954 Budget Fact Book, ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; unsgd paper, "Discussion of Possibilities ...," nd,

cited in n 59.

61. Memo Garlock for SecDef, 18 Apr 53, w/atchmt, cited in n 57; NSC 149/2, 29 Apr 53,

PRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:305-17.

62. NSC 149/2, par 9d, cited in n 61.

63. Ltr Dodge to SecDef, 7 May 53, in HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954,309; NSC 149/2,29 Apr 53,

par ge and g, cited in n 61.

64. Unsgd paper, "Military Functions of the Dept of Defense for FY 1954," 21 Apr 53, w/

pencil notation "To Mr. Kyes for use at NSC mtg, 22 Apr 53" and indicating authorship

by W.H. Mautz, fldr Revised FY 1954 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

65. Unsgd paper, "The FY 1954 Funding Problem in Relation to NSC Expenditure Objectives," nd, fldr FY 1954 Budget Fact Book, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

Although no addressee is indicated, it seems probable that a message of such

importance was intended for the secretary, and therefore was probably sent over

McNeil's signature.
Notes to Pages 86-98 693

66. Memo Garlock for SecDef, 18 Apr 53, cited in n57. For service requests, see memo

Stevens for SecDef, 10 Apr 53, memo ActSecArmy for SecDef, 17 Apr 53, memo SecNavy

for SecDef, 14 Apr 53, memo James H. Douglas (DepSecDef) for ASD(C), 18 Apr 53: fldr

CD III (1954) 1953, boxes 18.19, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

67. Memo Garlock for SecDef, 18 Apr 53, cited in n 57; unsgd paper, "Discussion of Possibilities ...," nd, cited in n 59; statement by DepSecDef Kyes at White House

conference of Republican leaders, 30 Apr 53, fldr Revised FY 1954 Budget, ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

68. Ltr Dodge to SecArmy, 20 May 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget (McNeil File), ATSD and DepSec

Def files, OSD Hist.

v: DEFENSE GOES TO CAPITOL HILL: THE FY 1954 BUDGET

1. For the president's briefing to legislative leaders, see Eisenhower, Mandate for

Change, 129·31, and Joseph and Stewart Alsop's column, New York Herald Tribune,

6 May 53. The president's 30 April press conference is in Eisenhower Public Papers,

1953, 239·52; the 19 May radio address, 306·16; the 10 June address, 384·92. Much of

the information for this chapter is in unclassified subject folders marked "Budget"

and organized by month in OSD Hist.

2. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 130.

3. Radio Address to the American People on the National Security and Its Costs, 19 May

53, cited in n 1 (quote, 309); Special Message to the Congress Recommending Tax

Legislation, 20 May 53, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953,318.26.

4. Radio Address to the American People ..., 19 May 53, ibid, 307·08. For a perceptive

press commentary, see Roland Sawyer, Christian Science Monitor, 21 Jun 53.

5. HSCA, Air Force Hearings, 1954,959-63,990.

6. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, 308 ff, 323.

7. Ibid, 315, 357·58.

8. Ibid, 338, 347,433.

9. Ibid, 353-60.

10. Ibid, 361 (quote), 387·90. The claim that the entire $5 billion was a "statistical result"

of process was, of course, false, since that figure had been given to McNeil as a

stipulated parameter for analysis. Later, however, McNeil sustained the party line.

See ibid, 471·72.

11. Ibid, 394, 398, 401·02, 412-13.

12. Ibid, 394·96 (quote, 395), 423-24.

13. Ibid, 409·11.

14. Ibid, 139,472.

15. Ibid, 427.

16. Ibid, 44.

17. Ibid, 445·46.

18. Ibid, 447·48.

19. Ibid, 426, 454·55, 458-59, 464-65 (quotes, 459, 465).

20. The hearings are published in SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, 19 May-18 Jun 53.

21. Senator Smith's questions, with Wilson's prepared replies, are in ibid, pt 1:572-78, and

in New York Times, 12 Jun 53. For press commentary, see also Wall Street Journal

(letters column), 19 Jun 53; Washington Times Herald, 26 May 53; Nashville Banner,

23 May 53. Correspondence and papers on DoD staffing of the questionnaire are in

fldr CD I I I (1954) 1953, box 19, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953. See also fldr Budget

May-Jun 53, OSD Hist.

22. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, pt 1:33-67 passim.

23. New York Herald Tribune, 27 May 53; Washington Times Herald, 26 May 53.

24. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, pt 1:159-218; Peter Edson, Washington Daily News, 6 Jun

53; Robert Armstrong, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 21 Jun 53.
694 Notes to Pages 98-113

25. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, pt 1:160-64.

26. Ibid, 175-80, 194-95, 207-10; HSCA, Air Force Hearings, 1954, 245-46, 260-62, 276-77.

27. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, pt 1:164-217, esp 179,192,210-11.

28. HSCA,Air Force Hearings, 1954,304-05; SSCA,DoD Hearings, 1954, pt 1:170-73,190-91.

29. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, pt 1: 199-200; HSCA, Air Force Hearings, 1954, 258-60.

30. HSCA, Air Force Hearings, 1954, 281, 284-88 (quote, 284).

31. Ibid, 284, 289 (quote), 292, 308.

32. Ibid, 244, 247-48, 251, 252 (quote), 255, 263, 288-89.

33. Ibid, 163 (quote), 244-45, 253 (quote), 257, 263.

34. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, pt 1:188.

35. Alfred Goldberg, ed, A History of the United States Air Force, 1907-1957, 156; SSCA,

DoD Hearings, 1954, pt 1:271-72.

36. Ibid, 360; Washington Post, 7 Jun 53.

37. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, pt 1:232,252 (quote).

38. Ibid, 232-42 (quote, 242), 298-300.

39. Ibid, 242-43, 282-83 (quote, 282), 367-72; HSCA, Air Force Hearings, 1954,978.

40. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, pt 1:231,272-74,276-77,317-18.

41. Ibid, 276, 318, 349, 353-54.

42. Ibid, 345-46, 349 (quote), 355.

43. Ibid, 306 (quote), 431-32.

44. Ibid, 435-38.

45. Ibid, 531-34, 543-47, 564-65 (quotes).

46. Ibid, 429, 441-42, 444-46, 500-04 (quotes, 442, 444).

47. Ibid, 460-64, 541-42 (quotes, 462, 464).

48. Ibid, 469-79, 550, 565-66 (quotes, 477, 478).

49. Ibid, 467-68, 511 (quotes), 552.

50. Ibid, 508, 526, 548, 557 (quotes, 508, 548).

51. Ltr Vandenberg to Sen Ferguson, 15 Jun 53, ibid, 307-08 (quote, 307).

52. Ltr Wilson to Sen Ferguson, 19 Jun 53, ibid, 309-13 (quote, 309).

53. HSCA, Air Force Hearings, 1954,977,984 (quote).

54. Ibid, 976-77.

55. H Rpt No 680,27 Jun 53,2,45.

56. Ibid, 49-53.

57. Cong Rec, House, 83 Cong, 1 sess, 1953, pt 6:7730.

58. Ibid, 7732-33, 7809, 7955-56. Mahon's amendment provided for the addition of $1.175

billion, including all of Vandenberg's $1.435 billion "wish list" except the military construction item, which was covered in a separate supplementary appropriations bill.

59. Ibid, 7808-09, 7955-56. See also speeches of Representatives Holifield and Yorty, ibid,

7943-44.

60. Ltr Eisenhower to Scrivner, 30 Jun 53, ibid, 7817.

61. Ibid, 7956-57, 7977-78; Harold B. Hinton, New York Times, 3 Jul 53, wi table "House

Vote on Air Force Funds." See also Edward A. Kolodziej, The Uncommon Defense and

Congress, 1945-1963, 166-79.

62. Symington had sought unsuccessfully to have budget witnesses interrogated by his committee (Cong Rec, Senate, 83 Cong, 1 sess, pt 7:9483). See also S Rpt No 601, 17 Jul 53,

12-19; OSD(C) table, Congressional Action on Basic FY 1954 Budget Request, 1 May 56,

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

63. Cong Rec, Senate, 83 Cong, 1 sess, pt 7:9466 (quote), 9472-73; Hinton, New York Times,

24 Jul 53; Drew Pearson, Washington Post, 7 Jun 53; Human Events, 17 Jun 53.

64. Table, Congressional Action on Basic FY 1954 Budget Request, 1 May 56, cited in n 62;

Cong Rec, Senate, 83 Cong, 1 sess, pt 8: 10252-58, 10339-49.

65. PL 179-83, 1 Aug 53.
Notes to Pages 114-20 695

VI. DEBATING DEFENSE OF THE CONTINENTAL VITALS

1. NSC 141, Report by the Secretaries of State and Defense and the Director for Mutual

Security on Reexamination of U.S. Programs for National Security, 19 Jan 53, FRUS

1952-54, II, pt 1:214; memo JCS for SecDef, 12 Feb 53, cited in Robert J. Watson, The

joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, 1953-1954, 116. See also memo DirPolPlng

Stf (Nitze) for SecState, 12 Jan 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:202·05.

2. This summary is based primarily on Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,111-16.

See also Goldberg, History of the United States Air Force, 129-37; "Military ProgramAir Defense" in Key Data Book (extracts), encl to memo ExecSecNSC for Pres, 5 Nov

52, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:168-69; R&D Board paper, "Continental U.S. Air Defense

System," atchd to memo Chmn RDB for SecDef, 10 Apr 53, copy in fIdr Cont Def 1953,

OSD Hist.

3. ADC study, "The Cost and Effectiveness of the Defense of the United States against

Air Attack, 1952-57," 16 Feb 53, fIdr Cont Def NSC 159, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist.

4. The Summer Study Group's report was a synthesis of work done in 1951 and 1952

(Project Charles) at the Lincoln Laboratory, which had been established in September 1951 to study the technical problems of air defense. See Samuel P. Huntington,

The Common Defense: Strategic Programs in National Politics, 329; memo Carlton

Savage (PolPlngStf, State), 10 Feb 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:231-34; Watson, jCS and

National Policy 1953-54, 116-17; Joseph and Stewart Alsop, The Reporter's Trade,

59-61.

5. Watson, jCS and National Policy 1953-54, 117-18; NSC 139, FRUS 1952-54, VI, pt 2:

2063-64; memo SecDef for SvcSecs and JCS, 4 Dec 52, fIdr Cont Def 1953, OSD

Hist; memcon Savage, 11 Feb 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:234-35; for the Summer Study

Group, see especially R&D Board paper, "Continental U.S. Air Defense System," cited in

n 2,14-17.

6. NSC 140, 19 Jan 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:205-08; Watson,jCS and National Policy

1953-54, 116-19. The Edwards Committee comprised representatives of the JCS, CIA,

Interdepartmental Intelligence Conference, and Interdepartmental Committee on

Internal Security.

7. Ed note, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:56-57; NSC 135/1 Annex, NSC Staff Study on Reappraisal

of U.S. Objectives and Strategy for National Security, 22 Aug 52, ibid, 89-113 (quote, 111).

8. NSC 141, 19 Jan 53, ibid, 210-11, 213-14; memo DirPolPlngStf for SecState, 12 Jan 53,

ibid, 202-05 (quote, 203).

9. Memo Savage, 10 Feb 53, ibid, 231-34 (quote, 231); Watson,jCS and National Policy

1953-54, 118. In March, however, the chiefs conceded the need for allocating more

resources to continental defense, affirming that there could be "no reduction in the

commitment to defend the United States against disaster," even if this meant "some

modification of the policies pertaining to other areas." See memo by Nitze and Savage,

6 May 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:318-23 (quote, 320).

10. Memo of disc at 131st NSC mtg, 11 Feb 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:236-37; Murphy,

"The Eisenhower Shift, III," Fortune (Mar 56), 11Off; Watson, jCS and National Policy

1953-54, 119.

11. Memo of disc at 149th NSC mtg, 9 Jun 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:373-78; NSC 149/2,

29 Apr 53, pt 1, par 6a(3), ibid, 308; James M. Eglin, Air Defense in the Nuclear Age:

The Post-War Development ofAmerican and Soviet Strategic Defense Systems, 117-19;

memo by Nitze and Savage, 6 May 53, cited in n 9.

12. DoD Ad Hoc Study Group Report, wi cover Itr to SecDef, 11 May 53, DoD press release,

3 Jun 53: fIdr Cont Def NSC 159, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; Watson, jCS and

National Policy 1953-54, 119-20. According to Watson, the report was apparently not

submitted to the NSC although Wilson told Dr. Kelly, in his letter thanking him, that

he expected to make it available to the council.

13. DoD Ad Hoc Study Group Report, cited in n 12, esp 17-18.
696 Notes to Pages 120-29

14. Ibid, 11,20-21.

15. Ibid, 9-14; DoD press release, 3 Jun 53, cited in n 12; Baltimore Sun, 18 Mar 53; New

York Herald Tribune, 16 Mar 53.

16. Washington Post, 29 May 53; DoD press release, 3 Jun 53, cited in n 12.

17. Memo of disc at 148th NSC mtg, 4 Jun 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:367-70 (quotes, 369);

NSC 140/1, wi rel corres, ibid, 328-49 (quote, 333), 355-60.

18. Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 121 and 381, n 35; Huntington, Common

Defense, 289-90, 330-41; memo of disc at 163d NSC mtg, 24 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54, II,

pt 1:465, n 2.

19. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 126.

20. Ibid, 118, n 22.

21. The ensuing discussion of the Bull report is based on ibid, 121-25.

22. "Brief on NSC Meeting," 6 Aug 53, in "Notes on Planning Board Meeting," fldr Cont Def

1953, OSD Hist.

23. ADC study, cited in n 3; memo AsstCompN for ASD(C), 18 Sep 53, fldr Cont Def NSC

159, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

24. Memo Garlock for MajGen James McCormack, 10 Mar 53, ibid.

25. OSD paper, "Expenditure Estimate for Continental Defense," 29 Sep 53, OSD charts,

Continental Defense, Financial Annex, 18 and 23 Sep 53: ibid.

26. Memo Bradley for SecDef, 4 Aug 53, cited in Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-

54,127.

27. NSC Action 873,6 Aug 53, cited in ibid.

28. Memo of disc at 160th NSC mtg, 27 Aug 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; Alice C. Cole et

aI, "History of Strategic Arms Competition, 1945-72: Chronology," III (USSR), 35, OSD

Hist; David Holloway, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (2d ed), 24-26.

29. Joseph Alsop, New York Herald Tribune, 24 Aug 53.

30. Washington Post, 22 Aug 53; Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 127-28;

Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953,617-18.

31. Memo Pres for SecState, 8 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:460-63. See David A.

Rosenberg's discussion of this in "The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and

American Strategy, 1945-60," International Security (Spring 83), 3-71.

32. Memo of disc at 163d NSC mtg, 24 Sep 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL. The extract in

FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:464-75, omits these remarks.

33. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 127 and n 63.

34. Memo JCS for SecDef, 28 Aug 53, fldr CD 381 (Nat Sec), Def Exec Off, CenDec Files

1953. The chiefs were vague as to how priorities should be used ("only as a guide

for bringing all programs into alignment").

35. Unsgd OSD paper (by "CHB"), "Continental Defense," 23 Sep 53, prep for SecDef for

use at 163d NSC mtg, 24 Sep 53, fldr Cont Def NSC 159, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Rist. For Operation "Candor" see Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 189-

91, and Huntington, Common Defense, 336-38.

36. Memo McNeil for Nash, 19 Sep 53, fldr Cont Def NSC 159, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist;Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,129, citing NSC 159/3,16 Sep 53.

37. Memo JCS for SecDef, 22 Sep 53, fldr CD 381 (Nat Sec), Def Exec Off, CenDec Files

1953, OSD Hist.

38. Memo of disc at 163d NSC mtg, 24 Sep 53, extract in FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:464-75;

Baltimore Sun, 25 Sep 53; James Reston, New York Times, 25 Sep 53; Watson, ]CS

and National Policy 1953-54, 129-30; unsgd OSD paper for SecDef, "Continental

Defense," 23 Sep 53, cited in n 35.

39. FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:464-75.

40. Ibid, 470-71; editorial, "Prelude to Candor," Washington Post, 23 Sep 53; Joseph and

Stewart Alsop, Washington Post, 6 Sep 53.

41. NSC 159/4, 25 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:475-89; Watson, ]CS and National

Policy 1953-54, 129-30; unsgd OSD paper for SecDef, "Continental Defense," 23 Sep

53, cited in n 35.

42. Reston, New York Times, 25 Sep 53; Alsops, Washington Post, 6 Sep 53.
Notes to Pages 13'0-38 697

43. Henry T. Simmons, Wall Street journal, 23 Nov 53.

44. Memo Cutler for SecDef, 28 Oct 53, fldr Cant Def NSC 159, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist.

45. NSC 159/4,25 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:479.

46. Ibid, 478-79.

47. See corres in fldr Cant Def NSC 159, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; Simmons,

Wall Street journal, 23 Nov 53; Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 129-31.

48. Memo of disc at 172d NSC mtg, 23 Nov 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; memo JCS for Sec

Def, 21 Nov 53, cited in Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 132, n 84; memos

McNeil for SecDef, 13, 19 Nov 53, fldr Cant Def NSC 159, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist.

49. Memo of disc cited in n 48.

50. Ltr Cutler to Kyes, 24 Nov 53, wi atchd MFR 23 Nov 53, fldr CD 381 (Cant Def) 23 Nov

53, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953. See also memo McNeil for Kyes, 30 Nov 53, MFR

Col C.H. Bonesteel III, 7 Dec 53: fldr Cant Def NSC 159, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist.

51. NSC 159/4, 25 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:483-84, paras 15a and b. A long list of

smaller programs was also to attain a high state of readiness in two years; see MFR

Cutler, 23 Nov 53, Itr Cutler to Kyes, 25 Nov 53, w/atchd paper dtd 24 Nov 53: fldr CD

381 (Cant Def) 23 Nov 53, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

52. Paper, 24 Nov 53, atchd to Cutler Itr 25 Nov 53, cited in n 51. Cutler's assessment of

the likelihood of a Soviet attack was substantially that given in NIE-99, Estimate of

the World Situation through 1955,23 Oct 53, in FRUS 1952c54, II, pt 1:551-62.

53. Memo McNeil for Kyes, 30 Nov 53, cited in n 50.

54. Sources cited in n 50; NSC 159/4,25 Sep 53, par 8, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:480-81.

55. MFR Bonesteel, 7 Dec 53, cited in n 50; NSC 159/4,25 Sep 53, par 2, FRUS 1952-54, II,

pt 1:477.

56. Memo of disc at 176th NSC mtg, 16 Dec 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

57. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954, 12; NSC 5408, 11 Feb 54, par 8d, FRUS 1952-54, II,

pt 1:616. See Mark Watson, Baltimore Sun, 8 Jan 54; Lloyd Norman, Washington Times

Herald, 8 Jan 54.

58. Memo AssocDirBoB for DASD(C), 18 Jan 54, wi OSD table, Estimated Phasing of and

Expenditure for DoD Continental Defense Programs, 12 Feb 54, and charts atchd to

paper, "Oral Presentation by ClCS for SecDef to NSC on Continental Defense," nd, fldr

Cant Def NSC 159, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; Watson, jCS and National

Policy 1953-54, 130-33.

59. NSC 5408, 11 Feb 54, passim, esp par 2, 3, 5, 8, 16b, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:609-24. Circulated by the Planning Board on 11 February, NSC 5408 was discussed and approved by

the NSC on the 17th. See Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,135.

60. OSD table, Estimated Phasing ..., cited in n 58.

61. Goldberg, History of the United States Air Force, 133-37; OSD paper, "Oral Presentation by ClCS for SecDef to NSC ...," cited in n 58.

62. Memo Bonesteel for ASD(C) et ai, [3 Feb 54], ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

63. Goldberg, History of the United States Air Force, 133, 208-09; OSD table, Army Antiaircraft Battalions, Projected End FY 1956 Position, 12 Feb 54, atchd to paper, "Oral

Presentation by ClCS for SecDef to NSC ...," cited in n 58.

64. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955, 86.

65. Memo of disc at 180th NSC mtg, 14 Jan 54, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL;Watson,jCS and

National Policy 1953-54, 135.

66. Memo of disc at 185th NSC mtg, 17 Feb 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:624-33.
698 Notes to Pages 140-46

VII. ECONOMY AND STRATEGY DECOUPLED: THE OCTOBER 1953 BUDGET CRISIS

1. Ltr Dodge to SecArmy, 20 May 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist.

2. Memo Dodge, sub: The budget problem and the tax program, rev 8 Jul 53, untitled fldr,

ibid; table, Fiscal Year 1955 Forecast Related to Original 1954 Truman Budget, 27 May

53, and other papers in fldr CD 111 (1955), box 19, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

3. Memo Dodge, 8 Jul 53, cited in n 2.

4. Ibid; President's Special Message to Congress Recommending Tax Legislation, 20 May

53, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953,318-26; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 201-02.

5. Memo Dodge, 8 Jul 53, cited in n 2.

6. BoB staff paper, "Tentative FY 1955 Expenditure Level Forecast," 10 Jul 53, and

related papers in fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; table,

Fiscal Year 1955 Forecast Related to Original 1954 Truman Budget, cited in n 2.

7. Table, Budget Outlook Fiscal Years 1953-58, 10 Jun 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; paper, "Assumptions Underlying FY 1955 Expenditure

Estimate," 9 Jul 53, table, Expenditures for Military Functions of DoD: fldr Status Rpts

(NSC 142, 5430, 5509, 5525) Mil Prog, Pt I, ibid.

8. Paper, "Assumptions Underlying FY 1955 Expenditure Estimate," cited in n 7.

9. Ltr Dodge to SecDef, 10 Jul 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget,ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

10. Paper, "Assumptions and Policies for Preparation of 1955 Budget," atchd to Itr Dodge to

SecDef, 10 Jul 53, ibid.

11. Memo McNeil for SecDef, 13 Jul 53, memo Garlock for McNeil, 13 Jul 53: ibid.

12. Memo of disc at 154th NSC mtg, 14 Jul 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; memo Glass for Sec

Def (ca 3 Aug 53), atchd to memo Mautz for McNeil, 20 Aug 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget,

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist. Not all the figures used in this paragraph appear

in the summary of the NSC meeting; the Glass memo contains additional figures

describing the "BoB approach" to the FY 1955 budget problem. The latter figures have

been used to flesh out the summary of the NSC meeting, along with those in the

10 July BoB tables, on the assumption that they were probably used in Dodge's

presentation. It is not clear in the summary from which figure the $12 billion was to

be subtracted; the Glass memo states it was to be taken from the security program

expenditures in the revised FY 1954 budget.

13. Memo of disc at 154th NSC mtg, 14 Jul 53, cited in n 12.

14. Ltr Wilson to Dodge, 23 Jul 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist.

15. Chart, "Expenditures for Military Functions of DoD, FY 1954-55, Estimated on Basis

of Procurement Programs Under Way and Financed," nd, fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

16. The figures Garlock used can be found in the table, An Approach to the FY 1955

Budget Based on Estimated 1955 Revenue, 14 Aug 53, ibid.

17. Ltr Pres to SecDef, 6 Aug 53, ibid.

18. Memo Marion T. Boggs, 24 Jul 53, FRUS 1952-54, XV, pt 2:1426-27.

19. Ibid, 1421-22.

20. Under the apportionment process, BoB was· authorized to determine what obligations

might be incurred by agencies within a congressional appropriation. See BoB paper,

"Approach to 1954 and 1955 Expenditures-DoD," nd, fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and

DepSecDef files, OSD Rist.

21. Dodge paper, "A Few Notes of Concern About the 1955 Budget and Legislative

Problems," 5 Aug 53, ibid.

22. Memo SecDef for SvcSecs and ASD(C), 12 Aug 53, w/atchd Itr Pres to SecDef, 6 Aug 53,

ibid. The president's letter had been read the day before at a meeting of the Armed

Forces Policy Council. For discussion of the JCS report to the preSident, dated 8 August

1953, see memo of disc at 160th NSC mtg, 27 Aug 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:444-55.

23. Department of Defense Fact Book, 1985, 38-39.

24. News Conf, 14 May 53, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953,293.
Notes to Pages 146-56 699

25. Snyder, "New Look," 413. See especially Senator Taft's remarks in "Notes on Legislative Leadership Meeting," 30 Apr 53, Legis ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

26. Taft and the other Republican leaders wanted the review to be completed by 1 August.

See Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 15-17, n 69, n 74; Snyder, "New Look,"

411-15; Ridgway, Soldier, 267.

27. Memo Pres for SecDef, 1 Jul 53, in Louis Galambos et ai, eds, The Papers of DWight

David Eisenhower, XIV, 355.

28. Ibid.

29. Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 11-14; FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:323-26, 349-

54, 360-66, 387-440; Snyder, "New Look," 406-08; Richard H. Immerman, "Confessions

of an Eisenhower Revisionist: An AgoniZing Reappraisal," Diplomatic History (Summer

90), 335-42.

30. Memo Pres for SecState, 20 May 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:349-54; Snyder, "New

Look," 409.

31. Memo Pres for CJCS, 20 May 53, memo Wilson for SvcSecs, 27 May 53, wi other Solarium

papers: fldr CD 210.6 (Solarium Proj) 1953, box 19, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953;

Snyder, "New Look," 409;Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54,12-13,21.

32. See "Summaries Prepared by NSC Staff of Project Solarium," nd, atchd to memo Exec

Sec for NSC, 22 Jul 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:399-434; Watson, ]CS and National

Policy 1953-54, 12-13.

33. Memo of disc at 155th NSC mtg, 16 Jul 53, and Annex, memo by SpecAsst to Pres for

NSC Affairs, 16 Jul 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:394-98.

34. Summary of Points Made in Discussion Following Presentation by Task Forces July 16,

1953, memo of disc at 157th NSC mtg, 30 Jul 53, memo by Cutler, 31 Jul 53: FRUS

1952-54, II, pt 1:432-41.

35. Memo of disc at 157th NSC mtg, 30 Jul 53, ibid, 440-41; memo Bradley for SecDef,

sub: Solarium Project, 28 Jul 53, fldr CD 210.6 (Solarium Proj) 1953, box 19, Def Exec

Off, CenDec Files 1953.

36. NSC 153/1, Restatement of Basic National Security Policy, 10 Jun 53, wi associated

papers, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:372-86;Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54,9-10.

37. Memo Pres for SecDef, 1 Jul 53, cited in n 27.

38. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 8 Aug 53, fldr 1953, Wilson Mise files 1953-57, Ace

63A-1768.

39. Memo of disc at 154th NSC mtg, 14 Jul 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

40. Memo Twining for Radford, Ridgway, and Carney, 20 Jul 53, quoted in Watson, ]CS

and National Policy 1953-54,17.

41. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953,388; News Conf, 30 Apr 53, ibid, 239; Gleason memos

of disc at NSC mtgs on 31 Mar, 6, 13,20 May 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

42. Memo Radford for SecDef, 8 Aug 53, cited in n 38.

43. Memo of disc at 160th NSC mtg, 27 Aug 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:447.

44. Memo McNeil for SecDef, 9 Sep 53, sched atchd to memo Cutler for DirBoB, 3 Sep 53:

fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

45. This analysis of Dodge's thinking is, in part, inferred from his actions and tactics at

this stage of the budget preparation and from a few documentary sources, particularly his memo to the president. See memo Dodge for Pres, 9 Sep 53, Admin ser, PP

(AWF), DDEL.

46. Memo McNeil for SecDef, 9 Sep 53, memo Cutler for DirBoB, 3 Sep 53: cited in n 44.

47. Memo Dodge for Pres, 9 Sep 53, cited in n 45; memo Wilson for CJCS, 16 Sep 53, fldr

CD 111 (1955) 1953, box 19, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953; sched atchd to Itr

Dodge to Wilson, 23 Sep 53, memo Wilson for ASD(C), 28 Sep 53: fldr FY 1955 Budget,

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

48. Tables atchd to memo Radford for SecDef, sub: Budget request for FY 1955, 2 Oct 53,

fldr CD 111 (1955), box 19, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953;Watson,jCS and National

Policy 1953-54,64-65 and tables 5 and 6, 81-82.

49. Memo Radford for SecDef, 2 Oct 53, cited in n 48; Watson, ]CS and National Policy

1953-54,65,82-84.

50. Memo of disc at 164th NSC mtg, 1 Oct 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.
700 Notes to Pages 156-71

51. Memo J.H. Cooper for Garlock, 8 Oct 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef

files, OSD Hist.

52. Memo Wilson for ASD(C), 8 Oct 53, fldr CD 111 (1955), box 19, Def Exec Off, CenDec

Files 1953; table, Estimated New Obligational Authority and Expenditures for FY 195,5,

9 Oct 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

53. Memo of disc at 160th NSC mtg, 27 Aug 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:444-54.

54. Ibid; memo Eisenhower for SecState, 8 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:446,452; memo

of disc at 161st NSC mtg, 9 Sep 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

55. Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54,21.

56. NSC 162, Review of Basic National Security, 30 Sep 53, wi covering note by ExecSec

NSC, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:489-514 (quotes, 509); Watson, ]CS and National Policy

1953-54,22-23 (NSC 162 was a revision of NSC 153/1, the last approved BNSP paper);

memo H.D. Farley, sub: Discussion at 162d NSC meeting, 17 Sep 53, memo of disc at

164th NSC mtg, 1 Oct 53: NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

57. Memo of disc at 165th NSC mtg, 7 Oct 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:526-27.

58. FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:505, 510-16;Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54,21-22.

59. Memo of disc at 165th NSC mtg, 7 Oct 53, FRUS 1953-54, II, pt 1:519-20; Watson,jCS

and National Policy 1953-54, 22.

60. Memo of disc at 164th NSC mtg, 1 Oct 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

61. Memo of disc at 166th NSC mtg, 13 Oct 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:537,541-42.

62. Ibid, 543.

63. Ibid,543-47.

64. Memo of disc at 165th NSC mtg, 7 Oct 53, ibid, 526-29; NSC 162, ibid, 508.

65. Memo of disc at 166th NSC mtg, 13 Oct 53, ibid, 546.

66. Memo of disc at 165th NSC mtg, 7 Oct 53, ibid, 533.

67. Memo of disc at 166th NSC mtg, 13 Oct 53, ibid, 545-49.

68. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs, 16 Oct 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist; Snyder, "New Look," 428-29.

69. Memo Wilson for ExecSecNSC, 27 Oct 53, memo Dodge for SecDef, 19 Oct 53: fldr CD

III (1955) 1953, box 19, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953; memo McNeil for SvcSecs,

21 Oct 53, fldr FY1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

70. On 25 October the New York Times noted: "the Joint Chiefs ... had completed their

part of the task of devising the next annual budget. From now on the budget will be

the work of the civilian budget experts in the Defense Department."

71. Memo Wilson for JCS, 16 Oct 53, fldr 1953, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1768;

memo Wilson for ExecSecNSC, 27 Oct 53, cited in n 69.

72. Memo Pres for Cutler, 21 Oct 53, in Galambos et ai, Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, XlV, 589-90.

VIII. CUTTING MANPOWER

1. Memo Eisenhower for Cutler, 21 Oct 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; memo Garlock for

McNeil, 24 Oct 53, memo Hannah for Kyes, 15 Dec 53, memo Stevens for SecDef,

27 Oct 53: fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

2. Memo Stevens for SecDef, 27 Oct 53, cited in n 1.

3. Memo Wilson for SecArmy, 29 Oct 53, memo Wilson for SecNavy, 29 Oct 53: fldr FY

1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

4. Memo of disc at 168th NSC mtg, 29 Oct 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:567-76; NSC 162/2,

Basic National Security Policy, 30 Oct 53, par 39b, ibid, 593.

5. Memo Dodge for Pres, 4 Nov 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

6. Memo Pres for DirBoB, 5 Nov 53, ibid.

7. Pres MFR, 11 Nov 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:597-98; msg Hull to JCS, 4 Nov 53, ibid,

Xv, pt 2:1588-89.

8. Pres MFR, 11 Nov 53, cited in n 7.

9. Memo Veatch for DirBoB, 19 Nov 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist; Edwin L. Dale, Jr., New York Herald Tribune, 21 Oct 53.
Notes to Pages 172-85 701

10. Memo Veatch for DirBoB, 19 Nov 53, cited in n 9.

11. Ibid; Itr Dodge to Kyes, 27 Nov 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

12. Memo Dodge for Pres, 30 Nov 53, ibid.

13. Excerpts from Radio and TV Commentators, 20 Nov 53, excerpts from Current News,

20,23,25 Nov 53: Current News file, Nov 53, OSD Hist; Stewart Alsop, Washington Post,

6 Dec 53; Drew Pearson, Washington Post, 25 Nov 53; Mark Watson, Baltimore Sun,

25 Nov 53; Hanson Baldwin, New York Times, 23 Nov 53. The Journal article was cited

and summarized in a CBS news broadcast of 22 Nov 53.

14. John G. Norris, Washington Post, 26 Nov 53.

15. Watson, Baltimore Sun, 29 Nov 53.

16. Memo Stevens for SecDef, 5 Dec 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSDand DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist.

17. Memo Pres for DirBoB, 1 Dec 53, Itr Dodge to SecDef, 4 Dec 53: PP(AWF), DDEL.

18. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953,809.

19. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs, 4 Dec 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist.

20. Memo Stevens for SecDef, 5 Dec 53, ibid.

21. Washington Post, 9 Dec 53.

22. The BoB 19 November estimates stated $36.2 billion as the spending limit for a Defense

budget necessary to "meet our budget goal for 1955." See memo Veatch for DirBoB,

19 Nov 53, cited in n 9.

23. Baldwin, New York Times, 13 Dec 53; WaIter Millis, New York Herald Tribune, 17 Dec

53; Washington Post, 15 Dec 53.

24. Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54,229-31.

25. Memo of disc at 173d NSC mtg, 3 Dec 53, ERUS 1952-54, XV; pt 2:1636-44 (quotes,

1643, 1644).

26. Memo of disc at 174th NSC mtg, 10 Dec 53, ibid, V; pt 1:452-54. The president made

the public announcement on 26 December (Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953,860"61).

27. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs, 11 Dec 53, memo Hannah for SvcSecs, 11 Dec 53, memo

Hannah for Kyes, 15 Dec 53: fldr FY 1955 Budget,ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

See also HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955,8-9.

28. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955,9.

29. Ibid, 282-83.

30. Ridgway, Soldier, 286-88, 303-04 (quote).

31. Watson, Baltimore Sun, 22 Dec 58; Millis, New York Herald Tribune, 22 Dec 53.

32. The record of the actual decision has not been found, and Robert Watson, in noting it

in his JCS history, merely cites Snyder's "New Look." See Watson, JCS and National

Policy 1953-54, 68, n 57. The formal NSC action regarding withdrawal of two divisions from Korea, following the meeting of3 December, made no reference to the

eventual inactivation of the divisions. See NSC Action 972d., 3 Dec 53, included in

memo of disc at 173d NSC mtg, 3 Dec 53, ERUS 1952-54, XV; pt 2:1636-44.

33. Memo SecDef for SecArmy and SecNavy, atchmt 3, 19 Dec 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget,

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

IX. CONTAINMENT'S NEW TESTAMENT

1. NSC 162/2, Basic National Security Policy, 30 Oct 53, ERUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:577c97.

2. See Chapter VII.

3. Watson,jCSand National Policy 1953-54,21-24; ERUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:489-597.

4. See Chapter VII.

5. See the interpretation of Robert Bowie, director of State's Policy Planning Staff, to the

effect that the revised paper involved "some acceptance" of the Treasury-Budget view,

in accordance With "views expressed by the President," in order to "mollify Treasury"

(memo DirPolPlngStf for SecState, 28 Oct 53, ERUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:565-67). Watson,

JCS and National Policy 1953-54, 24, on the other hand, interprets the compromise

as largely favoring the JCS position.
702 Notes to Pages 186-204

6. NSC 162,30 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 1:491-514 (quotes, 510).

7. NSC 162/2, 30 Oct 53, ibid, par 19-29, 588-89.

8. Ibid, par 2-8, 578-81.

9. Ibid, par 15b, 585.

10. Ibid, par 16, 586-87.

11. Ibid, par 17-18, 587-88.

12. Ibid, par 12-13, 583-84.

13. Ibid, par 12d, 36d and e, 37, 584, 592-93; see also memo DirPolPlngStf for SecState,

28 Oct 53, cited in n 5, 566.

14. NSC 162/2, 30 Oct 53, ibid, 591.

15. NSC 162, 30 Sep 53, ibid, 494, 534, 562-64; Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,

22-23.

16. Memo of disc at 168th NSC mtg, 29 Oct 53, FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 1:569-73.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid, 573-74. The president's concession was formalized in NSC Action 944, 30 Oct 53,

ibid, 577. Subsequently the president made a further concession by ruling that the

phrase "offensive striking power" should be interpreted to include all offensive forces,

including aircraft carriers. See Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54, 23-24.

19. Memo of disc at 168th NSC mtg, 29 Oct 53, FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 1:574.

20. For a roster of those present, see ibid, 567.

21. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955, 15 Mar 54, 25, 67; Annual Budget Message to the Congress,

21 Jan 54, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954, 123; Snyder, "New Look," 458.

22. Most analyses of Ridgway's role in the New Look rely heavily, as this study does, on

the last few chapters of his 1956 memoir Soldier, published soon after his retirement.

23. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1955,8 Feb 54,43-44; Ridgway, Soldier, 304, 293; Watson,JCS

and National Policy 1953-54, 33-34; Snyder, "New Look," 481.

24. Ridgway, Soldier, 296 (quote), 298-99.

25. Ibid, 289-90.

26. NSC 162/2,30 Oct 53, FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 1:594-95.

27. Ibid, 595; memo of disc at 168th NSC mtg, 29 Oct 53, ibid, 569.

28. NSC 162, 30 Sep 53, ibid, 508-09.

29. Ibid, 509n; memo of disc at 165th NSC mtg, 7 Oct 53, ibid, 532-34.

30. Memo of disc at 166th NSC mtg, 13 Oct 53, ibid, 545-47; NSC 162/2, 30 Oct 53, ibid,

par 39b (quote, 593). The quoted statement was carried over intact from NSC 162/1.

31. Memo Radford for Dulles, 13 Oct 53, fldr 1953, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc

63A-1768.

32. See Chapter VIII.

33. Memo Radford for Dulles, 13 Oct 53, cited in n 31.

34. NSC 162,30 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 1:508-09.

35. Memo of disc at 165th NSC mtg, 7 Oct 53, ibid, 526-28; NSC 162/2, 30 Oct 53, ibid, 593.

36. Memo of disc at 168th NSC mtg, 29 Oct 53, ibid, 570-73.

37. Memo SecState for Pres, 21 Oct 53, ibid, 549-50; James Reston, New York Times, 21 Oct

53; Snyder, "New Look," 436; Army-Navy-Air Force Journal, 24 Oct 53; Whitman Diary,

20 Oct 53, fldr Aug-Sep-Oct 1953 (2), PP(AWF), DDEL.

38. Ltr Dulles to Wilson, 9 Dec 53, fldr 1953, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Ace 63A-1768;

memo of disc at 174th NSC mtg, 10 Dec 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:450-51.

39. See Chapter VIII.

40. Memo of disc at 168th NSC mtg, 29 Oct 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; extract in FRUS

1952-54, 11, pt 1:567-76.

41. Ibid; Huntington, Common Defense, 80-81.

42. Memo USecState (Smith) for Pres, 3 Dec 53, FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 2:607-08.

43. Memo of disc at 173d NSC mtg, 3 Dec 53, ibid, Xv, pt 2: 1636-45 (quote, 1640).

44. Memo of disc at 174th NSC mtg, 10 Dec 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; extract in FRUS

1952-54, Xv, pt 2:1653-55.
Notes to Pages 205-18 703

X. THE NEW LOOK TAKES FORM

1. Memo SecDef for C]CS, 16 Oct 53, fldr 1953, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A1768; memo of disc at 166th NSC mtg, 13 Oct 53, FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 1:543.

2. Memo SecDef for C]CS, 16 Oct 53, cited in n 1.

3. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,28; Snyder, "New Look," 440.

4. See fldr 2 Oct & Everest Committee Costing, 14 Nov 53, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist; Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 28-29.

5. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 29-30.

6. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957, 610. Ridgway referred here to the total armed forces

strength finally approved, 2,815,000.

7. Table, Projection of Federal Budget Receipts and Expenditures FY 1954-57, fldr 2 Oct

& Everest Committee Costing, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

8. Table, Estimated Expenditures Necessary to Maintain Level-off Forces of 2,750,000

Military Personnel, 14 Nov 53, ibid;Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,30.

9. Table, Estimated Expenditures ..., 14 Nov 53, cited in n 8.

10. Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 28-30. For Ridgway's views, see memo

Ridgway for SecArmy, 9 Dec 53, fldr 1953, Wilson Misc files 1953-57,Acc 63A-1768;

memo SecArmy for SecDef, 9 Dec 53, ibid.

11. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 30; Snyder, "New Look," 454.

12. Memo Radford for SecDef, 9 Dec 53, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

13. See table, Estimated Expenditures ..., 14 Nov 53, cited in n 8; SCAS, Study of

Airpower, 21 Jun 56, pt 19:1449.

14. Memo Radford for SecDef, 9 Dec 53, encl A, cited in n 12.

15. Ibid; Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,31-32. The JCS formalized the paper,

after several revisions, as JCS 2101/113,10 Dec 53.

16. Memo Radford for SecDef, 9 Dec 53, cited in n 12.

17. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957,8 Feb 56,610; HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955,51; see

also discussion in Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 33-34, and Snyder,

"New Look," 442-43, 453, 514-15.

18. Memo Ridgway for SecArmy, 9 Dec 53, cited in n 10.

19. Memo Stevens for SeeDef, 9 Dec 53, cited in n 10.

20. Memo Wilson for Pres, 11 Dec 53, PP(AWF), DDEL.

21. Memo of disc at 176th NSC mtg, 16 Dee 53, NSC ser, ibid.

22. Memo Stevens for SecDef, 17 Dec 53, w/atchd Memo for Presentation at NSC Meeting,

16 Dec 53, at 4:00 pm, fldr 1953, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1768. The

summary of the NSC meeting contains only a brief digest of Stevens's statement.

23. Memo of disc at 176th NSC mtg, 16 Dec 53, cited in n 21.

24. For all these, see Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,10-12,117-30,313-18.

25. Ibid, 12. The president made the same assertion in the budget message, ibid, 118-19.

26. Mark Watson, Baltimore Sun, 3 Dec 53; New York Times, 15 Dec 53; Warren Rogers,

Jr., Washington Post, 15 Dec 53.

27. DoD press release No. 1166-53, 14 Dec 53, Address to National Press Club. For news

analysis see articles in New York Times and Washington Post for 15 Dec 53, cited

in n 26.

28. New York Times, 15 Dec 53; Baltimore Sun, 3 Dec 53; DoD press release No. 1166-53,

14 Dec 53.

29. New York Herald Tribune, 13, 14 Jan 54. The State Department published Dulles's

speech under the title "Evolution of Foreign Policy," press release No.8, 12 Jan 54.

Excerpts from the speech are in Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955,

80-85.

30. "Evolution of Foreign Policy;' 1-4. The reference to "new weapons" was the only direct

one to atomic weapons in the speech.

31. "Evolution of Foreign Policy," 4-6.

32. State of the Union Message, 7 Jan 54, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,10.
704 Notes to Pages 220-30

33. "Evolution of Foreign Policy," 3, 8.

34. William Knighton, Jr., New York Times, 23 Jan 54; Chalmers Roberts, Washington Post,

13 Jan 54; Walter Waggoner, New York Times, 14 Jan 54; Baldwin, New York Times,

24 Jan 54; Millis, New York Herald Tribune, 14, 17 Jan 54; News Conf, 13 Jan 54,

Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,58-59.

35. Millis, New York Herald Tribune, 14, 19 Jan 54; Baldwin, New York Times, 15, 24 Jan

54; David Lawrence, New York Herald Tribune, 13 Jan 54; James Reston, New York

Times, 14 Jan 54; Elie Abel, ibid, 24 Jan 54.

36. Baltimore Sun, 1 Feb 54; Washington Post, 1 Feb 54.

37. Wilson Public Statements, 1954, 240, 252; Abel, New York Times, 3 Feb 54.

38. Joseph and Stewart Alsop, New York Herald Tribune, 31 Jan 54. One Izvestia article,

dated 19 Jan 54, was also commented on in Newsweek, 8 Feb 54.

39. Alsops, New York Herald Tribune, 15 Feb 54; New York Times, 16 Feb 54. The

Soviet bombers were described, with photographs, in the magazine Aviation Week,

15 Feb 54.

40. See Chapter XXIV.

41. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954, 247, 250, 253 (quote); Anthony Leviero, New York

Times, 11 Feb 54.

42. Reston, New York Times, 15 Feb 54.

43. u.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee (Historical Series), VI, 1954, 107-46; Reston, New York Times, 15,

16 Feb 54. For details of Smith's and Radford's testimony, see Chapter XXIV.

44. Robert S. Allen, New York Post, 15 Feb 54.

45. Quoted in editorial, "Defining the New Look," Washington Star, 18 Mar 54; Washington Post, 9 Mar 54; New York Herald Tribune, 11 Mar 54.

46. Homer Bigart, New York Herald Tribune, 10 Mar 54. Wilson spoke at a Pentagon

news conference, Radford before the Economic Club in New York, Anderson at the

annual forum of the Philadelphia Bulletin in that city.

47. Robert S. Bird, New York Herald Tribune, 10 Mar 54; Raymond J. Blair, ibid, 17 Mar 54;

SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955, 79-91 (quote, 89-90). For his earlier appearance before

the House Appropriations Subcommittee, Radford had simply read into the record the

speech he had given on 14 December.

48. New York Herald Tribune, 13 Mar 54.

49. News Conf, 10 Mar 54, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954, 306; Bigart, New York Herald

Tribune, 10 Mar 54; Reston, New York Times, 11 Mar 54 (Stevenson quote). Reston

believed that the president's reply was extemporaneous.

50. Reston, New York Times, 11 Mar 54.

51. New York Herald Tribune, 16 Mar 54.

52. Ned Russell, New York Herald Tribune, 17 Mar 54.

53. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,324-25; Robert J. Donovan, New York Herald Tribune,

18 Mar 54. For Dulles's reported remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,

see Russell, New York Herald Tribune, 20 Mar 54.

54. Editorial, "The 'New Look'," New York Times, 18 Mar 54; Lawrence, New York Herald

Tribune, 17 Mar 54; Blair, ibid, 17 Mar 54; editorial, "The Heart of the Problem," Wall

Street Journal, 18 Mar 54.

55. "Policy for Security and Peace," Foreign Affairs (Apr 54); State Dept press release No.

139, 16 Mar 54, 4-5.

56. State Dept press release No. 139, 16 Mar 54, 5-6,9; Russell, New York Herald Tribune,

20 Mar 54.

57. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,325; Donovan, New York Herald Tribune, 18 Mar 54.

58. Quoted by Millis, New York Herald Tribune, 18 Mar 54.

59. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954, 330-31.

60. Walter Lippmann, New York Herald Tribune, 18 Mar 54.

61. Millis, New York Herald Tribune, 14 Mar 54.

62. Ibid, 14, 18 (quote) Mar 54.
Notes to Pages 231-47 705

XI. CONGRESS AND THE NEW LOOK: FY 1955

1. Kolodziej, Uncommon Defense, 203-04.

2. Annual Budget Message to Congress: FY 1955, 21 Jan 54, Eisenhower Public Papers,

1954,79-83. On a cash basis, the new budget showed a small surplus.

3. Annual Budget Message, 120-21. Since the last budget, national security programs had

been redefined to include the stockpiling program for strategic and critical materials,

along with the Defense (military functions), military assistance (now labeled "mutual

military"), and atomic energy programs, but not economic and technical assistance,

which were covered under International Affairs and Finance.

4. Ibid, 120-21.

5. Ibid, 117-18, 122-23.

6. Ibid, 117 (quote), 120-21, 123, 147, 151.The Federal Civil Defense Program was funded

through agencies other than Defense.

7. Ibid, 122-25.

8. Ibid, 117, 122-24 (quotes, 117, 123). The president's conditional "may" in referring to

the number of Army divisions was technically correct in that the JCS had recommended

that the services not be held to the projected number of major combat units (14 Army

divisions) "if they can do better."

9. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955,333-40 (tables).

10. Ibid, 367.

11. Ibid, 337. In the Korean War budgets, larger appropriations than in FY 1955 had gone

to major procurement and production through FY 1953, and also to O&M in 1951

and 1952.

12. Ibid, 117.

13. Ibid, 257-58, 282-83, 309, 321-22.

14. Ibid, 26-27, 48-49, 259, 283, 285-86, 323.

15. Ibid, 28-29, 49-50; SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955, 182-83.

16. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955, 26-28, 116.

17. Ibid, 341-42.

18. Ibid, 16-17.

19. Ibid, 342.

20. Ibid, 5, 83, 257, 288.

21. Ibid, 343-44 (quote), 359.

22. Ibid, 17-40 passim. The problem was that no precise definition of management savings

existed, since the scope and boundaries of management itself were not precisely defined.

23. Ibid, 337 (table), 341-42, 367.

24. Ibid, 336, 337, 339.

25. Ibid, 339, 344.

26. Ibid, 337-38, 344-45.

27. Ibid, 345-47.

28. Elie Abel, New York Times, 24 Jan 54.

29. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955, 120-22 (quotes, 121).

30. HSCA, Air Force Hearings, 1955,74-80 (quotes, 78,80),82.

31. HSCA, Navy Hearings, 1955,37-43 (quote, 38).

32. Ibid, 70-75.

33. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1955,41-50; SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955,58-64 (quote, 59).

34. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1955,45; SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955,60.

35. HSCA,Army Hearings, 1955,44,48-49; SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955,58, 63; Walter Millis,

New York Herald Tribune, 25 Mar 54.

36. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1955,66-68,75.

37. Ibid, 54-55.

38. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1955, 71; William J. Humphreys, New York Herald Tribune,

20 Mar 54.

39. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1955, 56-57; HSCA, Air Force Hearings, 1955, 158. The Air

Force justified the reduction in troop carrier wings on the basis of modernization of

the 13 Air Reserve troop carrier wings.
706 Notes to Pages 248-57

40. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955, 84-85 (quotes), 86-89; HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955,60-63,

126-28.

41. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1955,44,53,73,78.

42. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955,58.

43. HSCA,Army Hearings, 1955,79-80.

44. Ibid. Stevens stipulated only that the Army not be assigned any additional responsibilities; he also omitted any stipulation regarding the materialization of the 12-

division German army, as the ]CS had done in their December recommendations

(SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955,56).

45. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1955,79-81 (quote, 79).

46. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955,43-44.

47. Ibid,81-85.

48. Ibid, 90-91; Cong Rec, 83 Cong, 2 sess, 1954, 100, pt 6:8341.

49. Ridgway read his statement to the House subcommittee and merely placed it in the

record for the Senate hearing. See HSCA, Army Hearings, 1955, 41-56; SSCA, DoD

Hearings, 1955,58-64 (quote, 63).

50. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1955,49,81; Ridgway, Soldier, 290.

51. H Rpt No 1545,26 Apr 54,2-3,14-15.

52. Ibid, 23.

53. Ibid,28-29.

54. Ibid, 30; HSCA, Navy Hearings, 1955,556 (table).

55. H Rpt No 1545,26 Apr 54,26-27.

56. Ibid, 34-35.

57. Ibid, 37-41, 51.

58. Cong Rec, 83 Cong, 2 sess, 1954, 100, pt 4:5663-95, pt 5:5741-82.

59. Ibid, pt 4:5671 (quote), 5684-85.

60. Sen. Barry Goldwater also spoke on 15 March in defense of the Air Force budget. See

Cong Rec, 83 Cong, 2 sess, 1954, 100, pt 3:3212-20.

61. Ibid, 4072-73 (quote), 4081.

62. Ibid, 4072-84 (quote, 4079).

63. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955, 94. Wilson's letter, addressed to Senator Ferguson, chairman of the Defense subcommittee, was dated 6 May 1954.

64. Cong Rec, 83 Cong, 2 sess, 1954, 100, pt 6:8020-21; S Rpt No 1582, II ]un 54, 1.

65. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954, 545-50 (quote, 550).

66. Cong Rec, 83 Cong, 2 sess, 100, pt 6:8321-31,8331-47.

67. Ibid, 8432-37, 8440-42.

68. Ibid,8447.

69. H Rpt No 1917, 23 Jan 54.

70. PL 458, 83 Cong, 30 ]un 54.

XII. BASIC STRATEGY AND THE FY 1956 BUDGET: PRESSURES TO EXPAND

1. Congress and the Nation, 338.

2. Ibid, 363; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 306.

3. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,318; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 305-06.

4. Memo McNeil for Wilson, 27 Mar 54, fldr NSC-BNSP FY 1956, ATSD and DepSecDef

files; memo of disc at 198th NSC mtg, 20 May 54, memo Hughes for Pres, IO May 54:

NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

5. Congress and the Nation, 363-64; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 304-07; Adams,

Firsthand Report, 160-65.

6. Congress and the Nation, 363, 388; US News & World Report, 24 Sep 54, 140, 142;

White House press release, 22 ]ul 54; William Knighton, ]r., Baltimore Sun, 15 Sep 54,

1. The figures from Congress and the Nation (including the actual deficit for FY 1955)

are corrected and refined, and thus probably more accurate than those in the contemporary sources cited.
Notes to Pages 258-67 707

7. Memo of disc at 198th NSC mtg, 20 May 54, cited in n 4; memo Hughes for Pres,

10 May 54, cited in n 4.

8. Memo of disc at 198th NSC mtg, 20 May 54, cited in n 4.

9. Ibid; Adams, Firsthand Report, 164, 168-69.

10. For development of .this program, the "strategy and posture" paper of 9 December

(JCS 2101/113), see Chapter X; Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,30-31.

11. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,70-71.

12. See memo Radford for SecDef, 19 Feb 54, fldr 1954-56, box 9, ASD(C) files, Acc 65A3552; memo Wilson for Pres, 14 Aug 53, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; Watson, ]CS

and National Policy 1953-54,70-71.

13. See Chapter XI.

14. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1955, 70-72, 81-84. JCS 2101/113 "assumed" redeployment

from Korea "in the near future." For these decisions see Watson, ]CS and National

Policy 1953-54,229-33.

15. Memo of disc at 200th NSC mtg, 3 Jun 54, Decisions, par 3,4, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL;

Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,231-33,261. The 1 April redeployment plan

also involved major naval and Air Force units.

16. Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 70-71; Drew Pearson, Washington Post,

22 Mar 54; Robert S.Allen, New York Post, 15 Mar 54.

17. Address before 42d Annual Meeting of U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 26 Apr 54, Wilson

Public Statements, 1954,11:596. See also Elie Abel, New York Times, 27 Apr 54.

18. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,437.

19. Memo Radford for SecDef, 21 May 54, w/app, env #71, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc

63A-1768.

20. Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 71-72; Dana A. Schmidt, New York Times,

10 May 54.

21. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,71-72; memo Wilson for JCS, 15 Jul 54, fldr

FY 1956 Budget,ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

22. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,71.

23. Memo Wilson for ExecSecNSC, 28 Jul 54, fldr Sec Wilson's Reading File Jul-Dec 54,

Wilson Misc files 1953-57,Acc 63A-1802.

24. Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 70-73, and table on 83; memo SecDef for

JCS, 26 Aug 54, fldr FY 1956 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

25. Memo ActSecDef (Anderson) for SvcSecs, 28 Aug 54, fldr FY 1956 Budget,ATSD and Dep

SecDef files, OSD Rist.

26. Ltr Hughes to SecDef, 23 Jul 54, w/atchd "Assumptions and Policy for Prep of 1956

Budget," ibid.

27. Memo G.V. Gibson for McNeil, 11 Sep 54, fldr 1955-56, box 9, ASD(C) files, Acc

65A-3552.

28. Ibid.

29. Memo Lay for NSC Ping Bd, 22 Mar 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:647-48, n 2; Itr Cutler

to Wilson, 23 Mar 54, fldr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines Under NSC 162/2-FY 1956

(1), ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace 65A-3500; MFR G.A. Wyeth, Jr., OASD(lSA), 6 May

54, ibid.

30. Copies of some studies and OSD comments are in folder NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines Under NSC 162/2-FY 1956 (1), cited in n 29. Extracts from the State, Defense,

CIA, and ODM submissions are printed as annexes to NSC 5422, FRUS 1952-54, II,

pt 1:669-80.

31. Memo Radford for SecDef, 21 May 54, cited in n 19.

32. NSC 5422,Annex 2, 14 Jun 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:672, par 26.

33. Par 41, ibid, 675.

34. Par 39-41, ibid.

35. The JCS history offers a different reading of the JCS paper. See Watson, ]CS and

National Policy 1953-54,42-44.

36. Memo ISA for ActSecDef, 25 May 54, fIdr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines Under NSC

162/2-FY 1956 (1), ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; memo Glass for Garlock,

27 May 54, fldr NSC-BNSP FY 1956,ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.
708 Notes to Pages 267-75

37. Memo Garlock for DepSecDef Anderson, 25 May 54, fIdr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines Under NSC 162/2-FY 1956 (l),ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace 65A-3500.

38. NIE 11-5-54, 7 Jun 54, in Scott A. Koch, ed, Selected Estimates on the Soviet Union,

1950-59,210.

39. Memo of disc at 200th NSC mtg, 3 Jun 54, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; NIE 11-5-54, 7 Jun

54, cited in n 38, 209-10. See also CIA study, "Soviet Capabilities and Main Lines of

Policy Through Mid-1959," nd, ERUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:676-78.

40. Memo of disc at 200th NSC mtg, 3 Jun 54, cited in n 39.

41. Memo Radford for SecDef, 21 May 54, cited in n 19; annex 2 to NSC 5422, ERUS 1952-

54, II, pt 1:672-77.

42. Memo SpecAsst to JCS for NSC Aff for Spec Cte, 19 May 54, fIdr NSC 5422 Tentative

Guidelines Under NSC 162/2-FY 1956 (1), ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace 65A-3500;

memo Amory for NSC Ping Bd, 17 May 54, ibid.

43. Staff papers developing the theme are in fIdr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines ..., cited

in n 42; see esp memo Bonesteel for Anderson, 7 Jun 54, and memo BrigGen P.W.

Caraway for Def Member NSC PB, 19 May 54.

44. Memo Bonesteel for Anderson, 7 Jun 54, cited in n 43; also briefing notes for 204th

NSC mtg, 24 Jun 54, fIdr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines Under NSC I62/2-FY 1956

(1), cited in n 42.

45. OSD memo, "Basic Issues in Framing Guidelines for FY 1956 Budget," 10 Jun 54, fIdr

NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines ..., cited in n 42.

46. Paper by JCS Adviser, "Principal Military Considerations of NSC 162/2," 9 Jun 54, ibid.

47. Ibid.

48. NSC 5422, 14 Jun 54, ERUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:649-67. For an earlier version, see OSD

memo, "Basic Issues in Framing Guidelines for FY 1956 Budget," 10 Jun 54, cited

in n 45.

49. NSC 5422, 14 Jun 54, ERUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:658-59, par 18, 19, 20. Gerhart's 9 June

paper was not, of course, an official statement of JCS views, and NSC 5422 was merely

a Planning Board paper circulated for discussion by the council.

50. NSC 5422, ERUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:659-60, par 24-25.

51. Ibid, 660-66, par 26-44; memo Godel for Bonesteel, 23 Jun 54, fldr NSC 5422

Tentative Guidelines Under NSC 162/2-FY 1956 (2), ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace

65A-3500.

52. NSC 5422,14 Jun 54, ERUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:655-57, par 7-16.

53. Ibid, 656, par 13; extracts from State's principal submission, "Free World Outlook

and Problems Through 1956-59," nd, ibid, 669-71.

54. Memo Hensel for SecDef, 22 Jun 54, fIdr 381 Nat Def, SecDef subject files Jan-Jun 54,

Ace 59A-792; unsgd paper, "Recommendation Comments on June 11 Guidelines Draft,"

21 Jun 54, fIdr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines Under NSC 162/2-FY 1956 (2), ASD

(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace 65A-3500.

55. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 23 Jun 54, ERUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:680-86.

56. NSC 5422, 14 Jun 54, ibid, 657; memo Garlock for Bonesteel, 25 Jun 54, fIdr NSC-BNSP

FY 1956, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist. The author of the Garlock memo was

Henry Glass. He ridiculed the notion that the Soviet Union, which would strike the

first blow, would ever "forego its advantage of surprise by limiting its first attack to

conventional weapons so long as we have nuclear weapons."

57. Bonesteel paper to Randall, 23 Jun 54, fIdr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines Under NSC

162/2-FY 1956 (2), ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500. Ridgway dissented from

Radford's view that NSC 162/2 was an adequate statement of policy, but evidently he

was the only dissenter.

58. NSC 5422, 14 Jun 54, ERUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:666·67; OSD briefing paper for NSC 204th

mtg, 24 Jun 54, fIdr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines Under NSC 162/2-FY 1956 (2),ASD

(ISA), Pol Ping Stf files, Ace 65A-3500.

59. ODM study, "Basic Assumptions on Alternatives for Maintaining, Broadening and

Protecting the Mobilization Base ... ," nd, printed as Annex 6 to NSC 5422, 14 Jun 54,

ERUS 1952-54, II, pt. 1:678-80 (quote, 679).

60. Ibid, 678-79; memo Garlock for Bonesteel, 25 Jun 54, cited in n 56.
Notes to Pages 275-81 709

61. ODM study, "Basic Assumptions ... ," cited in n 59, 67S.

62. Memo of disc at 204th NSC mtg, 24 June 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:6S6-98.

63. Memo Cutler for SecDef, 23 Jun 54, fldr NSC 540S, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc

65A-3500.

XIII. CONTINENTAL DEFENSE:AMBlVALENCE COMPOUNDED

1. Memo ExecSecNSC Lay, 9 Apr 54, w/encl rpt by Ping Bd, OSD briefing note for 200th

NSC mtg, 3 Jun 54: fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (1), ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A3500; memo Wilson for SvcSecs and JCS, 15 Jun 54, fldr 373.24 (Def of Vital Areas)

(Cont Def), box 17, Acc 59A-2376. The NESC was established by NSC 5423, 23 June

1953; see FRUS 1955-57, XIX:2, n 4, 56-57.

2. Robert C. Sprague, Rpt on Cont Def to Sen Armed Svcs Cte, IS Mar 54, Admin ser,

PP(AWF), DDEL; New York Herald Tribune, 26 Mar 54;

3. Sprague, Rpton Cont Def, IS Mar 54, cited in n 2,4-7.

4. The "basic" report (not available to the author) apparently ran to more than 120

pages and was probably classified top secret; a "summary" report, about one-third that

size (the one used here), was classified secret. Sprague delivered all copies of both

reports to the president, who kept the summary version and directed that the

others, together with the recommendations, be filed with the NSCfor examination by

authorized persons only. See Itr Cutler to Wilson, 31 Mar 54, fldr NSC 540S Cont Def

(1), ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace 65A-3500. A copy of the recommendations is also

in this file, bearing two dates, 26 February and 30 March 1954.

5. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 10 Jnn 54, fldr 3S1 Cont 1954, SecDef subject files

Nov 53-Dec 54,Acc 59A-792.

6. Memo Cutler for SeeDef, 22 May 54, fldr NSC 540S Cont Def (1), ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf

files, Aec 65A-3500; memo of disc at 197th NSC mtg, 14 May 54, NSC ser, PP

(AWF), DDEL.

7. DoD Prog Rpt to NSC on Status of Mil Cont US Progs as of 1 Jun 54, 25 Jun 54, 1-2,

memo Twining (for JCS) for SecDef, 11 Jun 54, w/app: fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (1),

ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace 65A-3500. The appendix to the memo appears as

Sections I and II of the progress report.

S. DoD Prog Rpt, 25 Jun 54, cited in n 7, 3 (quote), 6-9; Cutler notes on DoD Prog Rpt,

encl to memo Cutler for SeeDef, 23 Jun 54, fldr 3S1 Cont 1954, SecDef subject files

Nov 53-Dec 54, Acc 59A-792; memo G. Harvey for Bonesteel, 29 Jun 54, fldr NSC 540S

Cont Def (1), ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace 65A-3500.

9. DoD Prog Rpt, 25 Jun 54, cited in n 7, 1O-IS.

10. Cutler notes on DoD Prog Rpt, 23 Jun 54, cited in n S; DoD Prog Rpt, 25 Jun 54, cited

in n 7, 3, IS,20.

11. DoD Prog Rpt, 25 Jun 54, cited in n 7, 3, 4, 31.

12. Ibid, 7, 28; also Cutler notes and Harvey memo cited in nS.

13. DoD Prog Rpt, 25 Jun 54, cited in n 7,3-4.

14. Cutler notes on DoD Prog Rpt, 2.3 Jun 54, cited in n S, 4.

15. Memo Radford for SeeDef, 23 Jun 54, fldr 1954, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A176S; NIE 11-5-54, 7 Jun 54, "Soviet Capabilities and Main Lines of Policy throucgh

Mid-1959," excerpts in Koch, ed, Selected Estimates on the Soviet Union, 209-10. The

date of the Soviet one-megaton detonation is not shown, and the most recent NIE

(11-5-54), approved on 1 June and published on the 7th, did not mention it; nor was

it mentioned in subsequent NIEs.

16. Memo Cutler for SeeDef, 23 Jun 54, w/encl notes on DoDProg Rpt, cited in n S; OSD

briefing notes for 205th NSC mtg, 1 Jul 54, fldr NSC 540S Cont Def (1), ASD(ISA) Pol

Ping Stf files., Acc65A-3500; memo Radford for SeeDef, 23 Jun 54, cited in n 15; memo

of disc at 205th NSC mtg,1 Jul 54, NSC ser,PP(AWF), DDEL; Sprague Rpt to NSC,

24 Nov 54 (fourth draft 11/21/54), fldr NSC 540S Cont Def (2), ASD(ISA) PdlPlng Stf

files, Acc 65A-3500.
710 Notes to Pages 282-89

17. Memo Lay for NSC, 1 Jul 54, w/encl "Recommendations," fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (1),

ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

18. Memo Sprague for Cutler, 1 Jul 54, ibid; memo of disc at 205th NSC mtg, 1 Jul 54, cited in

n 16.

19. Memo Sprague for Cutler, 1 July 54, cited in n 18.

20. Memo Radford for SecDef, 23 Jun 54, cited in n 15.

21. Memo of disc at 205th NSC mtg, cited in n 16.

22. Ibid; memo Cutler for SecDef, 2 Jul 54, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (1), ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf

files, Acc 65A-3500.

23. Memo Quarles for SecDef, 16 Jul 54, fldr 381 Cont 1954, SecDef subject files Nov 53-Dec

54,Acc 59A-792; memo ActSecDef Anderson for SvcSecs and JCS, 7 Jul 54, fldr NSC 5408

Cont Def (1), ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

24. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 16 Jul 54, w/app, "Comments on Recommendations

made to NSC," fldr NSC-BNSP FY 1956,ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

25. Memo Elliott for NSC Ping Bd Consid, 20 Jul 54, OSD briefing notes for 208th NSC mtg,

29 Jul 54: fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (1), ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

26. Memo of disc at 208th NSC mtg, 29 Jul 54, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; Sprague Rpt to NSC,

24 Nov 54 (11/22/54 draft), cited in n 16; see also Cutler's remarks at NSC Ping Bd mtg,

17 Nov 54, MFR R.S. Livesay, 24 Nov 54: fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (2),ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf

files, Acc 65A-3500.

27. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 16 Jul 54, cited in n 24; memo of disc at 209th NSC

mtg, 5 Aug 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:703-06 and n 4.

28. Memo of disc at 209th NSC mtg, 5 Aug 54, cited in n 27. See also OSD briefing notes for

208th NSC mtg, 29 Jul 54, cited in n 25; memo Glass for Bonesteel, 3 Aug 54, fldr NSC-BNSP

FY 1956,ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

29. FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:717.

30. Memo Cutler for SecDef, 5 Aug 54, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (1),ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files,

Acc 65A-3500.

31. Donald E. Welzenbach, "Science and Technology: Origins of a Directorate," 13-15. See also

James R. Killian, Jr., Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower:A Memoir of the First Special

Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, 68.

32. NSC 5422/1 (NSC Action 1194-F), FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:715. See memo Lay for agency

heads, 9 Aug 54, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (1), ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

33. Sprague Rpt to NSC, 24 Nov 54, cited in n 16; MFR Livesay, 24 Nov 54, cited in n 26. The

DoD progress report has not been found, but the more detailed and less sanitized Annex

is in Annex to DoD Prog Rpt to NSC on Status of Mil Cont Def Progs as of 1 Nov 54, 20

Nov 54, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (2), ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-350Q.

34. Annex to DoD Prog Rpt, cited in n 33, A5. An earlier version of the report gave an early

1957 date as possible.

35. Sprague Rpt, 24 Nov 54, cited in n 16; extracts Sprague Rpt atchd to memo Wilson for

SvcSecs,JCS, et ai, 10 Dec 54, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (2), ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files,Acc

65A-3500.

36. Sprague Rpt, 24 Nov 54, cited in n 16.

37. Draft memo Elliott for Flemming, 5 Nov 54, fldr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines Under

NSC 162/2-FY 1956 (2), ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500. The author found

no evidence of in-house discussion or follow-up on this draft proposal.

38. FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:801-02; FRUS 1955-57, XIX:87-94; memo Livesay for Bonesteel,

17 Feb 55, w/atchd Comments and Recomd of resp DoD Agencies, fldr NSC 5408

Cont Def (2), ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files,Acc 65A-3500.

39. FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:801-02; memo Wilson for SvcSecs, JCS, et ai, 10 Dec 54, cited in n

35.

40. Sprague Rpt, 24 Nov 54, cited in n 16; memo Wilson for SvcSecs, JCS, et ai, 10 Dec 54,

cited in n 35.

41. Memo Livesay for Bonesteel, 17 Feb 55, cited in n 38;Annex to DoD Prog Rpt, 20 Nov 54,

cited in n 33.

42. Memo Col C. W. Delanoy for Anderson, 16 Feb 55, fldr 373.24 (Def of Vital Areas) (Cont

Def), box 17,Acc 59A-2376.
Notes to Pages 291-302 711

43. Memo Cutler for SecDef et aI, 28 Jan 55, JCCAE, w/atchd rpt, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def

(2), ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

44. Memo Twining (for JCS) for SecDef, 14 Mar 55, fldr 373.24 (Def of Vital Areas) (Cont

Def), box 17,Acc 59A-2376.

45. Memo Wilson for Cutler, 28 Mar 55, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (2), ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf

files,Acc 65A-3500.

46. Memo ExecSecNSC for various addressees, 3 Nov 55, ibid.

47. Table, Estimated Expenditures for FY 1954-60, 25 May 56, atchd to OSD paper, "DoD

Portion of Financial Appendix to Proposed NSC Policy Paper on Continental Defense,"

nd, fldr Cont Def NSC 5606, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

48. Memo Douglas for SecDef, 5 Jan 56, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (3), box 4, ASD(ISA) Pol

PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; memo Adams for McNeil, 25 Jan 56, memo Wilson for Sec

AF, 1 Feb 56: fldr Cont Def NSC 5606, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

49. Kenneth W. Condit, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, 1955-1956,275.

50. Ibid, 275-81.

51. Memo of disc at 257th NSC mtg, 4 Aug 55, ERUS 1955-57, XIX:I03; Technology

Capabilities Panel (TCP) (Killian) Rpt II, ibid, 41-56.

52. Livesay for McNeil, 20 Jan 56, fldr Cont Def NSC 5606, ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist; draft statements of policy on Cont Def, 19 Dec 55, 17 Feb 56, fldr NSC 5408

Cont Def (3), box 4, ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

53. Draft statements of policy on Cont Def, 19 Dec 55, 17 Feb 56, cited in n 52.

54. 19 Dec 55 draft, cited in n 52.

55. Paper lsi Dillon Anderson, "Repetition of NESC Briefing ...," 23 Jan 56, DDE Diary

ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; draft statement of policy, 17 Feb 56, cited in n 52.

56. 17 Feb 56 draft, Annex, cited in n 52.

57. Memo Col R.]. Dixon for DoD-NSC, 24 Feb 56, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (3), box 4,ASD

(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files,Acc 65A-3500.

58. ODM draft paper, "US Capabilities," 29 Feb 56, ibid.

59. Memo Lay for Gordon Gray and Robert Amory, Jr., 12 Mar 56, w/atchd rpt dtd 9 Mar

56, no title or addressee, fldr Cont Def NSC 159, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

60. Memo (not used) ISA for SecNavy, SecAF, and CJCS, 13 Mar 56, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def

(3), box 4, ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; memo K.G. Harr (ISA), no

addressee, 14 Mar 56, fldr Cont Def NSC 159,ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

61. Memo Farrell for ASD(ISA), 14 Mar 56, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (3), box 4,ASD(ISA) Pol

PIng Stf files,Acc 65A-3500.

62. Briefing notes for Gray, 15 Mar 56, fldr Cont Def NSC 159,ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist; draft memo for ExecSecNSC, 15 Mar 56, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (3), box

4,ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files,Acc 65A-3500.

63. Memo Anderson for Gray, 28 Mar 56, memo Dixon for DoD-NSC, 10 Apr 56, memo Gray

for Anderson, 11 Apr 56: fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (3), box 4, ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files,

Acc 65A-3500.

64. Memo Wilson for CJCS, 15 May 56, ibid. See also paper, "Continental Defense," 10 May

56, ibid.

65. "Continental Defense," 10 May 56, ibid; memo Lay for PIng Bd, 11 May 56, w/atchd

"Draft NSC Action," 11 May 56, ibid.

66. Memo Wilson for CJCS, 15 May 56, ibid; memo ExecSecNSC for NSC, 7 Jun 56, fldr NSC

5606 Cont Def, box 15, ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

67. Memo (CM 306-56) Radford for SpecAsst to Pres, 31 May 56, atchd to memo ExecSec

NSC for NSC, 7 Jun 56, cited in n 66.

68. Memo A. Dulles for SpecAsst to Pres, 8 Jun 56, atchd to memo ExecSecNSC for NSC,

11 Jun 56, fldr NSC 5606 Cont Def, box 15, ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files,Acc 65A-3500.

69. Memos Elliott for Flemming, 11, 12 (quote), 14 Jun 56, fldr 373.24, box 20, SecDef

subject files 56, Acc 60A-1379.

70. Memo Elliott for Flemming, 14 Jun 56, ibid.

71. Memo of disc at 288th NSC mtg, 15 Jun 56, ERUS 1955-57, XIX:317-20, 324-25.

72. Ibid,327-28.
712 Notes to Pages 302-11

73. Ibid, 322-23, 330. The president directed the three-year financial projections on 4 June.

See memos of disc at 293d and 294th NSC mtgs, 16, 17 Aug 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:

345-57.

74. Memo of disc at 288th NSC mtg, 15 Jun 56, ibid:332-33.

75. AF paper RD 298/1 (Supplement), "Measures to Reduce the Ground Vulnerability of

SAC Forces to Air Attack;' 17 Jul 56, fldr TCP Rpt File #2, box 14, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf

files,Acc 65A-3500.

76. Memo of disc at 292d NSC mtg, 9 Aug 56, FRUS1955-57, XIX:338-41.

77. See briefing notes for Ping Bd mtg, 4 Mar 57, fldr NSC 5606 Cont Def, box 15, ASD

(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

78. Memo of disc at 288th NSC mtg, 15 Jun 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:325; NSC 5606, 5 Jun

56, par 24, S/S-NSC files, Lot 63 D351, Dept State NSC 5606 series; memo C.L. Burgess

for ASD(ISA), 11 May 56, fldr 5408 Cont Def (3), box 4, ASD(1SA) Pol Ping Stf files,

Acc 65A-3500.

79. Memo of disc at 288th NSC mtg, 15 Jun 56, cited in n 78,325-26; NSC 5606,5 Jun 56,

par 25 and Finan App, cited in n 78.

80. Memos of disc at 293d and 294th NSC mtgs, 16, 17 Aug 56, cited in n 73.

81. OSD paper, "Continental Defense," nd Ica 1 Jun 56], fldr DoD Prelim FY 58 Budget

Estim, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; NSC 5606, 5 Jun 56, Finan App, cited

in n 78.

82. Memo Ronald Hoffman for Alfred Goldberg, sub: Ballistic missile defense 1955-57,5 Jan

79, OSD Hist; Cole et ai, "History of Strategic Arms Competition: Chronology," I, entry

13 Jun 56,243, OSD Hist.

83. OSD paper, "Continental Defense," cited in n 81.

XlV. BASIC STRATEGY AND THE FY 1956 BUDGET: DECISION TO RETRENCH

1. Memo of disc at 204th NSC mtg, FRUS 1952-54, 11, pt 1:686-98; mins of 205th NSC

mtg, 1 Jul 54, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; ed note, FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 1:698; memo

DirPoIPlngStf(State) to SecState, 4 Aug 54, ibid, 699 and n 1.

2. Memo Gates for SecDef, nd, memo Slezak for SecDef, 4 Aug 54, OSD briefing notes

for 209th NSC mtg, 5 Aug 54, item 1: fldr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines Under NSC

162/2-FY 1956, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

3. Memo Twining (for JCS) for SecDef, 4 Aug 54, fldr 381 Nat Def Jan-Jun 54, SecDef

subject files, Nov 53-Dec 54,Acc 59A-792; memo Bonesteel for ExecSecNSC, 4 Aug 54,

fldr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines ...(2), ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

For Radford's early comment, see Bonesteel to Randall, 23 Jun 54, ibid.

4. Memo of disc at 209th NSC mtg (extract), 5 Aug 54, FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 1:700-15;

NSC 5422/2, Guidelines Under NSC 162/2,7 Aug 54, ibid, 715-22. Except as otherwise

noted in the account of the 5 August meeting, provisions of NSC 5422/1 were carried

over into the approved final paper, NSC 5422/2.

5. Memo of disc at 209th NSC mtg, 5 Aug 54, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; memo of disc at

209th NSC mtg (extract), 4 Aug 54, cited in n 4, 706-07, 714; NSC 5422/2, ibid, par 9,

718 (quote).

6. Memo of disc at 209th NSC mtg, 5 Aug 54, cited in n 4,708-09,718.

7. Ibid, 709-10 and notes 11,12; NSC 5422/2,7 Aug 54, ibid, 718-19 (quote).

8. Ibid, 711-12 and notes 14,16; NSC 5422/2,7 Aug 54, ibid, 719-21 (quote).

9. Memo of disc at 209th NSC mtg, 5 Aug 54, ibid, 711 (quote) and n 15; NSC 5422/2,

7 Aug 54, ibid, 720.

10. NSC 5422/2,7 Aug 54, ibid, 721-22.

11. Ibid, App B, 729-31. The table was carried over without change from NSC 5422/1.

12. Memo of disc at 209th NSC mtg, 5 Aug 54, ibid, 710-11, 719; memo Hughes for Pres,

4 Aug 54, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

13. Memo Hughes for Pres, 22 Jun 54, fldr 381 Nat Def Jan-Jun 54, SecDef subject files

Nov 53-Dec 54,Acc 59A-792.

14. Ibid.
Notes to Pages 311-17 713

15. Ibid. For Wilson's comments at the NSC meeting on 4 August, see also memo of disc

at 209th NSC mtg, 4 Aug 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:706-07,710,713.

16. Memo Pres for SecDef, 21 Jul 54, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

I 7. Memo Greene for Gerhart, 9 Jul 54, fldr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines ...(2), ASD

(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

18. Draft paper, "Guidelines for Mobilization," 10 Sep 54, wi covering memo ExecSecNSC

for PIng Bd, 10 Sep 54, fldr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines ... (2), ASD(ISA) Pol PIng

Stf files, Acc 65A-3500. The paper noted that 63 percent of the country's general

industrial capacity was located in 53 prime-target metropolitan areas.

19. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs, CJCS, et aI, 16 Aug 54, fldr 381 Nat Def Jan-Jun 54, SecDef

subject files, Nov 53-Dec 54, Acc 59A-792; draft paper, "Guidelines for Mobilization,"

10 Sep 54, cited in n 18; for the background of strategic planning by the JCS, see

Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54, ch IV.

20. Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54, 156-57.

21. For the emergence of Wilson's de facto mobilization base policy during the spring of

1953, see HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1954, 11-12, 30, 67, 109-10, 364-72, 452-54; HSCA,

Army Hearings, 1954,878. More generally, see Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-

54,149-56.

22. New York Herald Tribune, 6 Oct 53.

23. Drew Pearson, Washington Post & Times Herald, 22 Jan 54; Edward Haakinson, Washington Post & Times Herald, 27 Sep 54; Henry T. Simmons, Wall Street Journal, 7 Apr 53;

OSD Legis and Public Affairs, "Highlights of Congressional ActiVities," 29 Jan 54, fldr

OSD Legis Highlights 1954,OSD Hist.

24. Haakinson, Washington Post & Times Herald, 27 Sep 54; New York Times, 28 Sep 54;

John G. Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 30 Sep 54; New York Herald Tribune,

4 Oct 54.

25. Memo P. Caraway for Def Member NSC PIng Bd, 4 Oct 54, fldr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines ... (2), ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; memo Radford (for JCS) for Sec

Def, 21 Oct 54, wlapp, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:759-62 (quote, 761); Watson, JCS and

National Policy 1953-54,157.

26. Memo Wilson for ExecSecNSC, 25 Oct 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:759-69, n 4 (quote,

760).

27. Memo of disc at 219th NSC mtg, 26 Oct 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:763-70; Watson,jCS

and National Policy 1953-54, 157, 389.

28. Memo SecDef for SvcSecs, CJCS, et aI, 2 Nov 54, fldr NSC-BNSP FY 1956,ATSD and DepSec

Def files, OSD Hist; Semiannual Report of the Secretary of Defense, January 1 to

June 30, 1955, 34 (quote); Elie Abel, New York Times, 9, 21 Dec 54; Mark Watson,

Baltimore Sun, 22 Dec 54.

29. Wilson Public Statements, 1954, IV:1319-20, 1324.

30. McNeil, "Defense Changes Outlined by McNeil," Washington Post & Times Herald,

2 Jan 55. The article was a condensed version of a recent speech to business paper

editors.

31. Semiannual Report of the Secretary of Defense, January 1 to June 30, 1955, 34;

New York Times, 3 Jan 55.

32. Memos SvcSecs for SecDef, 4 Oct 54, fldr 110.01 Jun-Oct 54, box 27, SecDef subject

files Nov 53-Dec 54, Acc 59A-792. The procedure of a joint (rather than sequential)

review by the ASD(C) and BoB had been instituted several years earlier as a timesaving measure. Although BoB every year ritually scheduled submission of the Defense

budget for 15 September, this deadline was never met-not since 1950, according to

McNeil. See HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956, 588-89; ltr W.E Schaub (ChMilDivBoB) to

McNeil, 22 Sep ,54, memo McNeil for ASDs, 22 Sep 54: fldr FY 1956 Budget (McNeil

File), ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

33. See memos SvcSecs for SecDef, 4 Oct 54, cited in n 32; BoB papers, "Preliminary

Highlight Review of 1956 Budget for Defense" and "Budget Problem," both 15 Oct 54,

BoB Series 51.142, OSD Hist.
714 Notes to Pages 317-24

34. Memo Garlock for SecDef, 4 Oct 54, fldr 110.01 Jun-Oct 54, box 27, SecDef subject

files Nov 53-Dec 54, Acc 59A-792; OSD Staff Analysis of Proposed Budget, Dept of Air

Force, FY 1956, 20 Nov 54, AF-I-3, 9-10, AFX-2, and more generally AF-I-2 through

10, ibid.

35. Memo Talbott for SecDef, 29 Nov 54, ibid.

36. OSD paper, "Dept of Navy, New Obligational Authority by Major Budget Category, FY

1956," 2 Dec 54, OSD Staff Analysis of Proposed Budget, Dept of Navy, FY 1956,

23 Nov 54, NX-2, N-9-1 through 5: ibid.

37. OSD Staff Analysis of Proposed Budget, Dept of Navy, N-7-2 through 16, ibid.

38. OSD paper, "Dept of Navy, New Obligational Authority by Major Budget Category ...,"

cited in n 36.

39. OSD Staff Analysis of Proposed Budget, Dept of Army, 19 Nov 54, AX-2 and A-3-2

through 18, memos Stevens for SecDef, 1,6 Dec 54: ibid.

40. BoB paper, "Preliminary Highlight Review of 1956 Budget for Defense," cited in n 33.

41. Memo Hughes for Pres, sub: Preliminary look at 1956 budget expenditure proposals,

nd [internal evidence suggests 15 Nov 54], wi cover memo [signed "Rowland"],

Hughes for DepSecDef Anderson, 17 Nov 54: fldr 110.01 Jun-Oct 54, box 27, SecDef

subject files Nov 53-Dec 54, Acc 59A-792.

42. Ibid. See also memo Hughes for Pres, 30 Nov 54, wi cover memo for Cutler, same date,

fldr Budget FY 1956,ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

43. Memo Hughes for Pres, 30 Nov 54, Tables II and IIa, cited in n 42.

44. See Chapter XVIII. A good summary is in Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54,

165-73.

45. Memo McNeil for ASD(M&P), 23 Mar 54, memo Hannah for McNeil, 16 Mar 54, memo

McNeil for ASD(M&P), 5 Apr 54: fldr Budget CL 100 Jan-Mar 54, box 15, ASD(C) files,

Acc 64A-2375.

46. Memo Cooper for McNeil, 16 Aug 54, fldr Budget CL 100 Jul-Sep 54, ibid; memo McNeil

for ASD(M&P), 5 Nov 54, fldr NSC 5420/1&2, box 9, ASD(C) files, Acc 65A-3552;

AFPC Advice of Action, 10 Nov 54, fldr NSC 5420 Reserve Mobilization Rqmts, ASD

(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

47. Memo McNeil for ASD(M&P), 5 Nov 54, cited in n 46; NSC 5420/3, Reserve Mobilization Rqmts, 12 Nov 54, wlatchd "Cost Estimates of Manpower Training for Reserve

Forces Program," fldr NSC 5420 Reserve Mobilization Rqmts, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files,

Acc 65A-3500.

48. See above, pp. 314-15.

49. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 25 Oct 54, env #67 Joint Mid-Range War Plan for

1957, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1768. See also Watson, ]CS and National

Policy 1953-54, 159-60.

50. Memo Radford for SecDef, 25 Oct 54, cited in n 49; Watson, ]CS and National Policy

1953-54, 102, 160 (quote).

51. Memo Radford for SecDef, 25 Oct 54, cited in n 49.

52. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs and C]CS, 2 Nov 54, fldr FY 1956 Budget (McNeil File),ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist;Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 173-74.

53. See sources in n 52.

54. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 25 Oct 54, ltr Stevens to SecDef, 1 Dec 54: env

#67 Joint Mid-Range War Plan for 1957, Wilson Misc files 1953-57,Acc 63A-1768.

55. Ltr Stevens to SecDef, 1 Dec 54, ibid.

56. Memo McNeil for ActDepComp(Budget), 5 Nov 54, memo Hughes for Pres, 30 Nov 54:

fldr Budget FY 1956, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist. The author found no

record indicating Wilson replied to Stevens's 1 December letter.

57. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs and C]CS, 9 Dec 54, sub: Explanatory notes ..., memo McNeil

and Pike (ASD(S&L)) for SecDef, 3 Dec 54, memo SecDef for SvcSecs and C]CS, 9 Dec

54, sub: Additional guidance on Joint Mid-Range War Plan for 1 Jul 54: env #67 Joint

Mid-Range War Plan for 1957, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1768; mins of 226th

NSC mtg, 1 Dec 54, NSC mins file 1954, OSD Hist; Watson, ]CS and National Policy

1953-54, 102-03, 160-61.
Notes to Pages 325-35 715

58. Memo of disc at 209th NSC mtg (extract), 5 Aug 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:700-15; NSC

5408, 11 Feb 54, ibid, 609-24; OSD paper, "FY 1956 Budget, Provision for Continental

Defense," nd (ca late Dec 54 or early Jan 55), fIdr FY 1956 Budget, ATSD and Dep

SecDef files, OSD Hist.

59. See OSD paper prepared for a congressional committee, 9 Feb 55, "Continental

Defense," fldr FY 1956 Budget, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

60. Memo Hughes for Pres, 30 Nov 54, cited in n 42; Goodpaster memcon w/Pres, 6 Dec

54, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; Minnich notes on meeting with legislative

leadership, ibid; OSD paper, "Continental Defense," 9 Feb 55, cited in n 59.

61. Memo of disc at 227th NSC mtg, 3 Dec 54, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; memcon Goodpaster w/Pres, 6 Dec 54, cited in n 60.

62. Mins of press conis, 30 Nov, 7 Dec 54, Wilson Public Statements, 1954, IV: 1175-76, 1207.

63. Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54,74-75.

64. Ibid.

65. Cutler notes on 8 Dec 54 conf in president's office, rev 9 Dec 54, w/atchd table, fIdr

1954, Wilson Misc files 1953-57,Acc 63A-1768.

66. NSC Action 1286, 228th NSC mtg, w/atchd table, 9 Dec 54, fIdr FY 1956 Budget, ATSD

and DepSecDef. files, OSD Hist; memo of disc at 228th NSC mtg, 9 Dec 54, NSC ser,

PP(AWF), DDEL.

67. Minnich notes on meetings with legislative leadership, 13, 14 Dec 54, FRUS 1952-54,

II, pt 1:822-27; Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954, 1107-10, 1113; Wilson Public Statements, 1954, IV:1300, 1310-12; Anthony Leviero, New York Times, 18 Dec 54; Peter

Lisagor, Washington Post & Times Herald, 23 Dec 54; Hanson Baldwin, New York Times,

23 Dec 54.

68. For the revision of basic security policy culminating in approval of a new policy

paper, NSC 5501, early in January, see Chapter xv.

69. Memcon Goodpaster w/Pres, 22 Dec 54, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL. Admiral

Radford was absent on a trip to the Far East.

70. "Draft in February Cut to 11,000 Men," New York Times, 23 Dec 54; Watson, Baltimore

Sun, 23 Dec 54; Leviero, New York Times, 18 Dec 54; Watson,jCS and National Policy

1953-54,245.

71. Memo Ridgway for Cmdr-in-Chief thru SecArmy and SecDef, 17 Dec 54, w/ cover ltr

SecArmy for SecDef, fIdr 1954, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1802.

72. Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54,76.

73. Washington Post & Times Herald, 2 Jan 54; New York Herald Tribune, 22 Dec 54.

74. Ltr Wilson to Hughes, 21 Dec 54, w/atchd tables, fIdr FY 1956 Budget (McNeil File),

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; Cutler notes on 8 Dec 54 conf in president's

office, 9 Dec 54, cited in n 65; memo Randall for Wilson, 9 Dec 54, fIdr Sec Wilson's

Reading File Jul-Dec 54, Wilson Misc files 1953-57,Acc 63A-1802.

75. Ltr Wilson to Hughes, 21 Dec 54, cited in n 74; ltr Hughes to Wilson, 29 Dec 54, fIdr

110.01 Jun-Oct 54, SecDef subject files Nov 53-Dec 54,Acc 59A-792.

76. Leviero, New York Times, 4 Jan 55; Philadelphia Inquirer, 5 Jan 55; John O'Donnell,

New York Daily News, 27 Dec 54.

xv. UPDATING BASIC NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY: NSC 5501 AND THE SOFT LINE

1. Memo ExecSecNSC (Lay) for NSC, 11 Oct 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:738-59; memo

Bonesteel for Randall, 23 Jun 54, fIdr NSC 5422 Tentative Guidelines ... (2), box 9, ASD

(lSA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 47.

According to Watson, 49, n 24, revision of NSC 162/2 first appeared on the Planning

Board agenda for 29 September.

2. Memo Lay for NSC, 11 Oct 54, cited in n 1,738-39.

3. Memo Wilson for JCS, 18 Oct 54, similar memos Wilson for SvcSecs: fIdr 381 Nat Def

Jan-Jun 54, SecDef subject files, Nov 53-Dec 54, Acc 59A-792.

4. Memo Talbott for SecDef, 9 Nov 54, fIdr NSC 5440 BNSP (1), box 9, ASD(lSA) Pol PIng

Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.
716 Notes to Pages 335-46

5. The ensuing discussion is drawn from Bonesteel's paper in two parts dated 5 and

10 November, respectively, ibid. Most of the other staff papers are in this folder and

folder (2).

6. Bonesteel, "The Survival of a Free United States," 10 Nov 54, cited in n 5; memo

Bonesteel for SecDef, 23 Nov 54, paper, nd, "Annex A, Additional Positive Courses of

Action": fldr NSC 5440 BNSP (2), box 9,ASD(lSA) Pol PIng Stf files,Acc 65A-3500.

7. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 3 Nov 54, fldr 1954, Wilson Misc files 1953-57,Acc

63A-1802; Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 49. Apparently the paper was

completed before the arrival of Wilson's 18 October memo requesting recommendations on policy changes, since it did not address some of the specific points in

Wilson's memo.

8. Memo Ridgway (for JCS) for SecDef, 12 Nov 54, fldr 381 Nat Def Jan-Jun 54, SecDef

subject files, Nov 53-Dec 54, Acc 59A-792.

9. JCS 2101/170, 12 Nov 54, cited in Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54,49-50.

10. Memo Stevens for SecDef, 20 Nov 54, fldr NSC 5440 BNSP (2), box 9, ASD(lSA) Pol

PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

11. Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54, 50.

12. Dept of State paper, "Basic National Security Policy (Suggestions of the Secretary of

State)," 15 Nov 54, PRUS 1952-54,11, pt 1:772-76.

13. DirCIA paper, "Elements of Intelligence Entering into a Review of Policy vis-a-vis the

Soviet Bloc," wi "Recommendations," 18 Nov 54, ibid, 776-81.

14. DirFOA paper, "Revision of NSC 162/2," 9 Nov 54, ibid, 770-72.

15. Memo Wilson for ExecSecNSC, 22 Nov 54, ibid, 785-87.

16. Memo of disc at 225th NSC mtg, 24 Nov 54, ibid, 788.

17. Ibid, 788-90.

18. Ibid, 790-91.

19. Ibid, 791-92, 795-96.

20. Ibid,794-95.

21. Ibid, 791-94, 799.

22. Ibid,793-94.

23. Ibid,799-800.

24. Paper by SecState, 15 Nov 54, par 2a, ibid, 774.

25. Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 50-51. Ridgway's memo, cited by Watson,

was dated 21 November.

26. Ltr Cutler to Wilson, 17 Nov 54, memo Cutler for CSA, 24 Nov 54: fldr NSC 5440 BNSP

(2), box 9, ASD(lSA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500. Cutler's letter to Wilson indicates

that the president had talked earlier to Wilson about giving individual chiefs of staff

an opportunity to "speak their views frankly" at council meetings.

27. Eisenhower's remark to Brownell, 2 Dec 54, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; Hanson W.

Baldwin, New York Times, 25 Nov 54; Marquis Childs, Washington Post & Times Herald,

8 Dec 54.

28. Ridgway's report has not been found, and the memorandum of discussion at the

3 December meeting does not summarize it. Its general content can be inferred from

the comments that followed. See memo of disc at 227th NSC mtg, 3 Dec 54, PRUS

952-54, 11, pt 1:804-06.

29. Ibid.

30. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,1074-77; Chalmers Roberts, Washington Post & Times

Herald, 30 Nov 54 (quote).

31. The 21 December date had been set to allow principals to return from NATO meetings during the week ending 18 December and to precede the president's departure

for Christmas vacation. See memo Cutler for Bowie, Bonesteel, et aI, 26 Nov 54, ltr

Cutler to Bonesteel, 7 Dec 54: fldr NSC 5440 BNSP (2), box 9, ASD(lSA) Pol PIng Stf

files, Acc 65A-3500.

32. William S. White, New York Times, 25 Nov 54. For analyses of the reported "peace vs.

war" crisis, see Joseph and Stewart Alsop, New York Herald Tribune, 25 Nov 54;

Drew Pearson, Washington Post & Times Herald, 29 Nov 54; Childs, Washington Post &

Times Herald, 23 Nov, 8 Dec 54.
Notes to Pages 347-59 717

33. Remarks by Bohlen at 1 Dec 54 Ping Bd session, fldr NSC 5440 BNSP (2), box 9, ASD

(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace 65A-3500.

34. Memo of disc at 228th NSC mtg, 9 Dec 54, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

35. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954, 1097-98.

36. John D. Morris, New York Times, 4 Dec 54; Dana Schmidt, ibid, 8 Dec 54; Walter Kerr,

New York Herald Tribune, 9 Dec 54; Paul W Ward, Baltimore Sun,. 8 Dec 54; Minnich

notes on legislative leadership meeting, 13 Dec 54, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

37. Note by ExecSecNSC, 13 Dec 54, wi NSC 5440,14 Dec 54, FRUS 1952-54, n,pt 1:.806-22.

38. See papers in fldr NSC 5440 BNSP (2), box 9,ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace 65A-3500.

39. Memo JCS for SecDef, 17 Dec 54, FRUS 1952c54, n, pt 1:828-32; NSC 5440 (encl Basic

National Security Policy), 14 Dec 54, ibid, 808.

40. Memo JCS for SecDef, 17 Dec 54, ibid, 828-32.

41. NSC 5440, 14 Dec 54, par 35, ibid, 815-16; memo JCS for SecDef, 17 Dec 54, ibid, 831.

42. NSC 5440, 14 Dec 54, ibid, 814.

43. NSC 5440, par 47, ibid, 818-19; memo JCS for SecDef, 17 Dec 54, ibid, 828-32.

44. Memo Stevens for SecDef, 18 Dec 54, memo Talbott for SecDef, 20 Dec 54, memo Thomas

for SecDef, 20 Dec 54: fldr NSC 5440 BNSP (2), box 9, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace

65A-3500.

45. "Review of BNSP (NSC 5440)," Item 1, 229th NSC mtg, 21 Dec 54,. ibid.

46. Memo of disc at 229th NSC mtg, 21 Dec 54, FRUS 1952-54, n, pt 1:832,840.

47. Ibid, 833-36.

48. Ibid, 836-39.

49. Ibid, 838-42.

50. Ibid, 839-40.

51. Ibid, 843-44; NSC 5440,. 14 Dec 54, ibid, 81B.

52. Memo Twining (for JCS) for SecDef, 30 Dec 54, fldr NSC 5440 BNSP (2), box 9, ASD

(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Ace 65A-3500. Admiral Radford had not particip;ated in

the review.

53. Memo of disc at 230th NSC mtg, 5 Jan 55,FRUS 1955-57, XIX:9-24.

54. NSC 5501,7 Jan 55, ibid, 26, 29-30.

55. Ibid, 30, 33.

56. Taylor, Uncertain Trumpet, 27.

57. NSC 5501,7 Jan 55, pay 34, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:33.

58. NSC 5501, pay 39, ibid, 34.

59. NSC 162/2 (pal' 44) was more forthright and candidly aggressive, calling for "political,

economic, propaganda and covert measures designed to create and exploit tYoublesome problems. for the USSR." See FRUS 1952"54, n, pt 1:595.

60. Kerr, New York Herald Tribune, 3 Jan 55.

61. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955, 2-6; Hagerty diary entry, 3 Jan 55, FRUS 1955-57,

XIX:3-4.

62. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955,2-6.

63. Ibid. For anothe·y analysis of the 5 January letter in conjunction with NSC 5sm, see

Condit,]CS and National Policy 1955-56, 5-14.

64. William Knighton, Jr., Baltimore Sun, 6 Jan 55.

65. Ltr CSA to SecDef, 27 Jun 55, in Ridgway, Soldier,. 328.

XVI. CONGRESS AND THE FY 1956 BUDGET

1. State of the Union Address, 6 Jan 55, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955,9; Eisenhower,

Mandate for Change, 467-69.

2. Notes on bipartisan leadership meeting, 14 Dec 54, Leg ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

3. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955,15. For contrast with campaign rhetoric, see William H.

Lawrence, New York Times, 7 Jan 55. For reactions, see Robert c..Albright, Washington

Post & Times Herald, 8 Jan 55; Anthony Leviero, New York Times, 14 Jan 55; Hanson W.

BaldWin, New York Times, 16 Jan 55.
718 Notes to Pages 360-74

4. Annual Budget Message to Congress: FY 1956, 17 Jan 55, Eisenhower Public Papers,

1955, 86-185; also printed in The Budget of the United States Government for the

Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1956, M5-85.

5. U.S. Budget for FY 56, M26-34; Leviero, New York Times, 18 Jan 55.

6. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955,72-84; Leviero, New York Times, 18 Jan 55.

7. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955,123.

8. Ibid, 119-23.

9. See Chapter V111.

10. These force levels were approved by the secretary of defense on 18 January. See

Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54,78, 113.

11. Lloyd Norman, Chicago Daily Tribune, 23 Jan 55.

12. Baldwin developed most of this argument in two articles in the New York Times,

18 Jan and 6 Feb (quotes) 55. See also his articles on 16 Jan and 4, 5 Feb 55.

13. See Chapter XXIV.

14. SCFR, Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Historical

Series), VII, 1955, 171-75.

15. Ibid, 237-39.

16. Ibid, 182-83,234-41.

17. Robert J. Donovan, New York Herald Tribune, 28 Jan 55.

18. Ibid.

19. HCAS Hearing, "Briefing on National Defense," 26 Jan 55 (committee print), 211, 217,

227,233-34.

20. Ltr Vinson to Wilson, ibid, 214-15.

21. Ibid, 308, 318, 338 (quote); Allen Drury, New York Times, 1 Feb 55.

22. HCAS Hearing, cited in n 19, 305-52 passim.

23. Ibid, 310-14, 333, 336, 343.

24. Ibid, 311-12.

25. Ibid, 327-28, 335-40.

26. Ibid, 343-45.

27. Ibid, 347-52; Drury, New York Times, 1 Feb 55.

28. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955, 226-27; James E. Warner, New York Herald Tribune,

3 Feb 55.

29. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956,24, 26-27, 29.

30. Ibid, 27-28, 36-37.

31. Ibid, 152-57.

32. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1956,25-26,37-38,44,46-50.

33. Ibid, 85-86, 109-11.

34. Ibid, 81-86, 106-07 (quote).

35. Ibid, 25, 31, 102.

36. Ibid, 88-89; New York Times, 6 Feb 55.

37. John W. Finney, Washington Post & Times Herald, 10 Feb 55; Drury, New York Times,

10 Feb 55; Wilson statement before SCAS, 9 Feb 55, Wilson Public Statements, 1955,

1:299-308.

38. New York Herald Tribune, 1 Mar 55; New York Times, 24 Feb 55.

39. John G. Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 7 Apr 55; Rodney Crowther, Baltimore Sun, 7 Apr 55.

40. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956,215-24.

41. Ibid, 211-12, 217, 219-20.

42. Ibid, 162-66, 174-75; "Twining, Talbott Defend Air Force Budget," American Aviation

Daily, 7 Apr 55; c.P. Trussell, New York Times, 7 Apr 55.

43. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956, 160-62, 167.

44. Ibid, 73-90, 107; Trussell, New York Times, 5,6 Apr 55.

45. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956, 90-91; Don Irwin, New York Herald Tribune, 6 Apr 55;

Ambrose, President, 240-41.

46. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956, 114, 118-19, 122-24, 125-26.

47. Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 8 Apr 55; Finney, ibid, 9 Apr 55; John C.

O'Brien, Philadelphia Inquirer, 18 Apr 55.
Notes to Pages 375-83 719

48. Albright, Washington Post & Times Herald, 10 Apr 55.

49. Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 6 May 55. The bill as submitted requested

in excess of $32.2 billion in new obligational authority. The committee recommended

slightly less than $31.5 billion, a reduction of $744 million.

50. Gong Rec, 84 Cong, 1 sess, 1955, 101, pt 5:6114-17, 6129-31.

51. Ibid, 6128~29.

52. Ibid, 6195-99.

53. Ibid, 6225, 6248; Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 13 May 55.

54. White, New York Times, 24 May 55.

55. Gong Rec, 84 Cong, 1 sess, 1955, 101, pt 7:8714-15; White, New York Times, 15 Jun 55;

Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 15 Jun 55.

56. Gong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1955, 101, pt 7:8702-03. Symington's speech, released to

the press in advance, had been reported in detail that morning. See Drury, New York

Times, 20 Jun 55; White, New York Times, 21 Jun 55.

57. Gong Rec, 84 Cong, 1 sess, 1955, 101, pt 7:8682-90.

58. Ibid, 8703.

59. Ibid, 8705, 8714; White, New York Times, 21 Jun 55; Norris, Washington Post & Times

Herald, 21 Jun 55.

60. Gong Rec, 84 Cong, 1 sess, 1955, 101, pt 7:9543-44; Finney, Washington Post & Times

Herald, 30 Jun 55.

XVII. THE 1955 BOMBER GAP FLAP

1. "Soviet Using Heavy Jet Bombers in Group Flights, Pentagon Says," New York Times,

14 May 55.

2. Memo of disc at 246th NSC mtg, 28 Apr 55, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; Baldwin, New

York Times, 19 May 55; Doris Fleeson, Washington Star, 16 May 55; BrigGen Thomas R.

Phillips, USA (Ret), Reporter, 30 Jun 55.

3. Charles J.Y. Murphy, "The New Air Situation," Fortune (Sep 55), 86ff; Baldwin, New

York Times, 19 May 55. For Wilson's public information policy, see Anthony Leviero,

New York Times, 31 Mar 55.

4. Baldwin, New York Times, 19 May 55; for Talbott's quoted statement see "General

Burgess Claims Air Speech Misquoted," Baltimore Sun, 20 May 55.

5. Robert Hotz, Aviation Week, 23 May 55; Murphy, "New Air Situation," 86 ff. For other

contemporary news reports, see Baldwin, New York Times, 29 May 55; Joseph Alsop,

Washington Post & Times Herald, 17 Jul 55.

6. Murphy, "New Air Situation," 86 ff.

7. May et aI, "History of the Strategic Arms Competition, 1945-1972," I, 186, OSD Hist.

The official National Intelligence Estimate incorporated the forecast even though the

CIA (which published it) believed the numbers would be somewhat smaller. See

also Murphy, "New Air Situation"; tables following memo Lay for SecDef, 27 May 55,

fidr NSC 5501 (1) Basic Policy, box 9,ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf,Acc 65A-3500.

8. William S. White, New York Times, 18 May 55; Baldwin, ibid, 19 May 55; George Carroll,

New York Journal American, 18 May 55; Hotz, Aviation Week, 23 May 55.

9. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955, 506-07, 508. In his news conference the president

confirmed that he had personally cleared the 14 May release.

10. Drew Pearson, Washington Post & Times Herald, 24 May 55; Gladwin Hill, New York

Times, 21 May 55; John G. Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 20 May 55.

11. "Symington Calls for 'Balance Sheet' on Air Power," Washington Post & Time Herald,

22 May 55; Gerald Griffin, Baltimore Sun, 24 May 55; White, New York Times, 24 May

55; Marguerite Higgins, New York Herald Tribune, 24 May 55.

12. Wilson Public Statements, 1955,11:554-56; White, New York Times, 25 May 55; Norris,

Washington Post & Times Herald, 25 May 55.

13. Wilson Public Statements, 1955, Il:556-61, 565-67; SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956,162.

14. Wilson Public Statements, 1955, Il:562-64, 567-69; see also Andrew Tully, Washington Daily News, 25 May 55.
720 Notes to Pages 384-92

15. Memo Radford for SecDef, 16 May 55, fldr Russia 452, box 3, SecDef subject files 1955,

Acc 59A-2376.

16. Ibid. The figure of 26 appears in OSD undated pencil notes on paper, "B-52 Acceleration-Testimony of AF Undersecretary Douglas ... quoted by Sec Talbott ... ," 15 Jun

55, OSD Hist. See also table, B-52 Production Schedule, atchd to Record of Actions,

250th NSC mtg, 26 May 55, OSD Rist.

17. Murphy, "New Air Situation," 86 ff.

18. OSD pencil notes, cited in n 16; Murphy, "New Air Situation"; memo Radford for SecDef,

16 May 55, cited in n 15, gave an end-1959 total of 408, against a Bison total of 700.

19. Memo Radford for SecDef, 16 May 55, cited in n 15.

20. Phillips, Reporter, 30 Jun 55; Murphy, "New Air Situation."

21. Wilson Public Statements, 1955,11:556-59; Phillips, Reporter, 30 Jun 55.

22. Phillips, Reporter, 30 Jun 55.

23. Baldwin, New York Times, 29 May 55; Murphy, "New Air Situation"; Phillips, Reporter,

30 Jun 55.

24. Baldwin, New York Times, 29 May 55; Ansel E. Talbert, New York Herald Tribune, 5 Jun

55; Robert Frank Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea 1950-1953,696.

25. "Talbott Says U.S. Ahead In Seven Basic Elements," American Aviation Daily, 8 Jun

55; Baldwin, New York Times, 29 May 55.

26. Baldwin, New York Times, 29 May 55; Phillips, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8 Jun 55;

Phillips, Reporter, 30 Jun 55.

27. Murphy, "New Air Situation"; Wilson Public Statements, 1955,11:562-66.

28. Trussell, New York Times, 27 May 55; 000 press release, 26 May 55, OSD Hist;

"Symington Hits Wilson On Planes," New York Herald Tribune, 26 May 55; memo of

disc at 250th NSC mtg, 26 May 55, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:82-83.

29. For the "inside story" of the decision, as reported, see R.S. Allen, New York Post,

2 Jun 55.

30. OSD pencil notes, "B-52 Acceleration ... ," and table, B-52 Production Schedule, cited

in n 16; Charles Corddry, Washington Post & Times Herald, 29 May 55; News Conf,

31 May 55, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955,549; "U.S. Has Edge on Soviet in Fighters,

Twining Says," Washington Star, 31 May 55.

31. Wilson Public Statements, 1955,11:572-76, 579-81.

32. "Talbott Says U.S. Leads in Atom Force," Baltimore Sun, 4 Jun 55; Alan Drury, New York

Times, 20 Jun 55; "Symington Says U.S. Ahead in Medium Bombers, Soviet in Fighters,"

American Aviation Daily, 8 Jun 55; "Defense Secretary Not Being Candid About Air

Power, Jackson Charges," Washington Post & Times Herald, 6 Jun 55.

33. American Aviation Daily, 10 Jun 55; "Push-Button Defense," Newsweek, 2 May 55;

Mark Watson, Baltimore Sun, 14 Jun 55.

34. Evert Clark, Washington Daily News, 8 Jun 55.

35. Hoover Commission Report, Research and Development in the Government, May 55, 1,

10, 13, 21-24, 47. The report covered the whole span of research government-wide.

See Lee Nichols, Washington Post & Times Herald, 1 Jun 55.

36. Wilson Public Statements, 1955,11:577-79.

37. Ibid; SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956,6 Jun 55, 1432-34.

38. John A. Giles, Washington Star, 12 Jun 55; Phillips, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 19 Jun 55.

39. Wilson Public Statements, 1955, 11:577-79; SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956, 6 Jun 55,

1433-34; Phillips, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 19 Jun 55; Richard Fryklund, Washington

Star, 12 Jun 55.

40. Fryklund, Washington Star, 12 Jun 55.

41. "Month By Month: Highlights of the National Defense," Ordnance (May-Jun 55);

American Aviation Daily, 10 Jun 55; Watson, Baltimore Sun, 14 Jun 55; "Push-Button

Defense," cited in n 33.

42. Watson, Baltimore Sun, 9 Jun 55; Warren Unna, Washington Post & Times Herald,

13 Jun 55.

43. "Missile Race Emphasized by Radford," Baltimore Sun, 12 Jun 55.

44. Darrell Garwood, Washington Post & Times Herald, 11 Jun 55.

45. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1956, 6 Jun 55, 1434-40.

46. White, New York Times, 24 May 55.
Notes to Pages 393-402 721

47. Address before Annual Fellowship Dinner of Grand Lodge of Masons of State of

Washington at Olympia, Wash., 21 Jun 55, printed as extension of remarks, 27 Jul 55,

Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 1 sess, 1955, 101,A5517-18.

48. "Airpower Questions Rejected by Wilson," New York Times, 1 Jul 55; "Jackson Asks

Planes Data," Baltimore Sun, 2 Jul 55. Wilson's replies, like Jackson's questions, were

released to the press.

49. "New Twin-Jet Transport Plane, 2 Fighters Shown at Red Air Show," Washington Post

& Times Herald, 4 Jul 55; Stewart Alsop, ibid, 10 Jul 55; "Soviet Air Show Stirs

Symington," New York Times, 4 Jul 55.

50. "Russian Air Force Aims Told at Quantico Parley," Washington Star, 17 Jul 55.

51. "Jackson Urges Increased Aircraft Production," American Aviation Daily, 29 Jul 55.

52. "Answers to Questions Raised in Senator Jackson's Letter of 27 Jun 55," 26 Jul 55,

fldr Budget FY 1956 Work File, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; "Wilson On Air

Power," Aviation Week, 25 Jul 55; "Jackson Urges Increased Aircraft Production," American Aviation Daily, 29 Jul 55.

53. "Answers to Questions ...," 26 Jul 55, cited in n 52.

54. Phillips, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 10 Jul, 12 Aug 55. Air Force projections as of about

January 1956 showed a total B-52 production of 471 through December 1958, with

peak output of 17 per month during most of that year. See table, B-52 Production

Schedule, and OSD pencil notes, "B-52 Acceleration ...," cited in n 16.

55. Phillips, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 10 Jul 55. In a TV interview on 24 July Sen. Clinton

Anderson (D-N. Mex.) repeated a number of the points made in Phillips's article; see

CBS-TV, "Face the Nation," 24 Jul 55, Current News file, OSD Hist. See also Senator

Jackson interv on NBC-TV; "Youth Wants To Know," 17 Jul 55, ibid.

56. Phillips, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 12 Aug 55; American Aviation Daily, 15 Aug 55;

Lawrence E. Davies, New York Times, 12 Aug 55; Alsop, New York Herald Tribune,

21 Aug 55.

57. "F-I0l, 104 Will Be Accelerated," Aviation Week, 1 Aug 55.

58. William J. Coughlin, Aviation Week, 8 Aug 55; Leviero, New York Times, 4 Aug 55

59. Giles, Washington Star, 21 Aug 55; "R&D To Get Increased USAF Attention,"

American Aviation Daily, 15 Aug 55; "Congress Cuts USAF Construction Funds,"

Aviation Week, 8 Aug 55. Talbott resigned at the beginning of August, under pressure,

as a result of business irregularities in dealings with contractors. See Russell Baker,

New York Times, 2 Aug 55.

60. Alsop, New York Herald Tribune, 19 Sep 55.

61. Memo Robertson for SvcSecs, CJCS, and ASD(R&D), 17 Sep 55, memo Robertson for Svc

Sees, CJCS, ASD(R&D), and ASD(C), 8 Sep 55: fldr TCP Rpt (Killian Rpt) (NSC Gen),

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; Rudolph A. Winnacker, "Development of LongRange Guided Missiles 1945-59," 13-14, OSD Hist; memo of disc at 258th NSC mtg,

8 Sep 55, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:121.

62. Alsop, New York Herald Tribune, 19 Sep 55.

63. William Knighton, Jr., Baltimore Sun, 20 Sep 55; John M. Hightower, Washington Star,

21 Sep 55.

64. "Defense Cut Probe Is Seen By Symington," Baltimore Sun, 20 Sep 55.

65. Murphy's Fortune article (see n 3) implied as much, but without divulging classified

information about implementation of the Killian report.

XVIII. MINUTEMEN AND VETERANS

1. National Security Training Commission, 20th Century Minutemen: A Report to the

President on a Reserve Forces Training Program, I Dec 53,2-3.

2. Watson,JCS and National Policy 1953-54,163-65; 20th Century Minutemen, 7, 10, 13;

Condit, Test ofWar, 490-91.

3. Watson,JCS and National Policy 1953-54,165-66; 20th Century Minutemen, 11,29,73

(quote); John G. Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 15 Dec 53.
722 Notes to Pages 402-11

4. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 166.

5. "Double Jeopardy In Defense," Washington Post & Times Herald, 20 Dec 53; Hanson w:

Baldwin, New York Times, 20 Dec 53; editorials in New York Times, 15 Dec 53,

Washington Post & Times Herald, 20 Dec 53, Philadelphia 1nquirer, 15 Dec 53;

Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 15 Dec 53.

6. Charles E. Egan, New York Times, 10 Jan 54; Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,

166; Walter Millis, New York Herald Tribune, 12 Jan 54; New York Times, 13 Jan 54;

Semiannual Report of the Secretary of Defense, january 1 to june 30, 1954, 25-26;

HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955, 274-75, 387-96. The president's letter to Adler is in

Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,46.

7. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1955, 275-80; DoD press release, 9 Feb 54; Wilson for SvcSecs,

4 Feb 54, fldr 326 Manpower Nov 53-]an 54, box 43, SecDef subject files 1954, Acc

59A-792;Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,166.

8. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 166-69; paper, "Analysis of Comments ... ,"

nd, fldr 370.01 untitled file, Manpower Nov 53-Jan 54, box 54, SecDef subject files

1954,Acc 59A-792.

9. Mark Watson, Baltimore Sun, 14 May 54; Millis, New York Herald Tribune, 16 May 54;

New York Times, 13 May 54.

10. NSC 5420, Reserve Mobilization Requirements, 25 May 54, 2-4, 5-8, 15-16, fldr NSC

5420 Reserve Mobilization Rqmts, box 6, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

11. Ltr Adler to Flemming, 24 May 54, memo NSTC for Flemming, 24 May 54, ODM memo

on DoD Rpt, 28 May 54: ibid.

12. Memo Twining (for JCS) for SecDef, 15 Jun 54, memo Stevens for SecDef, 4 Jun 54,

w/encls: ibid.

13. OSD briefing paper for 202d NSC mtg, 17 Jun 54, OSD paper (ref NSC 5420), nd,

"Pertinent Excerpts from NSC Meetings," excerpt for 17 Jun (quote): ibid; memo of

disc at 202d NSC mtg, 17 Jun 54, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; NSC Action 1I61b and c,

18 Jun 54, OSD Rist.

14. NSC 5420/1,26 Jul 54, OSD Hist;Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,170-71.

15. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 8 Oct 54, fldr NSC 5420 Reserve Mobilization

Rqmts, box 6, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; Watson, jCS and National

Policy 1953-54, 171-72.

16. NSC 5420/2, Military Manpower Programs, 6 Nov 54, fldr NSC 5420 Reserve Mobilization Rqmts, box 6, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; Watson, jCS and

National Policy 1953-54,172.

17. Burgess presentation before NSC, 15 Nov 54, 17-18, NSC 5420/3, 12 Nov 54, w/encl,

OSD "Problems" papers, Problem #7: fldr NSC 5420 Reserve Mobilization Rqmts, box

6, ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

18. Burgess presentation before NSC, 15 Nov 54, 13, ibid.

19. NSC 5420/3, 12 Nov 54, ibid;Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,174.

20. Wilson and Burgess press conf, 17 Dec 54, Wilson Public Statements, 1954,IV:1270;

New York Times, 18 Dec 54; Washington Star, 18 Dec 54.

21. Wilson and Burgess press conf, cited in n 20, 1289-90; Walter Kerr, New York Herald

Tribune, 16 Dec 54; 20th Century Minutemen, Exhibit II, VIII, 18, 33; NSC 5420/2,

20 Sep 54, par 11-4, fldr NSC 5420 Reserve Mobilization Rqmts, box 6, ASD(ISA) Pol

PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

22. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955, 13 Jan 55, 72-78; "Wilson Promotes U.S. Reserve

Plan," New York Times, 9 Feb 55.

23. Wilson Statement to HASC, 8 Feb 55, Wilson Public Statements, 1955, 1:294; memo

Burgess for SecDef, 1 Feb 55, w/atchd memos Burgess for Wilson, 13 Jan, 1 Feb 55,

memo Wilson for Talbott, 8 Feb 55: fldr 326 Manpower 1955, box 14, SecDef subject

files 1955, Acc 59A-2376; Cecil Holland, Washington Star, 14 Feb 55; Baltimore Sun,

15 Feb 55.

24. Memo Robert Tripp Ross (ActASD(M&RA)) for Talbott, 2 Mar 55, fldr 326 Manpower

1955, box 14, SecDef subject files, 1955, Acc 59A-2376; DoD press release, 19 Feb 55

(Statements by Radford, Ridgway, Carney, Fechteler), OSD Rist.
Notes to Pages 411-22 723

25. Special Message to Congress on Career Incentives, 13 Jan 55, Eisenhower Public

Papers, 1955, 78-84; New York Times, 14 Jan 55; Watson, JGS and National Policy

1953-54, 175; Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 22 Jan 55. Text of legislation

is printed in House, Hearings, Sundry Legislation 1955, 1244-50.

26. John A. Giles, Washington Star, 18 Dec 54; Watson, Baltimore Sun, 2 Dec 54.

27. See "A Comparison of Reserve Proposals," Army Times, 19 Feb 55. The table lists plans

put forward by various organizations.

28. Washington Post & Times Herald, 7,11 Mar 55.

29. New York Times, 19 Mar 55.

30. Presentation by Burgess to Adj Gen Assoc, 25 Apr 55, fIdr Res Act of 55, Apr-Jun 55,

OSD Hist; Paul Southwick, Washington Post & Times Herald, 22 Mar 55; John Van

Camp, Baltimore Sun, 29 Mar 55; c.P. Trussell, New York Times, 23, 28 Apr 55;

Washington Post & Times Herald, 27, 28 Apr 55.

31. Trussell, New York Times, 18 May 55.

32. Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 19 May 55; Trussell, New York Times, 20 May

55; Gong Rec, House, 85 Cong, 1 sess, 18 May 55, 5584-87; "Martin Sees Passage of

Reserve Bill," Washington Post & Times Herald, 22 May 55.

33. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955, 579-81; Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald,

9 Jun 55; W.H. Lawrence, New York Times, 9 Jun 55; Washington Star, 17 Jun 55.

34. Robert C. Albright, Washington Post & Times Herald, 17 Jun 55; William S. White, New

York Times, 10 Jun 55.

35. Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 18 Jun 55; New York Times, 19 Jun 55;

Albright, Washington Post & Times Herald, 21 Jun 55; Trussell, New York Times, 21 Jun

55; Van Camp, Baltimore Sun, 21 Jun 55.

36. Washington Star, 21 Jun 55; Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 22 Jun 55;

Trussell, New York Times, 22 Jun 55.

37. Southwick, Washington Post & Times Herald, 23, 24 Jun 55; New York Times, 26 Jun

55;Allen Drury, New York Times, 27 Jun 55.

38. Earl MalO, New York Herald Tribune, 29 Jun 55; Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955,

648; New York Times, 30 Jun 55.

39. Albright, Washington Post & Times Herald, 2 Jul 55; Trussell, New York Times,

2 Jul 55; Gong Rec, House, 85 Cong, 1 sess, 1 Jul 55,8336,8392-95,8404-05.

40. J.A. O'Leary, Washington Star, 8 Jul 55.

41. New York Times, 10, 11 Jul 55; Drury, ibid, 11 Jul 55; Rose McKee, Washington Post &

Times Herald, 10 Jul 55.

42. Burgess statement before SCAS, 11 Jul 55,8-9, fIdr Res Act of 55, Jul 55, OSD Hist.

43. Ibid, 10-19.

44. Gong Rec, House, 85 Cong, 1 sess, 25 Jul 55, 9839-40; Van Camp, Baltimore Sun, 14 Jul

55; Trussell, New York Times, 14 Jul 55.

45. Gong Rec, House, 85 Cong, 1 sess, 25 Jul 55, 9841-42, 9846; Van Camp, Baltimore Sun,

14 Jul 55; Trussell, New York Times, 14 Jul 55; John w: Finney, Washington Post &

Times Herald, 14 Jul 55; Baltimore Sun, 14 Jul 55.

46. Gong Rec, House, 85 Cong, 1 sess, 25 Jul 55, 9839-41; Trussell, New York Times,

22 Jul 55.

47. Gong Rec, House, 85 Cong, 1 sess, 25 Jul 55, 9846; Trussell, New York Times,

22 Jul 55; Russell Brines, Washington Post & Times Herald, 24 Jul 55.

48. Gong Rec, House, 85 Cong, 1 sess, 25 Jul 55, 9849; New York Times, 26, 27 Jul 55;

Trussell, New York Times, 27 Jul 55; Baldwin, New York Times, 26, 27, 28 Jul 55; ltr

Wilson to Pres, 1 Aug 55, fIdr 326 Manpower 1955, box 14, SecDef subject files

1955, Acc 59A-2376; Statement by President, 9 Aug 55, Eisenhower Public Papers,

1955,775-76; New York Times, 10 Aug 55.

49. Semiannual Report of the Secretary of Defense, January 1 to June 30, 1956,

62-66;Watson,]GS and National Policy 1953-54,175-76.
724 Notes to Pages 423-31

XIX. SURPRISE ATTACK AND NUCLEAR PARITY

1. Technological Capabilities Panel of the Science Advisory Committee of ODM, "Meeting

the Threat of Surprise Attack," 14 Feb 55, copy in OSD Hist (hereafter referred to as

TCP Rpt). Pts I and II are in FRUS 1955-57, XIX:41-56.

2. See Chapter Xv.

3. TCP Rpt, I, 3, 5, 7, 27 (quotes, 5, 27).

4. Ibid,4.

5. Ibid, 14-16.

6. Ibid, 17-19.

7. Ibid, 22-27, 133-52.

8. Ibid, 10. For Sprague's November timetable, see Chapter XIII.

9. TCP Rpt, I, 11-13.

10. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 18 Apr 55, w!app, fldr TCP Rpt File #1, box 14,ASD

(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

11. Memo of disc at 241st NSC mtg, 17 Mar 55, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:63-68.

12. Memo Anderson for SvcSecs, JCS, 1 Mar 55, memo Quarles for SvcSecs, JCS, 11 Mar 55,

memo Wilson for SvcSecs, JCS, 29 Mar 55: fldr TCP Rpt (Killian Rpt)(NSC Gen), ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist. See also related correspondence during March, April,

and May in this folder.

13. App A, nd (ca 18 May 55), Financial Summary, fldr TCP Rpt (Killian Rpt)(NSC Gen),

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist. This document was not attached to any report.

14. Condit,]CS and National Policy 1955-56,270.

15. R.C. Sprague rpt to NSC on Cont Def, 16 Jun 55, fldr NSC 5408 Cont Def (2), ASD(ISA)

Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; memo of disc at 252d NSC mtg, 16 Jun 55, FRUS

1955-57, XIX:87-94.

16. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs, JCS, ASD(R&D), 27 Jun 55, memo Lay for SecDef, 21 Jun 55,

memo Lay for SecDef, 21 Jun 55, memo Lay for NSC, 21 Jun 55: fldr NSC 5408 Cont

Def (2), ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

17. Memo Carney (for JCS) for SecDef, 27 Apr 55, w!app, fldr 381 Cont Def 1955, box

18, SecDef subject files, Acc 59A-2376.

18. OSD table, Extent of Agency Concurrence in Recommendations of TCp, 14 Jul 55, fldr

TCP Rpt File #1, box 14, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; Max Lehrer

briefing notes on Killian report, 23 May 55, fldr TCP Rpt (Killian Rpt)(NSC Gen), ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

19. Draft paper, "Review of Key Aspects of Basic National Security Policy," atchd to memo

Lay for Ping Bd, 8 Jul 55, fldr NSC 550l-Basic Pol #1, box 9, ASD(ISA) Pol PIng Stf

files, Acc 65A-3500; Amory memo, 18 Jul 55, fldr TCP Rpt File #1, box 14, ibid.

20. Memo Sprague for Dillon Anderson, 28 Jul 56, fldr TCP Rpt File #1, box 14, ibid.

21. Memo Col E.H.F. Svensson for Def Mem, PIng Bd, 29 Jul 55, memo Col R.]. Dixon for

DoD-NSC, JCS-NSC, 29 Jul 55: ibid.

22. Memo David Z. Beckler (Exec Off Sc Adv Cte) for WY. Elliott and v.P. Rock, 26 Aug

55, ibid.

23. Memo of disc at 257th NSC mtg, 4 Aug 55, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:103; staff memoranda

on Killian Timetable, 12, 15,22 Sep 55, ibid.

24. Timetable memos cited in n 23; see also Chapter XVII.

25. PIng Bd draft paper, "Characteristics of the Timetable of Change in Our Military

Position Relative to Russia," 2 Nov 55, fldr TCP Rpt File #2, box 14, ASD(ISA) Pol PIng

Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; memo of disc at 266th NSC mtg, 15 Nov 55, FRUS 1955-57,

XIX:145-50.

26. NSC 5501, 7 Jan 55, par 3, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:26. This reflected NIE 11-6-54, 5 October 1954, forecasting a Soviet 900-mile ballistic missile between 1955 and 1957, a

1,300-mile IRBM between 1957 and 1959, and an ICBM between 1960 and 1963. See

May et aI, "History of Strategic Arms Competition," I, 199.

27. Max Rosenberg, "Plans and Policies for the Ballistic Missile Initial Operational Capability

Program," USAF Hist Div, Feb 60, 4; TCP Rpt, 16, 18; May et aI, "History of Strategic

Arms Competition," I, 191-95.
Notes to Pages 432-36 725

28. Rosenberg, "Ballistic Missile IOC Program," 5-7.

29. Ibid, 6. The Tea Pot Committee report was quite short, consisting of a brief introduction and recommendations, under the title "Recommendations of the Tea Pot

Committee." The original report was dated 1 February 1954; however, a slightly

amended official version was submitted on 10 February. Both versions appear in App

1 in Jacob Neufeld, The Development of Ballistic Missiles in the United States Air

Force, 1945-1960,245-69.

30. "Recommendations of Tea Pot Committee," cited in n 29; Rosenberg, "Ballistic Missile

IOC Program," 9; memo Gardner for ASD(R&D), 16 Feb 54, summarized in Cole et aI,

"History of Strategic Arms Competition: Chronology," I, 185-86, 195-96.

31. May et aI, "History of Strategic Arms Competition," I, 197; Cole et aI, "History of

Strategic Arms Competition: Chronology," I, 195-96.

32. OSD table, Tentative Obligations for Guided Missiles Programs, FY 1950 through FY

1960, 13 Jun 55, Table VC, Surface-to-Surface Systems, Air Force, in notebook Briefing

Material for 19 Jul 55 Special Guided Missile Cte Meeting: ASD(C) files, box 6, Acc

65A-3552. The data are as of 1 December 1954.

33. May et aI, "History of Strategic Arms Competition," I, 197; Cole et aI, "History of

Strategic Arms Competition: Chronology," I, 195-96; Rosenberg, "Ballistic Missile IOC

Program," 13.

34. TCP Rpt, I, 37, 64 (quote).

35. Ibid, 16,22,37-38,63-66.

36. Ibid, 15-16.

37. Comments and recoms on TCP Rpt, wi memo Radford for SecDef, 18 Apr 55, fIdr TCP

Rpt File #1, box 14, ASD(lSA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; Winnacker, "DeVelopment of Long-Range Guided Missiles," 13, OSD Hist; May et aI, "History of Strategic

Arms Competition," I, 200; DoD statement in regard to TCP Rpt, 1 Jun 55, 3, fIdr TCP

Rpt (Killian Rpt)(NSC Gen),ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

38. DoD statement cited in n 37, 5.

39. Memo Bonesteel for ASDs et aI, 13 Jun 55, fIdr TCP Rpt (Killian Rpt)(NSC Gen), ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; for the Symington statement see Cong Rec, 84 Cong,

1 sess, 1955, 101, pt 7:86, 88; for Jackson's speech see his Address before Annual

Fellowship Dinner of Grand Lodge of Masons of State of Washington at Olympia, Wash.,

21 Jun 55, printed as extension of remarks, 27 Jul 55, ibid,A5517-18 (quote, 5518).

40. Rosenberg, "Ballistic Missile IOC Program," 14-16; "Recommendations Contained in

30 June 1955 letter from Senators Anderson and Jackson to the President," atchd to

NSC PIng Bd, "Briefing Notes-ICBM," 11 Aug 55, fIdr TCP (Killian Rpt)(NSC Gen),

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; MFR Bonesteel, 2 Sep 55, fIdr TCP-ICBM, IRBM,

and 1500-mile Missile, box 13, ASD(lSA) Pol PIng Stf files,Acc 65A-3500.

41. May et aI, "History of Strategic Arms Competition," I, 201-02; OSD briefing notes for

258th NSC mtg, 8 Sep 55, item 2, ICBM Prog, fIdr TCP-ICBM, IRBM, and 1500-mile

Missile, box 13, ASD(lSA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; memo Bonesteel for Wilson,

28 Jul 55, ibid; memo Flemming for Wilson, 5 Jul 55, fIdr TCP Rpt File #1, box 14, ibid;

memo of disc at 256th NSC mtg, 28 Jul 55, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; "Answers to

Questions Raised in Senator Jackson's Letter of 27 June 1955," 26 Jul 55, fIdr Budget

FY 1956 Work File, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist. For handling of the AndersonJackson letter, see Rosenberg, "Ballistic Missile IOC Program," 16; also memo Wilson

for Pres, 6 Jul 55, wi other corres in fIdr 470 Guided Missiles Oan to Jun) 1955, box

20, SecDef subject files 1955, Acc 59A-2376.

42. Memo Dillon Anderson for C]CS, 1 Aug 55, fIdr TCP-ICBM, IRBM, and 1500-mile

Missile, box 13, ASD(lSA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; NSC Action 1430, 11 Aug 55,

par band c, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:103, n 9; memo of disc at 257th NSC mtg, 4 Aug 55,

ibid, 103-08. Proposals to meet the need for IRBMs included an Air Force derivative of

Atlas, a British project, an Army version derived from Redstone, a Navy ballistic shipborne version, and an extension of the Navy's current Triton project for a submarinelaunched non-ballistic missile.
726 Notes to Pages 436-43

43. 000 draft, "Proposed NSC Action with respect to ICBM Program," 10 Aug 55, wi

memo Lay for Ping Bd, 10 Aug 55, ODM draft, " Proposed NSC Action ...," I I Aug 55:

fldr TCP-ICBM, IRBM, and 1500-mile Missile, box 13, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc

65A-3500; 000 draft, "ICBM Draft NSC Action," 22 Aug 55, wlatchd "Support for 000

Position on ICBM," ibid.

44. Memo Elliott for Ping Bd, 25 Aug 55, ODM draft, "Proposed NSC Action with respect

to ICBM Program," 19 Aug 55: ibid.

45. aDM, 000, and Ping Bd revised drafts, 29 Aug 55, memo Lay for NSC, 30 Aug 55, wi

atchd "Proposed NSC Action": ibid.

46. Memo of disc at 258th NSC mtg, 8 Sep 55, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:121-22; memo Lay for Sec

Def, 15 Sep 55, fldr TCP-ICBM, IRBM, and 1500-mile Missile, box 13, ASD(ISA) Pol

Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; memo Robertson for SvcSecs, JCS, ASD(R&D), 17 Sep 55,

ibid. See also Rosenberg, "Ballistic Missile lac Program," 18-19. The final statement was

designated NSC Action 1433.

47. Memo Brucker for SecDef, 6 Sep 55, fldr 470 Guided Missiles Oan to Jurt) 1955, box

20, SecDef subject files 1955,Acc 59A-2376.

48. NSC Action 1430c, 4 Aug 55, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:I03, n 9; memo Robertson for SvcSecs

and ASD(R&D), 6 Sep 55, fldr TCP-ICBM, IRBM, and 1500-mile Missile, box 13, ASD

(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500. The projects are listed in n 42.

49. "Dept of Army Ballistic Guided Missile System Proposals for Range of 1500-n.mi.,"

22 Sep 55, fldr 470 Guided Missiles Oan to Jun) 1955, box 20, SecDef subject files

1955,Acc 59A-2376.

50. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 179-85 (quote, 180); for the Key West Agreement, see Reardon, Formative Years, 136-37.

51. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,184-86 (quote, 185).

52. Michael H. Armacost, The Politics of Weapons Innovation: The Thor:fupiter Controversy, 46-48,53-54.

53. Ibid, 51-52, 70, n 132; Vincent Davis, The Politics of Innovation: Patterns in Navy

Cases, 26; Harvey M. Sapolsky, The Polaris System Development: Bureaucratic and

Programmatic Success in Government, 20-21; SCAS,Air Power Hearings, 1956,730.

54. Sapolsky, Polaris System, 15-19; Armacost, Politics of Weapons Innovation, 64-67;

Davis, Politics of Innovation, 22, 35.

55. David A. Rosenberg, "Arleigh Albert Burke," in Robert W. Love, Jr., ed, The Chiefs of

Naval Operations, 263-64, 278 (quote, 264); Sapolsky, Polaris System, 22-23.

56. Armacost, Politics of Weapons Innovation, 54-55; Davis, Politics of Innovation, 39,

n 29; SCAS, Airpower Hearings, 1956, 1311; memo Thomas for SecDef, 21 Sep 55,

fldr 470 Guided Missiles Oan to Jun) 1955, box 20, SecDef subject files 1955, Acc

59A-2376.

57. Ltr Wilson to von Neumann, 20 Oct 55, fldr 470 Guided Missiles Oan to Jun) 1955, box

21, SecDef subject files 1955, Acc 59A-2376. The letter requested that von Neumann

make the services of his Scientific Advisory Committee available to Wilson as well as

to the Air Force.

58. Memo ExecSecOSD-BMC A.G. Waggoner for SpecAsst to DepSecDef; 14 Dec 56, fldr

AFPC Dec 1956,AFPC Meeting files,Acc 77-0062.

59. Ibid, Refs 7, 8, 9 (quote, Ref 8).

60. Memo Wilson for CJCS, 20 Oct 25, memo Radford for SecDef, 2 Nov 55, wlapp A and B:

fldr 470 Guided Missiles Oul to Dec) 1955, box 20, SecDef subject files 1955, Acc

59A-2376.

61. Memo Radford for SecDef, 2 Nov 55, cited in n 60; Condit, ]CS and National Policy

1955-56,68-69.

62. Briefing for SecArmy on IRBM, wi cover memo DepChR&D A.P. O'Meara, 27 Oct 55,

fldr 470 Guided Missiles Oul to Dec) 1955, box 20, SecDef subject files, Acc 59A-2376.

O'Meara noted that he had been directed to forward the paper to Robertson.

63. Memo Radford for SecDef, 2 Nov 55, cited in n 60; rpt on 000 ICBM and IRBM Progs,

wi cover memo Robertson for ExecSecNSC, 29 Nov 55, fldr 470 Guided Missiles

Oul to Dec) 1955, box 20, SecDef subject files 1955,Acc 59A-2376.
Notes to Pages 443-51 727

64. Memo McNeil for DepSecDef, 7 Nov 55, fIdr Guided Missiles, box 5, ASD(C) files,

Acc 65A-3552.

65. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs, JCS, ASD(R&D), ASD(C), 8 Nov 55, sub: ICBM and IRBM

Programs, memo Wilson for SecAF, 8 Nov 55, sub: Management of ICBM and IRBM ,

memo Wilson for SecArmy and SecNavy, 8 Nov 55, sub: Management of IRBM #2 ,

memo Wilson for all ASDs, SvcSecs, C]CS, 8 Nov 55, sub: Establishment of OSD BMC,

ltr Wilson to R. R. Hughes, 8 Nov 55: fIdr 470 Guided Missiles Qui to Dec) 1955, box

20, SecDef subject files,Acc 59A-2376.

66. Armacost, Politics o/Weapons Innovation, 114.

67. Wilson press conf, 21 May 56, Wilson Public Statements, 1956, 11:678-80; Armacost,

Politics 0/ Weapons Innovation, 115; Taylor, Uncertain Trumpet, 140-41; Rosenberg,

"Ballistic Missile IOC Program," 75-83; Watson, Into the Missile Age, 161-67.

68. Watson, Into the Missile Age, 161-67; memo of disc at 268th NSC mtg, 1 Dec 55, FRUS

1955-57, XIX:170.

69. Ibid; memo Pres for SecDef, 21 Dec 55, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

70. TCP Rpt, I, 14 (quote), 15,37-39,66-68.

71. DoD statement in regard to TCP Rpt, 1 Jun 55, cited in n 37.

72. OASD(R&D), "Summary Report on DoD Consideration of the TCP Report," nd, App B,

3-4, w/ marginal pencil notations, box 13, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500;

OSD(C) paper, nd [Nov 55], "Killian and Sprague Recommendations Affecting DoD

and Requiring Budgetary Support," fIdr TCP Rpt (Killian Rpt)(NSC Gen), ATSD and

DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

73. Memo Lay for NSC Ping Bd, 22 Jul 55, fIdr TCP File #1, box 14, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping

Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; memo of disc at 257th NSC mtg, 4 Aug 55, FRUS 1955-57,

XIX:I03.

74. OSD working paper, "Air Force Briefing on Vulnerability of SAC," 17 Oct 55, w/atchd

pencil notes, fIdr TCP Rpt (Killian Rpt)(NSC Gen), ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD

Hist. The briefing was scheduled in October to benefit from the presentation of

the Net Evaluation Subcommittee report. See memo Dixon for Dir NSC Aff (DoD),

15 Aug 55, fIdr TCP Rpt File #1, box 14, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

75. Memo OASD(R&D) for SecDef, 17 Nov 55, fIdrTCP Rpt File #1, box 14, ASD(ISA) Pol

Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; draft memo for SecAF, 17 Nov 55, ibid; memo Robertson

for SecAF, 23 Nov 55, fIdr TCP Rpt (Killian Rpt)(NSC Gen), ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Hist; memo Robertson for Dillon Anderson, 21 Oct 55, fIdr TCP Rpt File #2, box 14,

ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; ltr Anderson to Robertson, 26 Oct 55, ibid.

The revised briefing was actually given to the NSC on 8 December; see FRUS 1955-

57, XIX: 171-72.

76. OASD(R&D) rpt, "RD 298/1," Jan 56, vi, 508, fldr TCP File #2, box 14, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping

Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

77. Ibid, 9-12.

78. Ibid, 4, 12-13 (quote, 13).

79. Ibid, 2-3, 14.

80. DoD rpt, "Funding related to TCP Rpt," nd, ibid.

81. Ibid. The report was read at the NSC 8 December meeting. See mins 270th NSC mtg,

8 Dec 55, 2, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

XX. UPDATING BASIC STRATEGY: NSC 5602/1

1. Memo JCS for SecDef, 17 Dec 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:828-32.

2. See Chapter XV

3. Condit,]CS and National Policy 1955-56,18,83-84,105-11.

4. Memo Sherman Kent (AsstDir(Nat Estims)) for DCI, 14 Jun 55, fldr NSC 5524 Basic US

Pol in rel to Four-Power Negot #2, box 14, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500;

Ambrose, President, 248-49.

5. FRUS 1955-57, V:450-53, 456-57; Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955,702 (quote);

Ambrose, President, 264-66.
728 Notes to Pages 452-58

6. Ambrose, President, 264. Since the Soviets already knew the location of most U.S. military

installations, mutual aerial surveillance would benefit them much less than the United

States.

7. Memo Bonesteel for ExecSecNSC, 16 May 55,fldr NSC 5501 Basic Policy #1, box 9,ASD(ISA)

Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

8. Memo Dixon for JCS-NSC, 22 Jun 55, memo Dixon for JCS-NSC, 13 Jun 55: fldr NSC 5524

Basic US Pol in rei to Four-Power Negot #2, box 14,ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files,Acc 65A3500.

9. Memo Kent for DCI, 14 Jun 55, cited in n 4; memo DCI for Lay, 1 Jul 55, PRUS 1955-57,

V:247-52.

10. State Dept draft paper,"Policy Issues Facing the US in relation to Prospective Negotiations,"

31 May 55, wi memo Lay for Ping Bd, same date, fldr NSC 5524 Basic US Pol in rei to FourPower Negot #2, box 14,ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files,Acc 65A-3500; Navy memo Op-61Bl

for Op-616, 3 Jun 55, ibid.

11. Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 2 Jul 55, wi memo Lay for NSC, 5 Jul 55, ibid; memo of disc

at 254th NSC mtg, 7 Jul 55, PRUS 1955-57, V:268-83 (quote, 283); NSC 5524/1, ibid, 287-

98 (quote, 289).

12. Debriefing on Geneva Conf by Robert Bowie and Dillon Anderson, 25 Jul 55, fldr NSC

5524 Basic US Pol in rei to Four-Power Negot #3, box 9, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files,

Acc 65A-3500.

13. Memo Wilson for C]CS, 29 Jul 55, memo Wilson for JCS, 10 Aug 55: ibid.

14. Ping Bd draft paper, "Review of Key Aspects of Basic National Security Policy," 8 Jul 55

(rev 13 Jul), wi cover memo Lay for Ping Bd, 8 Jul 55, draft paper, "National Security

Outlook for FY 1957, Recommended Program on Planning Board Work," wi cover memo

Lay for Ping Bd, 18 May 55, DoD draft paper, "Suggested Changes in Part II of

Planning Board Program of Work ... ," 31 May 55, Ping Bd paper, "Review of Key

Aspects ... ," 2 Sep 55, wi cover memo Lay for Ping Bd, 2 Sep 55, Ping Bd Assts draft

paper, "Review of Key Aspects ... ," 24 Aug 55, wi rei corres: fldr NSC 5501 Basic

Policy #1, box 9,ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files,Acc 65A-3500.

15. On 4 August the NSC had directed the Planning Board, in effect, to pursue the review of

NSC 5501 in parallel with the study of the Killian report. See NSC Action 1430 in memo

of disc at 257th NSC mtg, 4 Aug 55, PRUS 1955-57, XIX: 108; Condit,]CS and National

Policy 1955-56, 12.

16. Memo Brucker for SecDef, 16 Sep 55, wlencl, "DoD Comments on NSC 5501," 24 Sep 55

[by Bonesteel], memo DepASD(lSA) (VAdm A.C. Davis) for Dir NSC Aff, 16 Sep 55, memo

Thomas for ASD(lSA), 14 Sep 55: fldr NSC 5501 Basic Policy #1, box 9,ASD(lSA) Pol Ping

Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

17. Memo Davis for Dir NSC Aff, 16 Sep 55, memo Thomas for ASD(lSA), 14 Sep 55, "DoD

Comments on NSC 5501," 24 Sep 55: cited in n 16.

18. For example, memo Brucker for SecDef, 16 Sep 55, memo Thomas for ASD(ISA), 14 Sep 55:

cited in n 16.

19. Memo McNeil for ASD(ISA), 21 Sep 55, fldr NSC 5501 Basic Policy #1, box 9,ASD(lSA) Pol

Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

20. Ibid.

21. This discussion of State's position is drawn from Dept of State General Comments on NSC

5501,3 Oct 55, PRUS 1955-57, XIX:123-25.

22. NIE 100-7-55, World Situation and Trends, 1 Nov 55, ibid, 131-45.

23. Ping Bd drafts, "Estimate of the Situation," 7,16 Nov 55, memo Capt T.W. South II (OPNAVNSC) for Col M.R. Lemon aCS-NSC) and R.H.B. Wade (DoD-NSC), 9 Dec 55, memo Layton

for Def Rep Ping Bd, 23 Nov 55, memo Wheeler for Def Mem Ping Bd, 21 Nov 55: fldr NSC

5501 Basic Policy #3 and #4, box 9, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

24. Msg DULTE 60 Dulles to Pres, 8 Nov 55, PRUS 1955-57, V:725-26.

25. Memo Dixon for DoD-NSC, JCS-NSC, 29 Dec 55, fldr NSC 5501 Basic Policy #4, box 9,

ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

26. The ensuing discussion of views of the Soviets is drawn from "Review of BNSP: Summary

of Principal Points Made in Planning Board Discussion of 19 October 1955," 25 Oct 55,

Basic Policy #2, ibid. This is a running account of the discussion, presumably abridged;

speakers are not identified, but some can be discerned from the arguments advanced.
Notes to Pages 460-69 729

27. Memo Gray for SecDef, 18 Jan 56, fldr NSC 5501 Basic Policy #5, ibid.

28. Basic National Security Policy (NSC 5602), memo by NSC Ping Bd, nd, FRUS 1955-57,

XIX:193-96; NSC 5501,7 Jan 55, Sec A, I, pars 1-3, ibid, 25-26; NSC 5602/1, 15 Mar 56,

Annex, pars 1-6, ibid, 258-60.

29. NSC 5501, par 4, ibid, 26; NSC 5602/1, Annex, par 3, ibid, 258-59.

30. NSC 5602/1, Annex, pars 12,23,24, ibid, 262-63, 267-68.

31. Working Group rpt on Local Aggression and Subversion, 7 Nov 55, fldr NSC 5501

Basic Policy #3, box 9,ASD(ISA) Pol PlngStf files,Acc 65A-3500.

32. Draft summary, "The Likelihood of Local Aggression Throughout the World: 9 Sep 55,

w/ Annex, "Excerpts from NIEs," Working Group draft rpt on Communist Expansion,

23 Sep 55, Sec Y, memo State and CIA members of Ping Bd for ExecSecNSC, 20 Sep 55:

Basic policy #1, ibid.

33. Working Group draft rpt on Communist Expansion, 23 Sep 55, cited in n 32.

34. Ibid, Sec Y, 13.

35. The chief of the Army's Plans Division challenged the 9 September summary as not

precisely reflecting the intelligence estimates on which it was based. See memo Col

Svensson for Def Mem Ping Bd and SpecAsst to JCS for NSC Aff, 22 Sep 55, fldr NSC

5501 Basic Policy #2, box 9, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files,Acc 65A-3500.

36. Working Group rpt on Local Aggression and Subversion, 7 Nov 55, cited in n 31, SeelY,

Sec I, 2-3; Working Group draft rpt on Communist Expansion, 23 Sep 55, cited

in n 32.

37. Working Group draft rpt on Communist Expansion, 23 Sep 55, cited in n 32, Sec 1,2,

6-9; Working Group rpt on Local Aggression and Subversion, 7 Nov 55, cited in n

31, Sec I, 6-7, Sec 11,4-6,8-12.

38. Working Group rpt on Local Aggression and Subversion, 7 Nov 55, cited in n 31, Sec

III (quote, 19).

39. Memo Dixon for DoD-NSC, 26 Sep 55, fldr NSC 5501 Basic Policy #2, box 9, ASD(lSA)

Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; memo Dixon for DoD-NSC, JCS"NSC, 14 Nov 55,

Basic Policy #3, ibid.

40. NSC 5602,8 Feb 56, par 14-15, revising par 32 and par 34 in NSC 5501, copy in

OSD Hist.

41. Memo Wilson for ExecSecNSC, 24 Feb 56, memo Radford for SecDef, 24 Feb 56: FRUS

1955-57, XIX:199-200; notes of AFPC mtg, 23 Feb 56, fldr 5602 BNSP, box 9, ASD(lSA)

Pol Ping Stf files,Acc 65A-3500.

42. Memo Thomas for SecDef, 25 Feb 56, notes of AFPC mtg, 23 Feb 56: fldr 5602 BNSP,

box 9, ASD(lSA) Pol PIng Stf files, Acc 65A-3500. See other submissions to the secretary

of defense and the NSC in this file for other reactions to NSC 5602.

43. Notes of AFPC mtg, 23 Feb 56, memo Radford for SeeDef, 24 Feb 56, w/encl, "Comments by JCS on BNSP (NSC 5602)": fldr 5602 BNSp, box 9, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files,

Acc 65A-3500; memo Wilson for ExecSecNSC, 24 Feb 56, cited in n 41.

44. Memo of disc at 277th NSC mtg, 27 Feb 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:201; NSC 5602/1,

15 Mar 56,Annex, par 3, ibid, 258-59.

45. Memo of disc at 277th NSC mtg, 27 Feb 56, ibid, 203.

46. Ibid, 204-06; memo of disc at 278th NSC mtg, 1 Mar 56, ibid, 229 and n 9; memo Exec

SecNSC for SecState, SecDef, and ChAEC, 15 Mar 56, fldr 5602 BNSP, box 9, ASD(lSA)

Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

47. Memo of disc at 277th NSC mtg, 27 Feb 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:205-06; memo of disc

at 278th NSC mtg, 1 Mar 56, ibid, 230. The changes resulted in the addition of a

paragraph 13. Paragraph 12 omitted mention of the nonexistent radiological weapons.

Paragraph 13 included them, and also the "if time permits" and "if attack on U.S. forces

involved" provisos. See NSC 5602/1, 15 Mar 56, ibid, 246.

48. Memo of disc at 277th NSC mtg, 27 Feb 56, ibid, 208-09.

49. Ibid, 210-11.

50. Memo of disc at 278th NSC mtg, 1 Mar 56, ibid, 224-27; NSC 5602/1, 15 Mar 56, par 46,

ibid, 256. For a detailed criticism of the mobilization base paragraph in NSC 5602,

see memo T.P. Pike for SecDef, 15 Feb 56, fldr NSC 5501 Basic Policy #5, box 9, ASD

(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.
730 Notes to Pages 470-80

51. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs, et ai, 21 Mar 56, fldr 5602 BNSP, box 9, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping

Stf files, Acc 65A-3500; memo JCS for SecDef, 12 Mar 56, env #71, Wilson Misc files

1953-57, Acc 63A-1768.

52. Memo Gates for SecDef, 12 Apr 56, memo MajGen F.W. Farrell for Adm Radford, 30 Apr

56: fldr 5602 BNSP, box 9, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, 65A-3500.

53. Condit,]CS and National Policy 1955-56,20-21.

XXI. PREPARING THE LAST NEW LOOK BUDGET

1. Memo Stevens for SecDef, 13 May 55, fldr FY 1957 Budget (McNeil File) #1, ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; memo G.A. Wyeth for ASD(C), 20 May 55, fldr 110.01

1955, box 9, SecDef subject files 1955, Acc 59A-2376; Eisenhower Public Papers,

1955,17.

2. Cabinet Record of Action, RA-21, 13 May 55, fldr FY 1957 Budget (McNeil File) #1,

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; memo Stevens for SecDef, 13 May 55, cited

in n 1.

3. Briefing paper, "Procedure for Preparation of 1957 Budget," atchd to cabinet paper

CP-27, 13 May 55, fldr 110.01 1955, box 9, SecDef subject files 1955, Acc 59A-2376.

4. Mins of 249th NSC mtg, 19 May 55, NSC Minutes 1953-56 file, OSD Hist; memo Wyeth

for ASD(C), 20 May 55, cited in n 1.

5. Ltr Hughes to Wilson, 17 May 55, fldr 110.01 1955, box 9, SecDef subject files 1955,

Acc 59A-2376.

6. Memo G.V Gibson for McNeil, 25 May 55, memo Wilson for SvcSecs, 25 May 55: fldr

FY 1957 Budget (McNeil File) #1, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

7. Memo c.c. Finucane (USecArmy) for SecDef, 1 Jun 55, w/atchs, fldr FY 1957 Budget

(file II), ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; Itr Wilson to Hughes, 9 Jun 55, fldr FY

1957 Budget (McNeil File) #1, ibid.

8. Ltr Hughes to Wilson, 11 Aug 55, table, U.S. Govt Budget Summary FY 1956, 14 Sep

55: fldr FY 1957 Budget (McNeil File) #6, ibid.

9. Memo Wilson for SvcSecs, ASDs, GenCoun, 14 Oct 55, FY 1957 Budget (McNeil File)

#1, ibid. There is also a 21 September draft in the same file.

10. Memo Mil Div for DirBoB, 15 Oct 55, ibid; MFR Wilson, 17 Oct 55, fldr 1955, Wilson

Misc files 1953-57, Acc 65A-1768.

11. Condit,]CS and National Policy 1955-56, 47-49; memo Wilson for SecNavy, 26 Aug 55,

fldr Sec Wilson's Reading File Feb-Dec 55, Wilson Misc files 1953-57,Acc 63A-1802.

12. Condit,]CS and National Policy 1955-56,75-76; undtd paper outlining "presentations"

by Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, with tables and charts, fldr Budget FY 55 and FY 56,

OSD(C) files, OSD Hist. Figures in this paper do not agree with those in Condit, which

may refer to reduced requests resulting from committee deliberation.

13. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 6 Oct 55, fldr FY 1957 Budget (McNeil File) #1,

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

14. Ibid; memo Wilson for SvcSecs, 7 Oct 55, ibid.

15. MFR Wilson, 17 Oct 55, cited in n 10.

16. Memo SecNavy for SecDef, 10 Oct 55, memo SecAF for SecDef, 18 Oct 55, memo Sec

Army for SecDef, 27 Oct 55: fldr FY 1957 Budget (McNeil File) #1, ATSD and Dep

SecDef files, OSD Hist.

17. Ibid.

18. Memo Mil Div for DirBoB, 25 Oct 55, memo Mil Div for DirBoB, 15 Oct 55: ibid.

19. Memo Mil Div for DirBoB, 25 Oct 55, ibid. (Not the same 25 October memo as that

cited in the preceding footnote.)

20. Ridgway, Soldier, 290-99 (quote, 299).

21. OSD(C) table, Estimated New Obligational Authority by Major Budget Category,

FY 1955, 1956 and 1957, 7 Jun 55, fldr FY 1957 Budget (file I), ATSD and DepSecDef

files, OSD Hist.

22. End 4 to memo Brucker for SecDef, 27 Oct 55, fldr FY 1957 Budget (file I), ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.
Notes to Pages 480-91 731

23. End 3 to memo Brucker for SecDef, 27 Oct 55, cited in n 22.

24. OSD(C) table, Estimated New Obligational Authority by Budget Category, FY 1957,

Service Requests, 31 Oct 55, fldr FY 1957 Budget (file 1), ATSD and DepSecDef files,

OSD Rist.

25. BoB draft paper, "Budget Problem, FY 1957, Dept of Defense," 9 Nov 55, BoB Series 51.

14a, OSD Hist.

26. BoB memo for DirBoB, 16 Nov 55, ibid; Itr Hughes to Wilson, 17 Nov 55, fldr 110.01

1955, box 9, SecDef subject files 1955, Acc 59A-2376.

27. Ends to Itr Hughes to Wilson, 17 Nov 55, cited in n 26.

28. Bound notebook, DoD Preliminary FY 1957 Budget Estimates, 5 Dec 55, in ATSD and

DepSecDef files, OSD Hist. Most of the tables are dated 3 December 1955, and are

liberally sprinkled with penciled corrections, amendments, and additions.

29. The Army's guided missile procurement program was dominated by the Nike air

defense missile-$480 million of the $726 million total.

30. Memo Wilson for Pres, 2 Dec 55, fldr 110.01 (1958-59 Budget) 1956, box 11, OSD

CenDec Files 1956, Acc 60A-1379. Wilson and Radford had seen the president the day

before at Camp David, where the president's second NSC meeting since his heart

attack was held, but the budget was not discussed. The 2 December meeting was

reported in the Baltimore Sun the next day, but without details on the discussion.

What appears to be the same meeting is described in some detail by Colonel

Goodpaster, the president's military secretary, in a memo for the record written a few

days later. See MFR Goodpaster, 7 Dec 55, PP(AWF), DDEL. Goodpaster gives the date,

however, as 1 December.

31. Anthony Leviero, New York Times, 3 Dec 55. The article is datelined 2 December and

probably was in preparation before Wilson's meeting with the president.

32. MFR Goodpaster, 7 Dec 55, cited in n 30.

33. William Knighton, Jr., Baltimore Sun, 7 Dec 55; John G. Norris, Washington Post &

Times Herald, 8 Dec 55; Lloyd Norman, Chicago Tribune, 11 Dec 55; New York Times,

14 Dec 55.

34. Mins of 270th NSC mtg, 8 Dec 55, NSC Minutes 1953-56 file, OSD Hist. This afternoon meeting, like the three preceding, was held at Camp David.

35. Ltr Robertson to Hughes, 14 Dec 55, fldr FY 1957 Budget (McNeil File) #1, ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

36. Ltr Hughes to Wilson, 17 Nov 55, w/encls, Budget Problem-FY 1957, DoD, fldr 110.01

1955, box 9, SecDef subject files 1955, Acc 59A-2376; Summary Table-1957 Defense

Budget, fldr FY 1957 Budget (McNeil File) #1, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

37. Ltr Robertson to Hughes, 14 Dec 55, fldr FY 1957 Budget (McNeil File) #1, ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; Itr Wilson to Hughes, 22 Dec 55, ibid.

38. Ltr Hughes to Wilson, 30 Dec 55, ibid.

39. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1956, 81, 93-99; draft statement for congressional leaders

on Defense program, ca 10 Dec 55, fldr FY 57 Budget (McNeil File) #1, ATSD and

DepSecDef files, OSD Hist. Quotes are from draft statement.

XXll. MILITARY ASSISTANCE

1. Memo President's Advisory Committee on Government Organization for the President,

7 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54, I, pt 1:615-19,642-43.

2. Special Message to the Congress Transmitting Reorganization Plan 7 of 1953 Relating

to the Establishment of the Foreign Operations Administration, 1 Jun 53, Eisenhower

Public Papers, 1953, 348-49; ed note, FRUS 1952-54, I, pt 1:628-30.

3. Ltr Dodge to Stassen, 3 Feb 53, FRUS 1952-54, I, pt 1:569-71; ed notes, ibid, 625-26,

628-30.

4. Memo Kyes for SvcSecs, ASD«C), and JCS, 9 Mar 53, table, Mutual Security Program,

Cost Estimates Based on FY 1954 Budget Proposal by Previous Administration, fldr

Effects of Bal Budget Expen 1954-55, ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.
732 Notes to Pages 491-97

5. Memo of disc at 137th NSC mtg, 18 Mar 53, FRUS 1952-54,1, pt 1:592-95; memo Mautz

for McNeil, 23 Mar 53, fldr Effects of Bal Budget Expen 1954-55, ATSD and SecDef files,

OSD Hist; Summary of Rpt of DirMS Pursuant to NSC Action 730-c, nd (transmitted to

NSC 30 Mar 53), ibid, 596-604; memo of disc at 138th NSC mtg, 26 Mar 53, FRUS 1952-

54, 11, pt 1:258-64; Bradley (for JCS) for SecDef, 19 Mar 53, fldr CD 091.3 Gen 1953,

Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

6. Memo of disc at special NSC mtg, 31 Mar 53, Condensed Statement of Proposed

Policies and Programs, nd (ca 2 or 3 Apr 53), memo of disc at 141st NSC mtg, 28 Apr

53: FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 1:264-81,281-87,302-05.

7. Special Message to the Congress on the Mutual Security Program, 5 May 53,

Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953,256-59.

8. House Committee on Foreign Affairs (hereafter HCFA), Mutual Security Act Extension

(1953), Hearings, 242; Mutual Security Appropriations Act, 1954 (PL 218, 7 Aug 53);

table, Funds Available for FY 1954 MDA Prog Rqmts, ene! 1 to memo ActDirOMA(ISA)

for DirFOA, 7 Oct 53, fldr MDAP FY 1954, box I, Mautz-Lehrer files, MAP-MDAP

Corres 1951-59, ASD(C) files, Acc 64A-2061; Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54,

206, 208-09; memo Nash for JCS, 7 Aug 53, w/ene!, fldr CD 091.3 Gen 1953, Def Exec

Off, CenDec Files 1953.

9. Mutual Security Appropriations Act, 1954; table, Funds Available for FY 1954 MDA

Prog Rqmts, cited in n 8; Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 206, 208-09;

memo Nash for JCS, 7 Aug 53, cited in n 8; Current Economic Developments, 11 Aug

53, FRUS 1952-54, I, pt 1:633-38.

10. Memo of disc at 166th NSC mtg, 13 Oct 53, FRUS 1952-54, 11, pt 1:534-49; memo of

disc at 168th NSC mtg, 29 Oct 53, ibid, 567-76; Watson, ]CS and National Policy

1953-54, 210 and n 32, 33. Gleason's record of proceedings for these two meetings

does not indicate the figures for Stassen's expenditure estimates. Watson (n 33)

states that Stassen reported an MDAP estimate of $4.5 billion, citing the NSC "action"

paper for the second meeting (945-c, 29 Oct 53).

11. NSC Statement of Policy, nd, ene! to NSC 162/2,30 Oct 53, pars 12,15,36,37, FRUS

1952-54, 11, pt 1:583-86, 591-93.

12. Memo Laurence Vass for Dir Off of Eur Reg Aff, 4 Aug 53, ibid, VI, pt (560-65;

memcon Walter Trulock (Exec Secretariat), 4 Sep 53, ibid, I, pt 1:644-49; staff memo

ActSpecAsst (Nolting) for SecState, 24 Nov 53, ibid, 660-65 (quote, 661).

13. Ltr Nolting to Dodge, 6 Dec 53, ibid, 665-72; Nolting staff memo, 24 Nov 53, cited in n

12; memo DirFMA(ISA) VAdm A.C. Davis for DepSecDef, 4 Feb 54, w/ene!s, msg Polto

1269, 5 Feb 54, msg Polto 1276, 8 Feb 54, DirBoB Hughes to USecState Smith, 5 Feb

54: fldr Mutual Assist Prog, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1768.

14. Memo Nolting for SecState, 15 Dec 53, FRUS 1952-54, I, pt 1:672-76.

15. Memo Nolting for SecState, 24 Dec 53, w/atchd table, ibid, 676-78; Watson, ]CS and

National Policy 1953-54, 210-11; Annual Budget Message to the Congress: FY 1955,

21 Jan 54, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,135-36.

16. Special Message to the Congress on the Mutual Security Program, 23 Jun 54, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954, 590-94; HCFA, Mutual Security Act of 1954, Hearings,

6 Apr 54, 27-29.

17. Cong Rec, 83 Cong, 2 sess, 1954, 100, pt 12:15216-26; Current Economic Developments, 31 Aug 54, FRUS 1952-54, I, pt 1:744-76; New York Times, 19 Aug 54; Mutual

Security Act of 1954 (PL 665, 26 Aug 54).

18. Testimony Comptroller General Joseph Campbell before Senate Committee on

Foreign Relations (hereafter SCFR), Mutual Security Act of 1956, Hearings, 22 May 56,

771-73; Itr Kyes to Bridges, 2 Jul 53, fldr FY 1955 Budget (McNeil File), ATSD and

DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

19. SCA, Mutual Security Approps for 1954, Hearings, 20 July 53, 837-39; House Rpt No

1015, DoD Approp Bill, 1954, Conference Report, 28 Jul 53; Itr Hughes to ChHCA

John Taber, 23 Apr 54, printed in HCFA, Mutual Security Act of 1954, Hearings,

1133-34.
Notes to Pages 498-504 733

20. SCFR, Mutual Security Act of 1956, Hearings, 22 May 56, 873; H Rpt No 2490,

Mutual Security Approp Bill, 1955,24 Jul 54,7.

21. H Rpt No 2490, Mutual Security Approp Bill, 1955, 24 Jul 54, 5-6; SCFR, Mutual

Security Act of 1956, Hearings, 21 May 56, 788-89; extract from Sec 1311, Supplemental Approp Act, 1955 (PL 663), approvd 26 Aug 54.

22. H Rpt No 2490, Mutual Security Approp Bill, 1955, 24 Jul 54, 6.

23. Memo of disc at 277th NSC mtg, 3 Dec 54, FRUS 1952-54, VI, pt 1:631-35; ltr

McNeil to Hughes, 6 Dec 54, fIdr Budget Issues, box 2, ASD(lSA) Pol PIng Stf files, Ace

65A-3500.

24. Ltr Hughes to Stassen, 13 Dec 54, FRUS 1952-54, I, pt 1:807-08.

25. Annual Budget Message to the Congress: FY 1956, 17 Jan 55, Eisenhower Public Papers,

1955, 123-29.

26. Memo ActSecDef Anderson for JCS, 15 Jan 55, w/atchd MFR, fIdr 091.3 Jan-Mar, box

15, ASD(ISA) files, Ace 60A-I025.

27. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 2 Feb 55, ibid; Condit, ]CS and National Policy

1955-56,241-42.

28. Special Message to the Congress on the Mutual Security Program, 20 Apr 55,

Eisenhower Public Papers, 1955,404-14.

29. Special Message, 20 Apr 55, cited in n 28; Chalmers M. Roberts, Washington Post,

4 May 55; "Foreign Aid Spending Drops 25% in 1954," Washington Post, 18 Apr 55.

30. Special Message, 20 Apr 55, cited in n 28; William H. Lawrence, New York Times, 17 Apr

55; White House press release, 9 May 55, w/atchd ltr Pres to SecState, 15 Apr 55, and

Exec Order, 9 May 55, Administration of Mutual Security and Related Matters, Federal

Register, 11 May 55,3179-81.

31. "Richards and Vorys Urge Some Aid Cuts," Washington Post, 24 Mar 55; "Eisenhower's

Aid Plan to Offer Asia Real Cooperation and Partnership," Washington Post, 12 Apr 55;

Jack Bell, Washington Post, 22 Apr 55; Roberts, Washington Post, 4 May 55.

32. SCFR, Mutual Security Act of 1955, Hearings, 5 May 55, 1-3, 6-8, 21-22, 26-27. See

also Dulles statement in SCFR mtg, 17 May 55, in Executive Sessions of SCFR (Hist

Ser), VII, 493-512.

33. Executive Sessions of SCFR (Hist Ser), VII, 26 May 55, 604-05; Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 1

sess, 1955, 101, pt 6:7262-68. See also Rose McKee, Washington Post, 3 Jun 55.

34. HCFA, Mutual Security Act of 1955, Hearings, 25 May-17 Jun 55; HCFA, Selected

Executive Session Hearings of the Committee, 1951-1956 (Hist Ser), XII, Pt 4:529-783;

ibid, XIII, Pt 5:5-262. A short summary of the committee hearings is in XII, 531-37.

35. House 1071 Conf Rpt, Mutual Security Act of 1955,6 Jul 55, in App IV, HCFA,

Selected Executive Session Hearings, 1951-56 (Hist Ser), XIII, Pt 5:254-56; Allen

Drury, New York Times, 8 Jun 55. Congress passed the measure on the 7th, the Senate

by voice vote, the House by roll call vote, 262 to 120.

36. HCFA, Mutual Security Approps for 1956, Additional Hearings, 21 Jul 55,2-14, 16-22,

24,33-37,39-41,45-48,53-55,58-59.

37. H Rpt No 1086, Mutual Security Approp Bill, 1956, 8 Jul 55, table 10-13; Paul Southwick, Washington Post & Times Herald, 12 Jul 55; Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 1 sess., 1955,

101, pt 8:10207-49.

38. See, for example, Sen. Alexander Smith's letter to Senate Appropriations Committee

Chairman Carl Hayden 14 july 1955, urging him to reverse the House action, in Cong

Rec, 84 Cong, 1 sess, 1955, 101, pt 8:10656-57. See also S Rpt No 1033, Mutual Security

Approp Bill, 1956, 19 Jul 55, 1-4, 10; "Senate Group Restores House Foreign Aid

Cuts," Washington Post, 20 Jul 55; Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 1 sess, 1955, 101, pt 9:11271-

305; "Senate Passes Aid Bill," Washington Post, 23 Jul 55.

39. Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 1 sess, 1955, 101, pt 9:11780.86, 11853-55; "Conference Sets Aid at

$2.7 Billion," Washington Post, 28 Jul 55; Joseph R. Slevin, New York Herald Tribune,

29 Jul 55; "Foreign Aid Bill Signed by President," Washington Post, 3 Aug 55; White

House "Immediate Release," 2 Aug 55, copy in fIdr ISA 1955 Military Assistance, JulDec, OSD Hist.
734 Notes to Pages 504-12

40. Memo DepSecDef Anderson for CINCFE and CINCPAC, 13 Apr 55, fldr 091.3 MAP

(Feb) 1955, box 8, SecDef subject files 1955, Acc 59A-2376; Condit,]CS and National

Policy 1955-56, 249. Similar memoranda went to CINCEUR and to the Army and Air

Force as executive agents for their areas.

41. Condit, ]CS and National Policy 1955-56, 249-51; ltr McNeil and Gray to Hollister,

2 Dec 55, wi ltr Hollister to Hughes, 7 Dec 55, fldr MDAP FY 1957, box 1, Mautz-Lehrer

files, MAP-MDAP Corres 1951-59, ASD(C) files,Acc 64A-2061.

42. MFR Goodpaster, 7 Dec 55, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; ltr Hollister to Hughes,

7 Dec 55, cited in n 41.

43. Memo Dir Off of Inti Finan and Dev Aff (Corbett) for DepUSecState for Econ Aff

(Prochnow), 28 Oct 55, Terms of Reference for Interdepartmental Cte on Certain U.S.

Aid Programs, 2 Dec 55: FRUS 1955-57, X:25-28, 43-44.

44. Draft memo prepared for NSC, 28 Nov 55, FRUS 1955-57, X:37-40. Actually, the

board submitted a draft "NSC Action" dated 29 November based on this analysis; see

ibid, 41-43, and Condit,]CS and National Policy 1955-56,250-51.

45. Memo of disc at 269th NSC mtg (Camp David), 8 Dec 55, FRUS 1955-57, X:45, 52-59.

46. Eric Sevareid, Washington Post, 4 Dec 55; Warren Unna, ibid, 9 Sep 55; "Penny-wise

Foreign Aid," ibid, 17 Nov 55; Roberts, ibid, 30 Nov 55.

47. Ltr Hollister to Hughes, 7 Dec 55, and ltr McNeil and Gray to Hollister, 2 Dec 55, cited

in n 41; press conf, 20 Dec 55, Wilson Public Statements, 1955, II: 893-95; Roberts,

Washington Post, 21 Dec 55.

48. Budget Message of the Pres, Budget of the US. Government, FY 1957, M30-35; Dana

Adams Schmidt, New York Times, 6 Jan 56; memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 30 Sep

55, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL (quotes).

49. Memo McNeil for Gray, 23 Nov 55, memo Lehrer for McNeil, 22 Nov 55: fldr MDAP FY

1957, box 1, Mautz-Lehrer files, MAP-MDAP Corres 1951-59, ASD(C) files,Acc 64A-2061.

The author did not see a copy of the Gruenther letter; the description of its contents

has been inferred from Gruenther's subsequent testimony to the House Foreign

Affairs Committee. See HCFA, Selected Executive Session Hearings, 1951-56 (Hist Ser),

22 Mar 56, XIII, Pt 5:273-78.

50. Condit, ]CS and National Policy 1955-56, 251-56; Gray draft statement before HCFA,

21 Mar 56, 5-6, fldr MDAP FY 1957, box 1, Mautz-Lehrer files, MAP-MDAP Corres 1951-

59, ASD(C) files, Acc 64A-2061.

51. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 2 Mar 56, wlapp, fldr 091.3 MAP Gan-Jun), box

10, SecDef subject files 1956, Acc 60A-1379; Condit, ]CS and National Policy 1955-

56,252.

52. Memo McNeil for Wilson, 27 Feb 56, wi draft policy statements and related corres in

fldr MDAP FY 1957, box 1, Mautz-Lehrer files, MAP-MDAP Corres 1951-59,ASD(C) files,

Acc 64A-2061; DoD Dir 2110.23,9 Mar 56; Condit,]CS and National Policy 1955-56,

253,256.

53. Special Message to the Congress on the Mutual Security Program, 19 Mar 56, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1956,320-21.

54. Ibid, 318.

55. See HCFA, Mutual Security Act of 1956, Hearings, 20, 21 Mar, 12 Apr, 10 May 56, 1-31,

93-114,278-87,979-84; HCFA, Selected Executive Session Hearings, 1951-56 (Hist Ser),

22 Mar, 17 Apr, 10, 18 May 56, XIII, Pt 5:265-92, 332-46, 354-58, 361-67, 370, 562-64.

56. HCFA, Selected Executive Session Hearings, 1951-56 (Hist Ser), 18 May 56, XIII, Pt 5:

570; H Rpt No 2213, Mutual Security Act of 1956, 25 May 56, 1, 7, 12-14; Cong Rec,

84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 7:9800"44, 9870-9918; News Conf, 6 Jun 56, Eisenhower

Public Papers, 1956, 553-58; Dick Preston, New York World Telegram, 7 Jun 56; "2d

Billion Aid Cut Urged by Russell," New York Times, 10 Jun 56; William S. White, ibid,

12 Jun 56.

57. White, New York Times, 13 Jun 56; Robert C. Albright, Washington Post, 14 Jun 56;

White, New York Times, 15 Jun 56; Executive Sessions of SCFR (Hist Ser), 13 Jun 56,

VIII, 303-06, 322-23, 341-42; ibid, 14 Jun 56, 360-74, 384-98; S Rpt No 2273, Mutual

Security Act of 1956, 19 Jun 56,8-12; Don Irwin, New York Herald Tribune, 19 Jun 56.
Notes to Pages 512-21 735

58. H Rpt No 2643, 7 Jul 56, Mutual Security Act of 1956, 17-18; Cong Rec, 84

Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 8:10484-89, 10737-39, 11101-12, 11242-49; ibid, pt 9:

12150-55; Roberts, Washington Post, 29 Jun 56; Drury, New York Times, 9 Jul 56.

59. Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 9:12123-26, 12337-81; HCFA, Selected

Executive Session Hearings, 1951-56 (Hist Ser), 22 May 56, XlII, Pt 5:636-42; H Rpt

No 2636, Mutual Security Approp Bill, 1957, 6 Jul 56, 1-5; Drury, New York Times,

9 Jul 56; "House Votes Aid Bill Cut 1.4 Billion," New York Herald Tribune, 12 Jul 56.

60. Schmidt, New York Times, 13 Jul 56; S Rpt No 2579, Mutual Security Approp Bill,

1957,14 Jul 56; Philip Potter, Baltimore Sun, 14 Jul 56.

61. Conf Rpt, H Rpt No 2931, Mutual Security Approp Bill, 1957,25 Jul 56; Cong Rec, 84

Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 11:14768-70; Eisenhower Public Papers, 1956,619.

62. NSC 5610, Report by Interdepartmental Cte on Certain U.S. Aid Programs, 3 Aug 56,

wi memo for NSC from the cte, 24 Jul 56, and atchd Summary of Conclusions and

Issues, Dept State, S/S-NSC files, Lot 63 D351; Summary of Conclusions and Issues

(table, U.S. Aid to Foreign Countries), ibid; memo DepUSecState for Econ Aft

(Prochnow) for SecState, 27 Jul 56, FRUS 1955-57, X:85-87.

63. Summary of Conclusions and Issues, 1, 3, cited in n 62.

64. Ibid, 5-7.

65. Memo Prochnow for SecState, 27 Jul 56, FRUS 1955-57, X:85-87.

66. Memo of disc at 301st NSC mtg, ibid, 124-26.

67. Ibid,126-29.

68. Ibid, 129-33.

69. Joseph and Stewart Alsop, New York Herald Tribune, 22 Jul 56.

XXIII. INDOCHINA: ROOTS OF ENGAGEMENT

1. For the background survey in this and follOWing paragraphs, see Ellen J. Hammer,

The Struggle for Indochina, esp chs 4-10; Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Dragon

Embattled, II, chs 8,9; Georgette Elgey, La Republique des Contradictions, 1951-1954,

ch III, pt III; DoD, United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967 (hereafter referred

to as Pentagon Papers), bk 1, pt I:AI-8ff, CI-7ff; Rearden, Formative Years, 267-72;

Condit, Test ofWar, 205-21.

2. NSC 124/2, U.S. Objectives and Courses of Action with Respect to Southeast Asia,

25 June 52, wlencl, par 2, FRUS 1952-54, XII, pt 1:127.

3. Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt I:A37-41, pt II:Al1-18; Buttinger, Vietnam, II, 806-08; Office

of Military Assistance, OSD, Monthly Report, MDAP DoD Operations, Jan 1953, 25,

OSD Hist.

4. SCFR, Report on Indochina: Hearings, 16 Feb 54, in Executive Sessions of SCFR (Hist

Ser), VI, 142-44; msg 1505 Heath to State, 30 Jan 52, FRUS 1952-54, XlII, pt 1:23-24;

msg 1110, SecState to Saigon, 7 Feb 72, ibid, 27-28. See esp Minister Heath's rpt on

Bao Dai's income, msg 248 Heath to State, 30 Jul 52, and msg 294 ActSecState to

Saigon, 8 Aug 52, ibid, 239-40; memo BonsaI for Allison, 18 Nov 52, ibid, 293-94.

5. Summary mins of mtg between reps of US and France at Dept State, 16 Jun 52, FRUS

1952-54, XlII, pt 1:192.

6. Bernard B. Fall, The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis, 114-21.

7. For estimated ground force strengths and dispositions as of 1 April 1953, see Annex

A, B, NIE-91, "Probable Developments in Indochina through Mid-1954," 4 Jun 53,

Pentagon Papers, bk 9, pt V:B3a, doc 24,54-55.

8. Fall, Two Viet-Nams, 114-21; Ronald H. Spector, Advice and Support: The Early Years,

1941-1960, vol 7 in U.S. Army in Vietnam, 149-65.

9. MDAP DoD Operations, Jan 1952, 17, Jan 1953, 25, 29, Jan 1954, 29, 38-41, OSD Hist;

JCS Hist Div, "History of the Indochina Incident, 1940-1954," 263-68, 304-05.

10. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953, 16.

11. Msg 4303 Dunn to State, 3 Feb 53, msg 4294 Charge UK to State, 4 Feb 53, FRUS

1952-54, V:1557-61. See also ibid, XIII, pt 1:377-78 for a brief editorial note on the

2 February meetings.
736 Notes to Pages 521-26

12. Memo Allison for Matthews, 9 Mar 53,400-02, memcon SecState, 24 Mar 53,419-20, msg

1796 Heath to State, 15 Mar 53,408-09, msg 1797 Heath to State, 16 Mar 53,410-11, memo

Hoey for Allison, 16 Mar 53,413-14: all in FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1; manning tables for

proposed French Union IC 1953-55, atchmt to ISA paper, "Letourneau Conversations," fldr

Indochina file 27 Mar 53, box 2, "Nash files,"ASD/ISA files, Acc 65A-3500.

13. US mins of mtg, 26 Mar 53, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:429-32. See too Nash notes in

fldr Indochina file 26 Mar 53, box 2, "Nash files," ASD(lSA) files, Acc 65A-3500.

14. US mins of mtg, 26 Mar 53, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:430-31.

15. ISA paper, "Letourneau Conversations," 27 Mar 53, cited in n 12; memo Robertson for

Mathews, 9 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:458-64.

16. Msg 5040 SecState to Emb France, 30 Mar 53, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:435-36.

17. Memo Heath for Allison, w/Annex by Heath, 31 Mar 53, ibid, 449-51; memo Trapnell for

DirOMA(lSA) G.c. Stewart, 31 Mar 53, ibid, 451-52.

18. Edgar O'Ballance, The Indo-China War, 1945-1954:A Study in Guerrilla Warfare, 187-91;

Fall, Two Viet-Nams, 121-22, and Street Without Joy, 116-27.

19. Msg Radford to Fechteler, 27 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:515-16; memo of disc at

141st NSC mtg, 28 Apr 53, ibid, 517-19; memo Heath for SecState, 28 Apr 53, ibid,

521-22; memo Bonsai for MacArthur, 20 Apr 53, ibid, 478-79.

20. JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina Incident," 306-11; memo Robertson for SecState,

28 Apr 53, Pentagon Papers, bk 9:39.

21. Memo RAdm Lalor for SecDef, 21 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:493-95. The memo,

with appendices and annexes, and related correspondence, is in fldr CD 091.3

Indochina 1953, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

22. Substance of disc of State-JCS mtg, 24 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:496-503, n 12; msg

Smith to Dulles, ibid, 503-04.

23. Msg 5181 ActSecState to Emb France, 10 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54,VI, pt 2: 1344-45; msg 5624

Dillon to State, 23 Apr 53, ibid, 1347-49; US mins of US-France convs, Paris, 26 Apr 53, ibid,

XIII, pt 1:507-10.

24. Msg 5673 Dillon to State, 26Apr 53, ibid,VI, pt 2: 1354-55; msg 5672,26 Apr 53, ibid, 1352-

54.

25. Memo of disc at 141st NSC mtg, 28Apr 53, ibid, XIII, pt 1:518-19, n 3; memo of disc at 143d

NSC mtg, 6 May 53, ibid, 548; msg 5522 SecState to Emb France, 7 May 53, ibid, 550-51; msg

5883 Dillon to State, 9 May 53, ibid, 561; mins US-France convs, 26 Apr 53, ibid, 509; msg

5754 Dillon to State, 30Apr 53, ibid, 531-32; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 28-29; Spector,

Advice and Support, 172-73.

26. Msg 6082 Dillon to State, 23 May 53,FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1: 579-81, n 3; Philippe Devillers

and Jean Lacouture, The End of a War: Indochina, 1954,34-35; ed note, FRUS 1952-54,

VI, pt 2:1358-59.

27. Msg Halaby to Nash rca 19 May 53], fldr CD 091.3 Indochina 1953, Def Exec Off, CenDec

Files 1953; SCFR, Hearings on Mutual Security Act of 1953, 83 Cong, 1 sess, 12 May 53,

246-48; msg Nash to Halaby, 14 May 53, fldr CD 091.3 Indochina 1953, Def Exec Off,

CenDec Files 1953.

28. Msg 5655 ActSecState to Emb France, 18 May 53, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:570-71, n 2;

msg 2387 McClintock to State, 6 Jun 53, ibid, 604, n 1; memo LtGen F. F. Everest (DirJtStf

for SecDef), 10 Jun 53, w/atchmt "Proposed Terms of Reference," fldr CD 091.3

Indochina 1953, Def Exec Off, CenDef Files 1953. According to JCS Hist Div, "History of

Indochina Incident," 281, O'Daniel's superior, CINCPAC Admiral Radford, recommended

him. See also memo Wilson for JCS, 12 Jun 53, fldr CD 091.3 Indochina 1953, Def Exec

Off, CenDec Files 1953.

29. "Proposed Terms of Reference," 10 Jun 53, cited in n 28.

30. Ibid; JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina Incident," 281.

31. Msg 2552 Heath to State (from BonsaI), 24 Jun 53, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:616-17, n 1;

msg 8163/8234 O'Daniel to Radford relayed to Def, JCS, and State, 30 Jun 53, ibid,

624-26; msg 7 Heath to State, 2 Jul 53, ibid, 628; rpt ofJoint Military Mission to Indochina,

14 Jul 53, Pentagon Papers, bk 9:96.

32. Rpt of Joint Military Mission to Indochina, 14 Jul 53, cited in n 31,69,76.

33. Ibid, 74-76, 85-86.
Notes to Pages 526-32 737

34. Substance of disc of State-JCS mtg, 17 Jul 53, FRUS 1952-54, XlII, pt 1:687-88;

substance of disc of State-JCS mtg, 10 Jul 53, ibid, 650.

35. Msg 2552 Heath to State (from BonsaI), 24 Jun 53, ibid, 616-18; msg 7 Heath to State

(from BonsaI), 2 Jul 53, ibid, 628; State Dept position paper (STF-D-2b), 9 Jul 53,

ibid, 646.

36. Ed note (Doc 600), ibid, VI, pt 2:1358-59; msg 52 Dillon to State, 3 Jul 53, ibid, XlII, pt

1:634-35; msg 22 Dillon to State, 2 Jul 53, ibid, 630-31; msg 69 Achilles (Charge) to

State, 6 Jul 53, ibid, 635-37; msg 146 Achilles to State, 10 Jul 53, ibid, 653; Devillers

and Lacouture, End of a War, 35-36; Joseph Laniel, Ie Drame Indochinois: de Dien

Bien Phu au Pari de Geneve, 11-12.

37. Msg 106 Achilles to State, 8 Jul 53, FRUS 1952-54, XlII, pt 1:643-44; msg 146 Achilles

to State, 10 Jul 53, ibid, 653, n 1; US mins of US-France mtg, 12 Jul 53, ibid, 656-67.

38. Ibid, 664, 666-67; msg 206 Dillon to State, 16 Jul 53, ibid, 681; msg 285 Dillon to State,

22 Jul 53, ibid, 693-95; msg 370 Dillon to SecState, 29 Jul 53, ibid, 701-03.

39. Msg 409 MacArthur and Dillon to State, 31 Jul 53, ibid, 706-09; State Dept rpt to NSC,

5 Aug 53, wi cover memo Bowie for ActSecState, 5 Aug 53, ibid, 713-17; record of

actions by NSC at 158th mtg, 6 Aug 53, ibid, 718-19; memo Wilson for JCS, 17 Aug 53,

fldr CD 092 (Southeast Asia) 1953, Def Exec Off, CenDef Files 1953; paper prepared

for 161st NSC mtg (source not known), 9 Sep 53, Pentagon Papers, bk 9:144-49; msg

413 Dillon to State, 31 Jul 53, FRUS 1952-54, VI, pt 2:1364-65; memo by Dillon, 4 Aug

53, ibid, 1367-71; memo Nash for SecDef, 12 Aug 53, fldr CD 092 (Southeast Asia)

1953, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

40. Ltr Nash to SecState, 2 Sep 53, wlencl memo Radford for SecDef, 28 Aug 53, FRUS

1952-54, XlII, pt 1:743-47.

41. Msg 671, 26 Aug 53, ibid, 738-41; memo by the French Govt (Laniel), 1 Sep 53, ibid,

770-75.

42. Memo French Govt, 1 Sep 53, cited in n 41, 773, 775-78; msg 163 Consul Sturm to

State, 14 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54, XlII, pt 1:801; JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina

Incident," 286. See O'Ballance, Indo-China War, 201; Fall, Two Viet-Nams, 122-24.

43. Substance of disc of State-JCS mtg, 4 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54, XlII, pt 1:752-56; memo of

disc at 161st NSC mtg, 9 Sep 53, ibid, 782, 783-89; msg 902 Dillon to State, 3 Sep 53,

ibid, 748-49; msg 819 Dillon to State, 29 Aug 53, ibid, 740-41; memo Regional PIng

Adviser (FE), 8 Sep 53, ibid, 762-66.

44. Undtd State Dept memo, Annex B to memo State for NSC, nd, ibid, 778-79; memo of

disc at 161st NSC mtg, 9 Sep 53, ibid, 780-89.

45. Text of communique, texts or summaries of six Itrs, 29 Sept 53, ibid, 810-19.

Financing arrangements are detailed in Dillon Itr to Bidault, 814-17.

46. Memo Carney for SecDef, 31 Dec 53, w/app "Summary Progress Report of US Joint

Military Mission to Indochina," fldr 091 Indochina Nov-Dec 53, SecDef subject files

1953-54, Acc 59A-792; memo BonsaI for Robertson, 8 Dec 53, FRUS 1952-54, XlII, pt

1:903-13; msg 68496 O'Daniel to JCS, 19 Nov 53, ibid, 879-81; msg Sturm to State,

9 Nov 53, ibid, 860.

47. Office of AsstChStf, G-2, Tab A, "Progress of the 'Navarre Plan' in Indochina," 1 Dec 53,

fldr 091 Indochina Nov-Dec 53, SecDef subject files 1953-54,Acc 59A-792.

48. Ltr Navarre to Trapnell, 7 Dec 53, ibid; msg 1007 McClintock to State, 10 Dec 53,

FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:918-19; Melvin Gurtov, The First Vietnam Crisis: Chinese

Communist Strategy and United States Involvement, 1953-1954,42.

49. Msg 1007 McClintock to State, 10 Dec 53, cited in n 48; JCS Hist Div, "History of

Indochina Incident;' 326-28; msg 954441 Nash to ChMAAG(lndochina), 17 Dec 53, fldr

091 Indochina Jan-Apr 54, SecDef subject files 1953-54,Acc 59A-792.

50. JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina Incident," 327-28. For more details on U.S. aid

program, see ibid, 304-19, 485-94.

51. Ibid, 286; Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt II:A39.

52. Msg 897 Heath to State, 21 Nov 53, FRUS 1952-54, XlII, pt 1:881; Fall, Hell in a Very

Small Place, 31-37.
738 Notes to Pages 532-36

53. JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina Incident," 323-24; memo BonsaI for Robertson,

27 Nov 53, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:886-87; msg 987 Sturm to State, 9 Dec 53,

ibid,915-16.

54. Msg 2110 Achilles to State, 10 Nov 53, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:887-88; memcon

MacArthur, 4 Dec 53, ibid, 897-98; US Delegation mins at Fifth Plenary Tripartite Mtg

of Heads of Govt, Bermuda, 7 Dec 53, ibid, V, pt 2: 1823-30; msg 968 Heath to State,

5 Dec 53, ibid, XIII, pt 1:899; msg 986 Heath to State, 9 Dec 53, ibid, 914-15.

XXIV: DIEN BIEN PHD AND AFTER

1. Bernard Fall, Two Viet-Nams, 125-26; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 36-39, 125-27;

Devillers and Lacouture, End of a War, 44, 50-52.

2. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 106, 108-09; rpt of US Special Mission to Indochina,

5 Feb 54, Pentagon Papers, bk 9:252; Spector, Advice and Support, 187; JCS Hist

Div, "History of the Indochina Incident," 356; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 344.

3. Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt II:B5-11.

4. Ibid, B5-6.

5. Memo of disc at 179th NSC mtg, 8 Jan 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:949-54; rpt by

SecState, 7 Jan 54, Executive Sessions of SCFR (Hist Ser), VI, 22. "Summary notes" on

170th NSC mtg, Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt II:B6-7, describes a disagreement on

intervention between State (for) and Defense (against). The Dulles statement is from

this source. The FRUS version, much longer, has some omissions.

6. For NSC 5405, 16 Jan 54, see FRUS 1952-54, XII, pt 1:366-81.

7, Devillers and Lacouture, End of a War, 54-59; Gurtov, First Vietnam Crisis, 71-75;

Anthony Eden, Full Circle: The Memoirs of Anthony Eden, 97-100; Townsend Hoopes,

The Devil and john Foster Dulles, 205-07; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 342-44;

Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt II:BI9; Executive Sessions of SCFR (Hist Ser),VI, 177.

8. Memo Radford (for JCS) for SecDef, 12 Mar 54, Pentagon Papers, bk 9:266-70;

memo Graves B. Erskine for Spec Cte, 17 Mar 54, w/atchmts, ibid, 271-75; ibid, bk 1, pt

II:B8-9.

9. Laurent Cesari and Jacques de Folin, "Military Necessity, Political Impossibility: The

French Viewpoint on Operation Vautour," in Lawrence S. Kaplan,· Denise Artaud, and

Mark R. Rubin, eds, Dien Bien Phu and the Crisis of Franco-American Relations,

1954-1955, 106-07; Paul Ely, Memoires: L'1ndochine dans la Tourmente, 59-61. For

Ely's visit to Washington, see Georgec. Herring and Richard H. Immerman, "Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dien Bien Phu: 'The Day We Didn't Go to War' Revisited," in Kaplan

et aI, eds, Dien Bien Phu, 84.

10. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 341; Gurtov, First Vietnam Crisis, 69-70; Jurika, ed,

Radford Memoirs, 386.

11. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 134-63; Ely, Memoires, 60-61; Herring and Immerman,

"Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dien Bien Phu," 84.

12. Ely, Memoires, 61-62, 65-67; memo Radford for Pres, 24 Mar 54, Pentagon Papers,

bk 9:288-90; Hoopes, Devil and john Foster Dulles, 207; Spector, Advice and Support,

192; Herring and Immerman, "Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dien Bien Phu," 84; Jurika,

ed, Radford Memoirs, 391-95.

13. Hoopes, Devil and john Foster Dulles, 208, quoting Radford, from interv, Dulles Oral

History Project, Princeton Univ; JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina Incident," 377;

Spector, Advice and Support, 199; Jurika, ed, Radford Memoirs, 396.

14. Hoopes, Devil and john Foster Dulles, 208; Ely, Memoires, 77, 82-86; Laniel, Le Drame

Indochinois, 82-89; Henri Navarre, Agonie de l'Indochine (1953-1954), 242-46; msg

3710 Dillon to SecState, 5 Apr 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:1236-38; Jurika, ed, Radford

Memoirs, 399-400.

15. Richard H. Immerman, john Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S.

Foreign Policy, 91-92; Hoopes, Devil and john Foster Dulles, 210; Jurika, ed, Radford

Memoirs, 398; Gurtov, First Vietnam Crisis, 81-83; msg 5090 Dulles to London, 1 Apr

54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:1202-04.
Notes to Pages 537-41 739

16. Spector, Advice and Support, 202-03, citing Matthew B. Ridgway Papers in U.S. Army

Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pa; Army Position on NSC Action 1074-A,

5 Apr 54, Pentagon Papers, bk 9:332.

17. Dulles memcon w/pres, 2 Apr 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:1210-11; State Dept, draft

joint resolution, ibid, 1211-12.

18. Memo for file ,SecState, 3 Apr 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:1224-25; Herring and

Immerman, "Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dien Bien Phu," 88-89; Eisenhower, Mandate for

Change, 347; Gurtov, First Vietnam Crisis, 94-96.

19. Herring and Immerman, "Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dien Bien Phu," 89 and n 30; msg

3710 Dillon to Dulles, 4 Apr 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1: 1236-38; msg 3482 Dulles

to Dillon, 5 Apr 54, ibid, 1242; msg 3729 Dillon to State, 5 Apr 54, ibid, 1243; JCS Hist

Div, "History of Indochina Incident," 380-81.

20. Memo of disc at 192d NSC mtg, 6 Apr 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:1250-53; NSC

Action 1074-A, 5 Apr 54, Pentagon Papers, bk 9:298-305; Annex, ibid, 306-31.

21. Memo of disc at 192d NSC mtg, 6 Apr 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1:1253-55 (quotes,

1253, 1255). See also Vice President Nixon's diary note, 6 Apr 54, ed note, ibid,

1265-66.

22. Herring and Immerman, "Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dien Bien Phu," 90-95; Eden, Full

Circle, 104-11, 119, 122-28; Devillers and Lacouture, End of a War, 82-89, 93-98;

Hoopes, Devil and john Foster Dulles, 213-21; Jurika, ed, Radford Memoirs, 403-05,

407-09; msg 4382 Aldrich to SecState, 6 Apr 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 1: 1249-50;

memo McCardle for SecState, 30 Apr 54, ibid, XVI:629-30; JCS Hist Div, "History of

Indochina Incident," 386-87, 394-95; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 347-49.

23. Gurtov, First Vietnam Crisis, 108; George C. Herring, America's Longest War: The

United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975, 26-36; msg Dulles to State, 23 Apr 54, FRUS

1952-54, XIII,pt 1:1374.

24. Eden, Full Circle, 122-28; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 351-55; memo of disc at

194th NSC mtg, 29 Apr 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:1432-34.

25. JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina Incident," 405-06, 454-58; Hoopes, Devil and john

Foster Dulles, 223-27; Jurika, ed, Radford Memoirs, 410-15.

26. JCS, "History of Indochina Incident," 398-403; msg 4287 Dillon to State, 10 May 54,

FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:1522-23; memo of disc at 196th NSC mtg, 8 May 54, ibid,

1506-09.

27. Msg 4023 Dulles to Emb Paris, 11 May 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:1534-36; msg Dillon

to State, 10 May 54, ibid, 1566-68; JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina Incident," 411-13;

Jurika, ed, Radford Memoirs, 417-18; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 358-59.

28. Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt III:A18; JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina Incident," 413-16;

Hoopes, Devil and john Foster Dulles, 229-31; Jurika, ed, Radford Memoirs, 418-19.

29. JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina Incident," 422-23; Jurika, ed, Radford Memoirs,

422-24.

30. JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina Incident," 426-33.

31. Hoopes, Devil and john Foster Dulles, 231-36; Dulles to Mendes-France, 14 Jul 54,

FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:1834; Dulles to Smith, 16 Jul 54, ibid, 1843-45.

32. Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt III:C22-25. Geneva Conference documents are in FRUS

1952-54, XVI: 1506-46.

33. Hoopes, Devil and john Foster Dulles, 238-39; memo of telcon, Eisenhower and Dulles,

20 Jul 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2: 1855-56; Final Declaration on Indochina, 21 Jul 54,

ibid, XVI: 1540-42.

34. JCS Hist Div, "The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1954-1959," 1-5;

Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam, 7-10; Hoopes, Devil and john Foster Dulles,

239; Gurtov, First Vietnam Crisis, 129-30; Devillers and Lacouture, End of a War, 300-11;

Smith's statement in msg US del to State, 21 Jul 54, FRUS 1952-54, XVI: 1500-01.

35. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,642.

36. NSC 5429, FRUS 1952-54, XII, pt 1:698-703; memo Ogburn for Robertson, 11 Aug 54,

ibid, 718-19; memo of disc at 210th NSC mtg, 12 Aug 54, ibid, 724-33. See ibid, 686-94,

for text of draft Southeast Asia Collective Security Treaty, 2 Aug 54.
740 Notes to Pages 542-47

37. On this point see Dulles's remarks at Manila on 7 September, in FRUS 1952-54, XII,

pt 1:874-75; memo Davis for SecDef, 14 Sep 54, Pentagon Papers, bk 10:747-49;

Immerman, Piety, Pragmatism, and Power, 96-97; Hoopes, Devil and john Foster

Dulles, 241-44.

38. Fall, Two Viet-Nams, 234-45; CIA rpt, Political Conditions in Vietnam, 23 Aug 54, FRUS

1952-54, XIII, pt 2: 1977-80; memo McClintock for USecState, 12 Aug 54, ibid, 1937-38;

SNIE 63-6-54, Current Trends in South Vietnam, 15 Sep 54, Pentagon Papers, bk 10:752;

msg 481 Dillon to SecState, 4 Aug 54, ibid, 699; Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt IV:AI6-18;

Hoopes, Devil and john Foster Dulles, 250-53.

39. Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt IV:AI-8; memo of disc at 218th NSC mtg, 22 Oct 54, FRUS

1952-54, XIII, pt 2:2153-58.

40. Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt IV:A7-12; memos (2) JCS for Wilson, 22 Sep 54, FRUS 1952-

54, XIII, pt 2:2088-91; Itr Dulles to Wilson, 11 Oct 54, ibid, 2132-35; Itr DASD(ISA)

to SecState, 21 Oct 54, ibid, 2146-47; memo of disc at 218th NSC mtg, 22 Oct 54, ibid,

2156-58; memo Radford for SecDef, 19 Oct 54, Pentagon Papers, bk 10:771-74;

memo JCS for SecDef, 12 Aug 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:1943-45.

41. Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt IV:AI2-15; msg 1536 Heath to State, 22 Oct 54, FRUS 1952-

54, XIII, pt 2:2151-53; Immerman, Piety, Pragmatism, and Power, 97-98.

42. Msg ActSecState (Smith) to Dulles, 30 Sep 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII,pt 2:2101-02; msg

Smith to Emb France, ibid, 2095-97; communique on Washington talks on Indochina,

29 Sep 54, ibid, 2097-98; memo of disc at 218th NSC mtg, 22 Oct 54, ibid, 2153-58;

msg ActSecState (Hoover) to Emb Vietnam, 22 Oct 54, ibid, 2161-62.

43. Msg 1717 Dillon to State, 23 Oct 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:2165-66; msg Tedul

11 ActSecState to SecState, 21 Oct 54, ibid, 2149-51; memo of disc at 218th NSC mtg,

22 Oct 54, ibid, 2157; memo of disc at 219th NSC mtg, 26 Oct 54, ibid, 2184-86.

44. Spector, Advice and Support, 231-32; memcon Counselor MacArthur, 30 Oct 54,

FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:2194-95; memcon Goodpaster, 31 Oct 54, ibid, 2198-99; msg

1807 SecState to Emb Vietnam, 1 Nov 54, ibid, 2200; ltr Eisenhower to Collins,

3 Nov 54, ibid, 2205-07; JCS Hist Div, "JCS and War in Vietnam," 55-56.

45. Msg 1830 Kidder (Collins) to State, 15 Nov 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:2250; msg 1686

Heath to State, 3 Nov 54, ibid, 2203-04; supplement to Collins rpt to SecState, 20 Jan 55,

Pentagon Papers, bk 10:869-72.

46. Msg 1830 Kidder (Collins) to State, 15 Nov 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:2250-56; msg

2261 Kidder (Collins) to State, 14 Dec 54, ibid, 2366-68; Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt

IV:AI8-19.

47. Msg 2303 Kidder (Collins) to State, 16 Dec 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:2379-82; msg

2250 Kidder (Collins) to State, 13 Dec 54, ibid, 2362-66.

48. Memo Collins for SecState, 20 Jan 55, FRUS, 1955-57,1:54-57; supplement to Collins rpt,

Pentagon Papers, bk 10:877-88.

49. Memo of disc at 234th NSC mtg, 27 Jan 55, FRUS 1955-57, 1:62-69; memo Collins

for SecState, 20 Jan 55, ibid, 54-57; JCS Hist Div, "JCS and War in Vietnam," 87-88.

50. Msg Secto 8 Dulles to State, 8 May 55, FRUS 1955-57,1:374.

51. Ibid, 376-77 and n 5; memo c.F. Bonesteel, sub: Possible French withdrawal from

Vietnam, nd, Pentagon Papers, bk 10:975.

52. Msg Tedul 9 ActSecState to SecState, 9 May 55, FRUS 1955-57, 1:380-82; msg 1323

Collins to US Emb France, 9 May 55, ibid, 382-85.

53. Msg 36 Dillon to State, 11 May 55, ibid, 393"99; msg Dulte 32 SecState to State, 12 May

55, ibid, 399-400; msg Secto 42 SecState to State, 12 May 55, ibid, 401-05; msg Secto

46 SecState to State, 13 May 55, ibid, 406-08; JCS Hist Div, "JCS and War in Vietnam,"

117-20.

54. JCS Hist Div, "JCS and War in Vietnam," 123-24, 126-28; Pentagon Papers, bk 1, IV:

A37-38.

55. Pentagon Papers, bk 1, pt I:A40; JCS Hist Div, "JCS and War in Vietnam," 130-32, 136-39;

msg Reinhardt to State, 29 Nov 55, FRUS 1955-57,1:589-94.

56. Ely, Memoires, 75-76; JCS Hist Div, "JCS and War in Vietnam," 433-42; State-JCS mtg,

10 Jun 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:1675-77; msg SecState to US Emb France, 12 Jun 54,

ibid, 1684-85; ]urika, ed, Radford Memoirs, 422-29, 430.
Notes to Pages 548-56 741

57. Spector, Advice and Support, 228-30, 238-40; JCS Hist Div, "JCS and War in Vietnam,"

59-74; memo of disc at 218th NSC mtg, 22 Oct 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:2153-58.

58. JCS Hist Div, "JCS and War in Vietnam," 140-42; Spector, Advice and Support, 239-43,

252; Edward G. Lansdale, In the Midst of Wars: An American's Mission to Southeast

Asia, 232-33.

59. JCS Hist Div, "JCS and War in Vietnam," 142-44; Spector, Advice and Support, 262-68.

60. JCS Hist Div, "History of Indochina Incident," App 1, 485-94; Spector, Advice and

Support, 257-59; memo ASD(ISA) for SecDef, 25 Jan 56, Pentagon Papers, bk 10:1045.

61. Memo JCS for Wilson, 9 Dec 55, FRUS 1955-57, 1:598-99; note 3, ibid, 615; memo

Robertson for SecState, 10 Aug 55, ibid, 512-13; Spector, Advice and Support, 259-62;

summary of Lawton Mission rpt, end to memo Young for Robertson, 18 Jan 56, FRUS

1955-57,1:617-18; ltr Wilson to SecState, 31 Jan 56, ibid, 626-27; memo Robertson

for Murphy, 2 Feb 56, ibid, 631-33; memcon, 2 Feb 56, ibid, 633-35; msg 2705 SecState

to US Emb Vietnam, 9 Feb 56, ibid, 640-41.

62. JCS Hist Div, "JCS and War in Vietnam," 196c97; memo Robertson for Murphy, 2 Feb 56,

FRUS 1955-57, 1:631-33; memcon, 4 Feb 56, sub: State-Def mtg, ibid, 635-37; msg

2705 SecState to US Emb Vietnam, 9 Feb 56, ibid, 640-41; msg 3268 Reinhardt to State,

13 Feb 56, ibid, 642-44; Spector, Advice and Support, 261-62.

63. JCS Hist Div, "JCS and War in Vietnam," 197-98; Spector, Advice and Support, 262.

64. Memo of disc at 219th NSC mtg, 26 Oct 54, FRUS 1952-54, XIII, pt 2:2185.

XXV. DEFENSE OF WESTERN EUROPE: CONFRONTING REALITY

1. Condit, Test ofWar, 376-77.

2. Ibid, 384-91; Edward Fursdon, The European Defence Community:A History, 146-47.

3. Walter S. Poole, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, 1950-1952, 134-37,

147-49.

4. Condit, Test ofWar, 383-84, 390-91.

5. Msg Polto 605 to State, 6 Nov 52, FRUS 1952-54, V; pt 1:339-41; memo of mtg between

SecState and certain NATO Foreign Ministers, 14 Nov 52, ibid, 343-46; ed note, ibid,

348-51; msg SecState to Pres, 17 Dec 52, ibid, 351-53; Acheson, Present at the Creation,

708 (quote).

6. Drew Middleton, New York Times, 7 Jan 53. In his inaugural address and State of the

Union message, however, Eisenhower's references to American support for European

unity were rather perfunctory. See Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953,6, 14-15. For

background on the letter to Adenauer, see FRUS 1952-54, V; pt 1:700-02; for the letter

to Gruenther, see Galambos et aI, Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, XIII, 1457-59.

7. Memo of disc at State-MSA-JCS mtg, 28 Jan 53, FRUS 1952-54, V; pt 1:711-17.

8. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 140-43; memo of disc at 131st NSC mtg, 11 Feb 53,

FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 2:1579-81.

9. Memo of disc at 137th NSC mtg, 18 Mar 53, FRUS 1952-54, I, pt 1:592-95; paper

prepared in the Office of the Director of Mutual Security, nd, ibid, 596-604, esp table I

(603-04; the figures are extrapolated from NATO entries in the table, plus entries for

infrastructure and accessorial charges); memo of disc at special NSC mtg, 31 Mar 53,

FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:276-78.

10. Memos of disc at 139th NSC mtg, 8 Apr 53, and 141st NSC mtg, 28 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-

54, II, pt 1:289,304-05; NSC 149/2,29 Apr 53, par 11, ibid, 313-14.

11. Msg Polto 1950 Draper to State, 4 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54, V; pt 1:364-66; Hr Draper

to Eisenhower,8 [9] Mar 53, ltr Eisenhower to Draper, 16 Mar 53: fldr CD 092.3 NATO

(Strategy), box 17, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953; Watson,jCS and National Policy

1953-54, 284-85.

12. Rpt SHAPE (Ridgway to Standing Group), 11 Apr 53, PP(AWF), DDEL [file designation

illegible]; Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,286.

13. Msg Secto 6, US Deleg at NAC mtg to State, 24 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:373-75;

msg Secto 7, US Deleg at NAC mtg to State, 24 Apr 53, ibid, 378-79.
742 Notes to Pages 556-63

14. The proceedings of the 24 April meeting at which Wilson spoke, as reported in Secto

10, 25 Apr 53, contain only a five-line summary of his comments (FRUS 1952-54, V,

pt 1:382-84). The foregoing description is based on a copy of the address, "Statement

by Secretary Wilson Concerning Production and Delivery of Equipment," nd, in fldr

CD 092.3 NATO AR 1953, box 15, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953; see, too, Watson,

]CS and National Policy 1953-54,288.

15. Msg Secto 6, US Deleg at NAC mtg to State, 24 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:373-78;

msg 5624 Dillon to State, 24 Apr 53, ibid, 369-71. France's needs for the Indochina war

had been set forth by Prime Minister Mayer and Associated States Minister Letourneau

in talks held in Washington in late March. See Chapter XXIV.

16. Msg 5623 Dillon to State, 23 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:371-73.

17. Memo Ridgway for Wilson, 25 Apr 53, w/encl Excerpts from Statement on 6 Apr 53

to Subcte of House Cte on For Mfs, fldr 1, CD 091.7 (Europe), Def Exec Off, CenDec

Files 1953. Ridgway briefed Wilson on 30 April using this material. For comparison

with Lisbon goals, see Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 283, and tables 17

(282) and 21 (319). Watson's figures for end-1952 forces are from a 1955 source,

presumably more accurate than those Ridgway used in April 1953 and which are used

here because they were the basis for judgments made at the time.

18. Memo Mautz for McNeil, 23 Jan 53, fldr 092.3 NATO Gen 1953, box 16, Def Exec

Off, CenDec Files 1953; memo Mautz for McNeil, 16 Apr 53, fldr CD 092.3 NATO

(Force Levels) 1953, ibid (Condit, Test of War, 373, gives somewhat different figures);

Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 287; Defense Annual Review Team

working paper on Tentative Estimate of NATO Forces 1954-59 ("Red Book"), 29 Jun 53,

fldr 092.3 NATO AR 1953, box 16, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

19. Memo of disc at 141st NSC mtg, 29 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:397-99; memo Mautz

for McNeil, 16 Apr 53, cited in n 18.

20. Msgs Edcol 10 and Edcol 13, SecState to Emb France, 13, 15 Jul 53, FRUS 1952-54, V,

pt 1:796-98.

21. Current Economic Developments, 11 Aug 53, FRUS 1952-54, VI, pt 1:566-71; Watson,

]CS and National Policy 1953-54,208-09.

22. NSC 149/2,29 Apr 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:305-16.

23. Ltr Draper to Pres, 5 Jun 53, ibid, V, pt 1:401-08. The letter was accompanied by a

longer study prepared by Draper's plans and policy staff, dated 15 May, developing

the same theme; an earlier version of chapter 4 of the staff study, devoted to military defense, had accompanied his March letter. The staff study is not printed in the

FRUS volume. A copy is in fldr CD 092.3 NATO (Strategy), box 17, Def Exec Off, Cen

Dec Files 1953.

24. Memo for Pres, 8 Jul 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:432-36. The NSC was also asked to

review Draper's letter.

25. Memo JCS for SecDef, 11 Sep 53, fldr CD 092 Denmark-France 1953, Def Exec Off,

box 16, CenDec Files 1953;Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,293.

26. NSC 162, 30 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:489-514 (quotes, 508-09); NSC 162/2,

30 Oct 53, par 38, ibid, 593.

27. Kyes's address at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., 16 Oct 53, fldr Kyes

1953, DepSecDef Bio Info & Calendars, OSD Hist; press conf, 19 Oct 53, Wilson

Public Statements, 1953, III:847-49; msg Polto 686 Hughes to State, 28 Oct 53, FRUS

1952-54, V, pt 1:447-48.

28. Msg Polto 686 Hughes to State, 28 Oct 53, cited in n 27; News Conf, 28 Oct 53, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1953, 720; memo Dulles for Pres, 21 Oct 53, ltr Eisenhower

to Gruenther, 27 Oct 53: Pres Corr ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

29. NSC 162/2, nd (ca 30 Oct 53), par 12, 13, 15b, 16, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:583-87.

30. NSC 162/2, par 12, 15b, ibid.

31. Ltr Makins to Bonbright, 18 Sep 53, w/atchd paper, fldr CD 092.3 NATO AR 1953

(second of two fldrs), box 15, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.
Notes to Pages 563-71 743

32. Memo JCS for SecDef, 16 Jul 53, memo SecDef for JCS and SvcSecs, 7 Aug 53, memo

LtGen Everest for SecDef, 13 Aug 53, memo SecArmy for SecDef, 15 Aug 53, memo Sec

Army for SecDef, 21 Aug 53: ibid; memo SecAF for SecDef, 23 Sep 53, fldr CD 092.3

NATO (Force Levels) 1953, box 16, ibid; memo JCS for SecDef, 27 Nov 53, untitled

table comparing USAF goals, 10 Dec 53: fldr 092.3 Ann Rev 1954, box 23, Entry 200B,

ibid; Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 297-98.

33. Msg Topol 361, ActSecState to Emb France, 15 Oct 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:444-46.

34. Memo JCS for SecDef, 22 Oct 53, fldr CD 092.3 NATO AR 1953 (second of two fldrs),

box 15, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953; Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,

298-99 (quote).

35. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 297-98.

36. For Eisenhower's speeches of 16 April and 8 December 1953, see Eisenhower Public

Papers, 1953, 179-88 and 813-22, respectively.

37. PL 585, 79 Cong, 60 Stat 755; Timothy J. Botti, The Long Wait: The Forging of the

Anglo-American Nuclear Alliance, 1945-1958, ch 3; memo SpecAsst to SecState for

AE Aff (Arneson), 3 Dec 53, FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 2:1251-55.

38. Botti, Long Wait, chs 9 and 13; Lewis L. Strauss, Men and Decisions, 369-74; Itr ChJCAE

(Cole) to Pres, 21 Aug 53, FRUS 1952-54,11, pt 2:1185-88; memo Arneson for SecState,

10 Mar 53, memo of disc at 136th NSC mtg, 11 Mar 53: ibid, 1125-33.

39. Botti, Long Wait, ch 14; Strauss, Men and Decisions, 372-73 (quote).

40. Memo Nash for DepSecDef, 23 Oct 53, fldr CD 092.3 NATO Gen 1953, box 16, Def

Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953; paper Merchant for SecsState, Def, Treas, DirFOA, Dir

BoB, C]CS, nd, fldr CD 092.3 NATO AR 1953 (second of two fldrs), box 15, ibid.

41. NSC 151/2, Disclosure of Atomic Information to Allied Countries, 4 Dec 53, FRUS

1952-54,11, pt 2: 1256-85; Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54,191.

42. Ltr DepUSecState (Matthews) to ASD(ISA) (Nash), 30 Jul 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:

437-39; memo JCS for SecDef, 27 Nov 53, cited in n 32; Watson, ]CS and National

Policy 1953-54, 298. The first atomic artillery units arrived in July 1954. See Hans-

]iirgen Schraut, "U.S. Forces in Germany 1945-55," in Simon Duke and Wolfgang Krieger,

eds, U.S. Military Forces in Europe: The Early Years, 1945-1970,180.

43. Memo Fessenden (EUR/RA) for Wolf (EUR/RA), 21 Jul 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:798-800.

Concerning Defense-State differences in the spring and summer of 1953 during the

NSC Planning Board's drafting of a new policy paper on Germany, see memo of disc

at 159th NSC mtg, 13 Aug 53, FRUS 1952-54, V11, pt 1:501-02, and Statement of Policy

by the National Security Council, "United States Position with Respect to Germany"

(NSC 160/1),17 Aug 53, ibid, 510-20, esp n 1,510-11, and par 11b and n 2,515-16.

44. Memo of disc at 159th NSC mtg, 13 Aug 53, ibid, 501-08.

45. Ltr Dulles to Wilson, 17 Aug 53, ibid, 520-21.

46. Memo of disc at 164th NSC mtg, 1 Oct 53, ibid, 540-43; ed note, ibid, 543-44.

47. Memo Fuller (SIP) for Bowie (Dir SIP), 10 Dec 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:863-65;

memcon Fisher (EUR/WE), 30 Nov 53, ibid, 856-58.

48. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 294-96.

49. Ibid; see also memo ActDirMS for ActSecState, 22 May 53, HCFA, Spanish Bases:

Hearings, 4 Jun 53 (transc of exec sess), memo ASD(ISA) for SecDef, 7 Jul 53: fldr CD

092.2 Phil-UK 1953, box 15, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953; memo JCS for SecDef,

wlapp, 13 Jan 54, memo DirFMA(ISA) for SecDef, 4 Feb 54: fldr Spain, OSD Hist.

50. Walters memcon Eisenhower and Laniel, 5 Dec 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 2:1771; mins

2d plenary mtg Bermuda, 5 Dec 53, ibid, 1783.

51. Ltr Wilson to Dulles, 7 Dec 53, fldr Sec Wilson's Reading File Jul-Dec 53, Wilson Misc

files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1802. The draft of Dulles's address to which Wilson referred

has not been found.

52. Unsgd briefing paper for NSC mtg 10 Dec 53, "Item 3 (for Information) NATO

Ministers' Meeting," nd, fldr 092 NATO, box 5, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 68A-4024.

53. Memo of disc at 174th NSC mtg, 10 Dec 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:450-51.

54. Memo Nash for SecDef, nd, fldr 092 NATO, box 16, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files 1953.

55. Statement by SecState to NAC, 14 Dec 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:461-68 (quote, 463).

See also msg Secto 4, US Deleg at NAC mtg to State, 15 Dec 53, ibid, 458-60.
744 Notes to Pages 571-77

56. Ed note, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:468-69; Lawrence S. Kaplan and Sidney R. Snyder,

eds, "Fingerprints on History": The NATO Memoirs of Theodore C. Achilles, 54.

Regarding the continuity in Dulles's pronouncements, see Brian R. Duchin, "The

'Agonizing Reappraisal': Eisenhower, Dulles, and the European Defense Community,"

Diplomatic History (Spring 92), 201-22.

57. Statement SecState to NAC, 14 Dec 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:467; memo SpecAsst to

SecState for AE Aff (Arneson), 10 Dec 53, ibid, 448-49.

58. Statement by Wilson at North Atlantic Council mtg, 15 Dec 53, fldr 092 NATO NovDec 1953, box 23, Entry 200B, Def Exec Off, CenDec Files, 1953.

59. Memo of disc at 177th NSC mtg, 23 Dec 53, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:479-81; notes on

restricted session NAC, 16 Dec 53, ibid, 476-79.

60. William 1. Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954, 183-84; final communique of the Berlin Conference,

18 Feb 54, FRUS 1952-54, VII, pt 1:1205-06; msg Dulles to Bidault, 23 Feb 54, ibid,

V, pt 1:879-80.

61. Memo of disc at 187th NSC mtg, 4 Mar 54, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:886-90.

62. Regarding the draft presidential statement of 2 March submitted to the NSC for consideration at its 4 March meeting and the revised draft Wilson and Smith approved

the following day, see msg 3067 State to Emb Paris, 6 Mar 54, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:

892-94, and n 2, 892. Further discussions of, and changes in, the draft are described in

Davis memo for SecDef, 9 Mar 54, w/atchd revised "Proposed Presidential Statement

Regarding EDC," fldr 092 NATO, box 5, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 68A-4024. The

text of the president's statement on 16 April 1954 is in Eisenhower Public Papers,

1954,400-02. His press conference remarks of 31 March are in ibid, 367.

63. Fursdon, European Defence Community, 246-47; msg 3514 Emb italy to State, 4 May

54, FRUS 1952-54, VI11:419-22.

64. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 401; Hitchcock, France Restored, 190c92.

65. Msg Edcol 130 SecState to Emb France, 25 Jun 54, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:983-84.

66. Ed note, ibid, VII, pt 1:543-44; memo JCS for Wilson, 25 Jun 54, ibid, V, pt 1:994-95;

memo Wilson for JCS, 22 Jun 54, quoted in Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-

54,308.

67. FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:994-95, n 1 and n 3; memo Davis for ASD(ISA), 12 Aug 54, Itr

Davis to Murphy, 16 Aug 54: fldr 091 Germany Mar-Dec 1954, SecDef subject files

1953-54, Acc 59A-792.

68. Memcons at State Dept and White House, 25 Jun 54, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:985-87;

"Agreed United States-United Kingdom Secret Minute on Germany and the EDC,"

28 Jun 54, ibid, 988-89; British record of disc at the White House, 27 [25?] Jun 54,

as summarized in Rolf Steininger, "John Foster Dulles, the European ,Defense Community, and the German Question," in Richard H. Immerman, ed,john Foster Dulles and the

Diplomacy of the Cold War, 87-88.

69. See ed note, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:997, and the 12 July report of the Anglo-American

Study Group, esp end 6, 997-1016.

70. Cutler memo for Pres, 20 Jul 54, PP(AWF), DDEL; memo of disc at 209th NSC mtg,

5 Aug 54, FRUS 1952-54, II, pt 1:712.

71. Irwin M. Wall, The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945-1954,

282-86.

72. Msgs Churchill to Dulles, 19 Aug 54, Dulles to Churchill, 20 Aug 54, FRUS 1952-54, V,

pt 1:1050-52; Dulles's statement, 31 Aug 54, ibid, pt 2:1120-22.

73. Steininger, "John Foster Dulles, the European Defense Community, and the German

Question," 104; FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:1088.

74. Watson,]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 304-06; Robert A. Wampler, "From Lisbon to

M.e. 48: The United States, Great Britain, and the 'New Look' in NATO, 1952-1954,"

paper presented at Harvard Univ, Dec 87, OSD Hist, 89.

75. Special Message to Congress, 17 Feb 54, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1954,263.

76. Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (PL 703), 83 Cong, 2 sess, 68 Stat 919 (quote, ch 11, sec

123b); Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. HolI, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953-1961:

Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission, 113-43.
Notes to Pages 578-84 745

XXVI. STABILIZING CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN EUROPE

I. Memo of conv by Byington (State), 22 Oct 54, FRUS 1952-54, VIII:325.

2. Olaf Mager, "Anthony Eden and the Framework of Security: Britain's Alternatives to

the European Defense Community, 1951-54," in Beatrice Heuser and Robert O'Neill,

eds, Securing Peace in Europe, 1945-1962: Thoughts for the Post-Cold War Era,

125-32; Saki Dockrill, "Britain and the Settlement of the West German Rearmament

Question in 1954," in Michael Dockrill and John W. Young, eds, British Foreign Policy,

1945-56, 160-62.

3. Memo Anderson for JCS, 2 Sep 54, fldr 091 Germany Mar-Dec 1954, SecDef subject

files 1953-54, Acc 59A-792; memo Billingsley for ASD(ISA), 8 Sep 54, fldr NSC 5433-

Immediate US Policy Toward Europe, box 8, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 65A-3500.

The Joint Chiefs' proposals for West German rearmament, submitted on 13 October

in response to Anderson's 2 September memo, are summarized in Watson, JCS a'"!d

National Policy 1953-54,315.

4. The texts of the documents signed at Paris on 23 October 1954 are in FRUS 1952-54,

V, pt 2:1435-57.

5. OCB Progress Reports on NSC 160/1,17 May, 5 Dec 56, FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:99, 182;

John A. Reed, Jr., Germany and NATO, 61; msg APG 596 Emb Bonn to State, 13 Oct 55,

fldr Germany 1955, SecDef Cable files, OSD Hist; David Clay Large, Germans to the

Front: West German Rearmament in the Adenauer Era, 238-45.

6. Briefing paper, "Review ot' German Sovereignty and Rearmament Situation," presented

at EUCOM Hqtrs, 4 Apr 55,atchd to memo Hess (USEUCOM) for DEFREPNAMA,

14 Apr 55, fldr 470 Germany, box 11, ASD(lSA) files, Acc 60A-1025; Reed, Germany

and NATO, 65-67; OCB Progress Report on NSC 160/1,5 Dec 56, FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:

182-83.

7. Memo Mautz for McNeil (Compt), 31 Mar 55, fldr German Forces Arrangements, box

11, ASD(ISA) files, Acc 60A-1025; memo prepared by E&ISE Div (Compt)' 25 Apr 56,

atchd to memo Solomon (DirEurRegionISA) for ASD(lSA), nd, fldr Germany 1956,

box 2, OSD CS files 1956,Acc 60A-1379.

8. Werner L. Abelshauser, "The Causes and Consequences of the 1956 West German

Rearmament Crisis," in Francis H. Heller and John R. Gillingham, eds, NATO: The

Founding of the Atlantic Alliance and the Integration of Europe, 318-23.

9. Memo Solomon for ASD(lSA), nd, and atchd memo prepared by E&ISE Div (Compt)'

25 Apr 56, cited in n 7. Regarding the Nash commitment, see Abelshauser, "Causes and

Consequences of the 1956 West German Rearmament Crisis," 316.

10. Memo Wilson for Bendetsen, 11 May 56, ltr Bendetsen to SecDef, 10 Jun 56, wi

atchd summary memo, 11 Jun 56: fldr Germany 1956, box 2, OSD CS files 1956,

Acc 60A-1379.

11. Memo of disc at 288th NSC mtg, 15 Jun 56, FRUS 1955-57, XXVI: 126-29.

12. Ibid. The Joint Chiefs' written response to the Planning Board's recommendation is

in memo Radford for SecDef, 13 Jun 56, fldr Germany 1956, box 2, OSD CCS files,

Acc 60A-1379.

13. James G. Hershberg, James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of

the Nuclear Age, 687; Abelshauser, "Causes and Consequences of the 1956 West

German Rearmament Crisis," 320-21; Anne-Marie Burley, "Restoration and Reunification:

Eisenhower's German Policy," in Richard A. Melanson and David Mayers, eds, Reevaluating Eisenhower: American Foreign Policy in the Fifties, 232; Thomas A. Schwartz,

"Eisenhower and the Germans," in Gunter Bischof and Stephen E. Ambrose, eds,

Eisenhower: A Centenary Assessment, 218.

14. Regarding the Trieste dispute before 1953, see Roberto G. Rabel, Between East and

West: Trieste, the United States, and the Cold War, 1941-1954, and Allison A. Conrad,

"In TRUST, We Guard," Army Information Digest (Mar 51),3-10.

15. Rabel, Between East and West, 147-53.

16. John C. Campbell, ed, Successful Negotiation: Trieste 1954: An Appraisal by the Five

Participants, 14-21,26-27; ed note, FRUS 1952-54, VIII:372-73.
746 Notes to Pages 584-92

17. Msg Eisenhower to Bedell Smith, 3 Sep 54, quoted in Eisenhower, Mandate for

Change, 419. Regarding the various documents comprising the 5 October agreement,

see ed note, FRUS 1952-54, VI11:570-73.

18. Memo Radford for Wilson, 16 Oct 53, FRUS 1952-54, VI11:320-21; memo Wilson for Exec

SecNSC (Lay), 3 Aug 54, ibid, 487-88; msg Gruenther to Pres, 13 Aug 54, ibid, 493-94.

19. Memo Wilson for ExecSecNSC (Lay), 3 Aug 54, ibid, 487-88.

20. Msg Dulles to Wilson, 3 Jul 54, ibid, 469-70.

21. Memo of disc at 210th NSC mtg, 12 Aug 54, ibid, 491-92; Itr Eisenhower to Gruenther,

9 Aug 54, msg Eisenhower to Gruenther, 13 Aug 54: DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

22. Memo Wilson for Ridgway, 5 Oct 54, fldr Sec Wilson's Reading File Jul-Dec 54, Wilson

Misc files 1953-57,Acc 63A-1802.

23. Memo Ridgway for SecDef, 5 Oct 54, fldr Trieste, box 4, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files,

Acc 68A-4024.

24. Memo of disc at 216th NSC mtg, 6 Oct 54, FRUS 1952-54, VI11:574-76; memo BrigGen

C. H. Bonesteel (ISA) for SecDef, 7 Oct 54, fldr Trieste, box 4, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf

files, Acc 68A-4024.

25. Cutler memo of conf at White House, 18 Oct 54, fldr Trieste, box 4, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping

Stf files, Acc 68A-4024; memo of Eisenhower-Dulles telcon, 7 Oct 54, 9:33 [a.m.?],

fldr Telephone Calls, box 7, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

26. Memo ISA for Hensel, 19 Oct 54, fldr Trieste, box 4, ASD(ISA) Pol Ping Stf files,

Acc 68A-4024.

27. Msg 177 PolAdvTrieste (Sims) to State, 26 Oct 54, FRUS 1952-54, VI11:584-85; msgs

Dulte 3 and Dulte 7 Emb Paris to State, 21 Oct 54, msg Dulte 14 Emb Paris to State,

23 Oct 54, msg 2205 Emb London to State, 4 Nov 54: ibid, VII, pt 2:1976-79.

28. Memo Merchant for Jones, 2 Nov 54, msg DEF DA 970364 OSD (DepSecDef Anderson)

to Gruenther, 2 Nov 54: FRUS 1952-54, VII, pt 2:1978-79, n 1; Watson, ]CS and

National Policy 1953-54,317.

29. Audrey Kurth Cronin, Great Power Politics and the Struggle over Austria, 1945-1955,

120-23, 125.

30. D. J. Hickman, "The United States Army in Europe, 1953-1963," unpub paper, OSD Hist,

30; Cronin, Struggle over Austria, 122, 156; memos CJCS for SecDef, 11 Sep 53, and

SecDef for Pres, 16 Sep 53, FRUS 1952-54, VII, pt 2:1899-1901.

31. NSC 164/1,14 Oct 53, FRUS 1952-54, VII, pt 2:1918.

32. Memo of disc at 245th NSC mtg, 21 Apr 55, FRUS 1955-57, V:52-54.

33. Memo of disc at 246th NSC mtg, 28 Apr 55, box 6, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

34. Msg 2527 Emb Vienna to State (pass to Defense for Anderson), 30 Apr 55, fldr Austria

1955, SecDef Cable files, OSD Hist.

35. Memo of disc at 248th NSC mtg, 12 May 55, box 7, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

36. Cronin, Struggle over Austria, 158-59; Robin Alison Remington, The Warsaw Pact:

Case Studies in Communist Conflict Resolution, 19. The text of the Austrian state

treaty is in Dept of State Bulletin, 6 Jun 55, 916-32. For the text of the Warsaw treaty,

see Jagdish P. Jain, comp, Documentary Study of the Warsaw Pact, 117-20.

37. Condit,]CS a.nd National Policy 1955-56, 111.

38. Msg Repnamto 38 DEFRREPNAMA Emb Paris to OSD (VAdm Davis for Hensel), 12 May

55, fldr NATO 1955, msg DA 983142 Army G-3 to USCINCEUR, 13 Jun 55, fldr Italy

1955: SecDef Cable files, OSD Hist.

39. Msg 4373 Emb Rome to State, 26 May 55, msg 4403 Emb Rome to State, 27 May 55,

msg ALO 868 Gruenther to SecDef, 25 Jul 55: fldr Italy 1955, ibid; msg DA990497

ChSA to USCINCEUR, 17 Oct 55, fldr NATO 1955, ibid; Hickman, "United States Army

in Europe, 1953-1963," 32-33.

40. Lorraine M. Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat: The United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold

War, xiii. U.S.-Yugoslav relations through 1953 are covered ibid, 1-137, and in John C.

Campbell, Tito's Separate Road: America and Yugoslavia in World Politics, 22-29,

and Beatrice Heuser, Western 'Containment' Policies in the Cold War: The Yugoslav

Case, 1948-1953.

41. Msg Tosec 9 State to Emb Paris, 20 Oct 54, fldr NATO 1954, SecDef Cable files,

OSD Hist.
Notes to Pages 592-98 747

42. Msg Tosec 11 State to Emb Paris, 21 Oct 54, ibid; Cutler memo, 28 Oct 54, FRUS 1952-

54, VIII: 1412-13.

43. Msg 397 Emb Belgrade to State, 16 Nov 54, file 760.5/11-1654, Decimal files, RG 59.

An extract of this telegram, which does not include Tito's remarks rejecting a formal

Balkan Pact-NATO link, is in FRUS 1952-54, VIII:1421-23.

44. Memo of State-JCS mtg, 15 Apr 55, FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:636-38; memo of disc at 247th

NSC mtg, 5 May 55, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL. An extract of this memo, minus several

key passages, is in FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:645-47.

45. Msg 870 Emb Belgrade to State, 25 Apr 55, FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:641-44; msg 873 from

Emb Belgrade to State, 26 Apr 55, fldr Yugoslavia 1955, SecDef Cable files, OSD Hist.

46. Msg 936 Emb Belgrade to State, 11 May 55, file 768.5-MSP/5-1155, Decimal files, RG

59; msgs MAS 1560 and 1562 Chief AMAY Belgrade to USCINCEUR, 11 May 55,

EC 9-2383 USCINCEUR to Chief AMAY Belgrade, 12 May 55, EC 9-2397 USCINCEUR

to SecDef, I3 May 55: fldr Yugoslavia 1955, SecDef Cable files, OSD Hist.

47. Msg DEF 981432 OSD (Hensel) to DEFREPNAMA (Anderson), 13 May 55, fldr

Yugoslavia 1955, SecDef Cable files, OSD Hist.

48. Msg 942 Emb Belgrade to State 13 May 55, FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:650-51; msg MAS

1621 Chief AMAY Belgrade to OSD (Hensel), 30 May 55, fldr Yugoslavia 1955, SecDef

Cable files, OSD Hist; memo of conv at State (Dulles, Hoover, Murphy, et al), 19 May 55,

file 768.5-MSP/5-1955, Decimal files, RG 59; msg 928 State to Emb Belgrade, 20 May

55, fldr Yugoslavia 1955, SecDef Cable files, OSD Rist.

49. Ltr Merchant to Hensel (ISA), 9 Jun 55, file 768.5-MSP/6-955, Decimal files, RG 59;

memo of conv between Dulles and Yugoslav Amb Mates, 23 May 55, FRUS 1955-57,

XXVI:652; msg MAS 1621 Chief AMAY Belgrade (Hains) to OSD (Hensel), 30 May 55,

and msg 6389 State to Emb London, 20 Jun 55, fldr Yugoslavia 1955, SecDef Cable

files, OSD Hist.

50. Msg 1151 Emb Belgrade to State, 25 Jun 55, fldr Yugoslavia 1955, SecDef Cable files,

OSD Hist; msg 1171 Emb Belgrade to State, 28 Jun 55, FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:659-60;

memo of conv between Barbour (State) and Gen Collins, 5 Jul 55, file 768.5-MSP/

7-555, Decimal files, RG 59.

51. Msg MAS 1800 Chief AMAY Belgrade to USCINCEUR, 10 Jul 55, msg 34 Emb Belgrade

to State, 15 Jul 55, msg DEF 986285 Leffingwell (ActDirOMAP(OSD)) to CINCEUR and

Chief AMAY Belgrade, 5 Aug 55: fldr Yugoslavia 1955, SecDef Cable files, OSD Hist.

52. Memo of conv between Dulles and Eisenhower, 11 Aug 55, FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:660-61.

53. Memo Murphy for SecState, 16 Sep 55, file 611.68/9-1655, Decimal files, RG 59. Portions

of thiS memo are printed in FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:664-68.

54. Msg 364 Emb Belgrade to State, 1 Oct 55, fldr Yugoslavia 1955, SecDef Cable files, OSD

Hist; memo SecState for Pres, nd, FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:678-79. Murphy's discussions

with Tito and other Yugoslav officials on 27 September are summarized in msgs 331

and 333 Emb Belgrade to State, 27 and 28 Sep 55, FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:672-76.

Murphy's two conversations with Minister of National Defense General Ivan Gosnjak

on 27 and 28 September are described in msg MAS 2163 Chief AMAY to OSD, 4 Oct

55, fldr Yugoslavia 1955, SecDef Cable files, OSD Hist. The text of a confidential

memorandum spelling out the various agreements reached during the Murphy visit

is in msg 357 Emb Belgrade to State, 30 Sep 55, ibid.

55. OCB Progress Report on U.S. Policy Toward Yugoslavia, 23 Nov 55, fldr Yugoslavia

1956-57, OCB files, RG 59, NACP; "Yugoslavia's International Position" (NIE 31-2-55),

7 Sep 55, memo JCS for SecDef, 9 Nov 55: FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:662-64, 701-03. An

extract of the OCB report, which omits mention of the new negotiating strategy, is in

FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:704-06.

56. Memo of disc at 271st NSC mtg, 22 Dec 55, box 7, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

57. NSC 5601,9 Jan 56, FRUS 1955-57, XXVI:707-14; ed note, ibid, 714-15.

58. Memo Col R. M. Miner (DirEurRegionISA) for DASD(ISA) for MDAP, 26 Mar 56, fldr

091.3 Yugoslavia, box 21, ISA files 1956,Acc 60A-I339.

59. Notes on the Armed Forces Policy Council Meeting, 12 Jun 56, fldr AFPC 2nd Quarter

1956, box 3,AFPC Meeting files,Acc 77A-0062.
748 Notes to Pages 599-607

60. S. 4001, 5 Jun 56; McCilrthy's written statement, undated but probably submitted to

the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 20 Jun 56 (see Executive Sessions of SCFR

(Hist Ser), VIII, 691); memo of mtg in the White House Cabinet Room by LAM

[1. Arthur Minnich, Jr.], 12 Jun 56, PP(AWF), DDE1.

61. Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat, 188-91; NSC 5805, Draft Statement of Policy Toward

Yugoslavia, 28 Feb 58, FRUS 1958-60, X:317.

62. Campbell, Tito's Separate Road, 99-101,106.

63. Mins of State-Defense Conf with SACEUR, 6 Oct 54, fldr CCS 092 West Eur (3-12-48)

BPP+32, box 88, JCS files, RG 218; Wampler, "From Lisbon to M.C. 48," 89-90; memos

Dulles and Wilson for Pres, 3 Nov 54, Goodpaster for SecState, SecDef, and CJCS,

4 Nov 54: fldr NATO, box 5, ASD(lSA) Pol Ping Stf files, Acc 68A-4024; memo Weiss

through Ohly for Stassen, 7 Dec 54 (quotes), fldr 1582-4 FOA, box 524, G/PM files,

State Dept, Lot 64D-354.

64. Gregory W. Pedlow, ed, NATO Strategy Documents 1949-1969, xvii-xviii. For text of

MC 48, see 229-50.

65. Memo of disc at 229th NSC mtg, 21 Dec 54, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:561; Pedlow,

NATO Strategy Documents, xvii-xviii; memo of conv between Dulles and Pearson,

19 Dec 54, FRUS 1952-54, V, pt 1:560.

66. Ltr Wilson to Gruenther, 24 Nov 54, msg SeeDef to SACEUR, 8 Dec 54: fldr Sec

Wilson's Reading File Jul-Dec 54, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1802; Anderson

statement to the North Atlantic Council, 17 Dec 54, atchmt to memo Hensel for

SvcSecs et ai, 5 Jan 55, fldr CCS 092 Wes Eur (8-12-48) (2) Sec 2, box 89, JCS files,

RG 218.

67. MC 48/1 (Final), "The Most Effective Pattern of NATO Military Strength for the Next

Few Years-Report No.2," 9 Dec 55, in Pedlow, NATO Strategy Documents, 251-68.

68. Memo Collins for JCS, 21 Nov 55, fldr 334 NATO, box 15, ASD(ISA) files, Acc

60A-1025; memo of disc at 262d NSC mtg, 20 Oct 55, FRUS 1955-57, IV:23-26.

69. Memo of disc at 277th NSC mtg, 27 Feb 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:212.

70. Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 316-20; Condit, ]CS and National Policy

1955-56, 133-35.

71. Condit, ]CS and National Policy 1955-56, 133; memo Davis for SecDef, 21 Mar 55,

fldr 334 NATO, box 15,ASD(ISA) files,Acc 60A-I025.

72. Msg 3599 State to Emb Paris (for Gruenther from SecState), 8 Apr 55, msg 4389 Emb

Paris to State (for SecState from Gruenther), 9 Apr 55: fldr NATO 1955, SecDef Cable

files, OSD Hist.

73. Dulles's television remarks, 17 May 55, Dept of State Bulletin, 30 May 55,874-75; Gunter

Bischof, "Eisenhower, the Summit, and the Austrian Treaty, 1953-1955," in Bischof and

Ambrose, eds, Eisenhower: A Centenary Assessment, 158.

74. Memo of disc at 262d NSC mtg, 20 Oct 55, NSC ser, PP(AWF), DDE1.

XXVII. CONGRESS REVIEWS THE FY 1957 BUDGET

1. Robert C. Albright, Washington Post & Times Herald, 30 Nov 55; Hanson W. Baldwin,

New York Times, 13 Dec 55; Cole et ai, "History of Strategic Arms Competition:

Chronology," I, 218. The Soviet test was, in fact, the first airdrop of a thermonuclear

weapon; the United States matched it in 1956.

2. William S. White, New York Times, 14 Dec 55; Albright, Washington Post & Times

Herald, 15 Dec 55. See also Chapter XXI.

3. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1956,4-5,9-11.

4. Budget of the US. Government, FY 1957, M5-1O.

5. Ibid, M8-1O (quote), M23-26; John G. Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 17 Jan

56; Mark Watson, Baltimore Sun, 17 Jan 56; Anthony Leviero, New York Times, 17 Jan

56; HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957,1034-35.

6. Budget of the US. Government, FY 1957, M23-26; Leviero, New York Times, 17 Jan 56.

7. Watson, Baltimore Sun, 17 Jan 56; Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 17 Jan 56.
Notes to Pages 607-19 749

8. Budget of the U.S. Government, FY 1957, M22, M28-29. The president's message

also summarized provisions in the budget for funding of atomic energy research and

operations, for procurement of strategic materials, and for civil defense planning,

which are not examined in this volume.

9. Joseph and Stewart Alsop, Washington Post & Times Herald, 14 Dec 55; New York

Herald Tribune, 8 Dec 55; Washington Post & Times Herald, 23, 25 Dec 55, 2, 4,

6 Jan 56, all reprinted in Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 1:237-39.

10. G. Milton Kelly, Washington Post & Times Herald, 5 Jan 56; Earl H. Voss, Washington

Star, 15 Jan 56.

11. Alsops, Washington Post & Times Herald, 23 Jan 56.

12. "An Appraisal of the Airpower Aspect of the Proposed Budget," American Aviation

Daily, 24 Jan 56.

13. On this point, see Chapter II.

14. "Army Looks to Sage Brush's SkyCav Operation as Basis of Permanent Unit," ArmyNavy-Air Force Journal (10 Dec 55); Baldwin, New York Times, 4 Dec 55.

15. Leviero, New York Times, 11 Jan 56; New York Times, 8 Dec 55 (quotes), 27 Jan 56.

16. See, for example, Henry T. Simmons, American Aviation, 19 Dec 55.

17. Baltimore Sun, 19 Jan 56; Chicago Tril>une, 20 Jan 56; Philadelphia Inquirer, 15 Jan

56;John Giles, Washington Star, 22 Jan 56; Walter Trohan, Chicago Tribune, 29 Dec 55.

See also Washington Post & Times Herald, 9 Jan 56; American Aviation Daily,

11 Jan 56.

18. Saturday Evening Post (21, 28 Jan 56). The book was published later in the year as

Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway.

19. Wilson press conf, 17 Jan 56, Wilson Public Statements, 1956, 1:34-38; White, New

York Times, 18 Jan 56; Baltimore Sun, 20 Jan 56.

20. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1956, 168-69; Marguerite Higgins, New York Herald

Tribune, 20 Jan 56.

21. Baldwin,. New York Times, 22 Jan 56.

22. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957,559-61,573-74.

23. Ibid, 590-92,600-01,612-13.

24. Ibid, 629-30. Much of the discussion was off the record, and the whole session was

behind closed doors. The committee released the transcript of the "record" portions

of the discussion later, but news reports of the whole discussion were leaked

immediately. See Leviero, New York Times, 10 Feb 56.

25. HSCA, Army Hearings, 1957, 27 Feb 56, 1; HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957, 3 Feb 56,

558. The 1-3 February proceedings, held in secret like the others, were not released

to the press.

26. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957,1-3 Feb 56. Taylor's testimony is on pages 432-558-

27. Ibid, 442. See also 519.

28. Ibid, 432-37, 449,479-80, 535.

29. Ibid, 439, 441-42, 448.

30. Ibid, 464-65, 475-76, 511-12.

31. Ibid, 466, 470, 472-74, 512-13,537-39.

32. Ibid, 469.

33. Ibid, 2.

34. Ibid, 28-30.

35. Ibid, 273-74, 277, 279-82, 295.

36. New York Times, 2 Feb 56; John Van Camp, Baltimore Sun, 2 Feb 56; White, New

York Times, 2 Feb 56; Wilson Public Statements, 1956, 11:361-66; NBC-TV "Meet the

Press," 5 Feb 56; New York Times, 6 Feb 56.

37. Leviero, New York Times, 8, 9 Feb 56; Eisenhower Public Papers, 1956, 234-36, 238;

Rowland Evans, Jr., New York Herald Tribune, 10 Feb 56.

38. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957,757-60.

39. Ibid, 790, 793-94.

40. Ibid, 762, 828.

41. Ibid, 753, 756, 763, 764, 775, 826-27.

42. Ibid, 766-74.
750 Notes to Pages 619-28

43. Ibid, 869-74, 887, 897.

44. Ibid, 879-80.

45. Ibid, 876-77, 881-83, 885-86, 891-933, 899-900; see also Alsops, Washington Post & Times

Herald, 17 Feb 56.

46. Robert K. Walsh, Washington Star, 19 Feb 56. Ordinarily testimony was released,

after deletion of classified information, only a few days before an appropriation bill

reached the House floor.

47. NBC-TV "Meet the Press," 19 Feb 56; Walter Kerr, New York Herald Tribune, 21 Feb 56;

Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 2:2494-2500; Washington Post & Times Herald,

17 Feb 56; NBC-TV "Meet the Press," 26 Feb 56. Jackson had issued a brief statement

earlier to the Associated Press.

48. Baltimore Sun, 24 Feb 56; Alvin Spivak, Washington Post & Times Herald, 26 Feb 56.

49. See Wilson press conf,6 Mar 56, Wilson Public Statements, 1956,11:396-97; News Conf,

29 Feb 56, Eisenhower Public Papers, 1956,263-73.

50. New York Herald Tribune, 2 Mar 56; Goodpaster memo of conf wlPres (13 Mar 56),

14 Mar 56, PP(AWF), DDEL. LeMay's expressed requirement was already being bandied

about. See Alsops, New York Herald Tribune, 9 Mar 56.

51. Memo Wilson for Pres, 29 Mar 56, fldr 110.01 Jan-Dec 1956, box 11, SecDef subject

files 1956, Ace 60A-1379; graph labeled "Tab I" in preceding memo but found in

another file, fldr Memo for Pres, sub: Supplemental Appropriations FY 1957, nd, ATSD

and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

52. Memo on meeting in President's Office, 29 Mar 56, prepared by DoD in response to

request from Pres re 1957-58 Defense budget picture, fldr Budget 1957 (2), Admin ser,

PP(AWF), DDEL.

53. Memo Brundage for Pres, 3 Apr 56, ibid; Itr Eisenhower to House Speaker, 9 Apr 56, wi

atchd Itr DirBoB to Pres, fldr FY 1957 Budget (File II), ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD

Hist; DoD press release No. 315-56, Statement by SecDefon Amendments to 1957

Budget, OSD Hist; memo Robertson for Pres, 3 Apr 56, wlatchd lists, fldr FY 1957

Budget (McNeil File) #1, ATSD and DepSecDef files, ibid; draft memo [DirBoB] for

Pres, 7 Apr 56, fldr FY 1957 Budget (File II), ibid.

54. Leviero, New York Times, 7 Apr 56; New York Times, 10 Apr 56; Wall Street Journal,

10 Apr 56; Goodpaster memo of conf wlPres, 5 Apr 56, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

55. Ltr Quarles to Russell, 13 Apr 56, wi cover Itr same date, fldr FY 1957 Budget (File II),

ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist; Giles, Washington Star, 8 Apr 56; Leviero, New

York Times, 28 Mar 56; Wall Street Journal, 16 Apr 56.

56. HSCA, DoD Additional Hearings, 1957, 18-19 Apr 56, 1-6, 15.

57. Ibid, 154, 164-66.

58. HSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957, 33; HSCA, DoD Additional Hearings, 1957, 13, 154; Fred

Othman, Washington Daily News, 3 May 56.

59. H Rpt No 2104, DoD Approp Bill, 1957,3 May 56,3-4,51-54, table 71.

60. Ibid, 48-50.

61. Ibid, 54-56.

62. Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 6:7802-30, 7942-84. See Chapter XXVIII.

63. Ibid, 7805-16, 7965, 7982-83.

64. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957, 1221-50.

65. Ibid, 1221-28.

66. Ibid, 1232-33, 1250; "LeMay's Cost Estimate Believed Conservative," American

Aviation Daily, 13 Jun 56; Leviero, New York Times, 12 Jun 56; Philip Potter, Baltimore

Sun, 12 Jun 56.

67. S Rpt No 2260, DoD Approp Bill, 1957,18 Jun 56.

68. Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 8:10817, 10588-94; Evans, New York Herald

Tribune, 27 Jun 56; Potter, Baltimore Sun, 20 Jun 56.

69. Wilson Public Statements, 1956, III:751-765, 769; Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102,

pt 8:10814-17, 10880-81; Evans, New York Herald Tribune, 23 Jun 56; Lloyd Norman,

Chicago Daily Tribune, 23 Jun 56.

70. Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 8:10971-74; ibid, 25 Jun 56,9912; White, New

York Times, 23 Jun 56.
Notes to Pages 628-36 751

71. Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 8:10889-91.

72. Ibid, 10879-96; Evans, New York Herald Tribune, 24 Jun 56.

73. Baltimore Sun, 24 Jun 56; New York Post, 24 Jun 56.

74. Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 8:10969-78; ].A. O'Leary, Washington Star,

26 Jun 56.

75. Baltimore Sun, 25 Jun 56; Evans, New York Herald Tribune, 23 Jun 56.

76. H Rpt No 2529, DoD Approp Bill, 1957, Conference Report, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 28 Jun

56; Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 8:11334-35, 11444-54; Baltimore Sun,

29 Jun 56; Bynum Shaw, Baltimore Sun, 30 Jun 56.

77. Higgins, New York Herald Tribune, 29 Jun 56.

78. Cong Rec, 84 Cong, 2 sess, 1956, 102, pt 8:10977; Jim G. Lucas, Washington News,

27 Jun 56. Symington could have recalled, but did not, that in 1949 President Truman

had also "stuck in the drawer" $8QO million for the Air Force that Congress had

appropriated against his wishes.

79. John W. Finney, Washington Post & Times Herald, 29 Jun 56; SCAS, Subcte on AF,

Hearings, Study ofAirpower, 19 Jun 56, 1498,28 Jun 56, 1579, 19 Jul 56, 1850-51.

XXVlll. THE GREAT AIRPOWER DEBATE

1. Thomas O'Neill, Baltimore Sun, 16 Apr 56; "Dark Horse In Spotlight," New York Times,

16 Apr 56; William L. Mullins, Boston Herald, 9 Apr 56; Phil G. Goulding, Cleveland

Plain Dealer, 8 Apr 56; editorial, "The Air Power Inquiry," New York Herald Tribune,

17 Apr 56.

2. ABC-TV "College Press Conference," 15 Apr 56; Washington Post & Times Herald,

16 Apr 56.

3. MFR Wilton B. Persons (DepAsst to Pres), 4 Apr 56, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

4. Memcon Goodpaster w/Pres, 5 Apr 56, ibid. See also Chapter II.

5. SCAS, Subcte on AF, Hearings, Study of Airpower [hereafter cited as Study of

AirpowerJ, pt 1, 1,4-5,35-36; Rowland Evans, Jr., New York Herald Tribune, 20 Apr 56;

SCAS, Rpt of Subcte on AF, Airpower, 25 Jan 57 (hereafter cited as Airpower), 2.

6. Study 'ofAirpower, pt 1, 3-4, and pts 2 through 23 passim; Airpower, 2.

7. Study ofAirpower, pt 1,21 (quote), 46,52-53,61, and passim; Evans, New York Herald

Tribune, 21 Apr 56.

8. Doris Fleeson, Washington Star, 20 Apr 56; Anthony Leviero, New York Times,

22 Apr 56.

9. Drew Middleton, New York Times, 24 Apr 56; Evans, New York Herald Tribune, 24,

26 Apr 56; Philip Potter, Baltimore Sun, 24 Apr 56; Eisenhower Public Papers, 1956,

428, 433-35.

10. Study ofAirpower, pt 2, 101-06; Potter, Baltimore Sun, 1 May 56.

11. Leviero, New York Times, 4 May 56; Study ofAirpower, pt 2, 226.

12. Study ofAirpower, pt 2, 119-215. See Chapter Xlll.

13. Study of Airpower, pt 2, 185-96, 204; Evans, New York Herald Tribune, 27 May 56;

John G. Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 27 May 56.

14. Graph "Tab 1" showing comparative Bison and B-52 production curves, with separate

curves for the 17-per-month and the 20-per-month B-52 schedules, in fldr Memo for

Pres [29 Mar 56], ATSD and DepSecDef files, OSD Hist.

15. Hq SAC, "Review of SAC's Force Requirements for the Senate Investigating Subcommittee on U.S. Air Power," May 56,3-5,45-50, ibid.

16. Memo BrigGen T.C. Musgrave, Jr. (ChSpecStfGp, USAF) for GenCoun(OSD), 12 Jun 56,

w/enc1s, memo AsstGenCoun(OSD) for Fowler Hamilton (SASC), 25 Jun 56: fldr

Symington Cte, ibid.

17. Memcon Goodpaster w/Pres, 13 Mar 56, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL. Here Wilson

said LeMay talked of needing 1,800 B-52s.

18. Wilson Public Statements, 1956, II:51O-24; New York Times, 2 May 56.

19. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1956, 453-54, 463, 465-66. See also News Conf, 9 May 56,

ibid, 475, 477-78; Leviero, New York Times, 5 May 56.
752 Notes to Pages 637-46

20. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957, 3-6; Evans, New York Herald Tribune, 9 May 56.

21. Study ofAirpower, pt 2, 178-80.

22. Memcon Goodpaster w/Pres, 5 Apr 56, DOE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; SSCA, DoD

Hearings, 1957,3,6,33-36; New York Herald Tribune, 8 May 56.

23. Martin S. Hayden, Oregonian, 11 May 56.

24. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957, 159-60; John W Finney, Washington Post & Times Herald,

13 May 56; Leviero, New York Times, 13 May 56; Evans, New York Herald Tribune,

12 May 56.

25. Wilson Public Statements, 1956,11:640,642,647; Leviero, New York Times, 16 May 56.

26. Norris, Washington Post & Times Herald, 19, 21 Mar 56. An official record of the

20 March meeting has not been found.

27. SSCA, DoD Hearings, 1957,86-87, 107.

28. Ibid, 1258-72; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 14 Jun 56; Leviero, New York Times, 12 Jun 56.

29. H Rpt 1884, 85 Cong, 2 sess, "Exhibit XIII-A, Information Services Program 1956-57,"

extract [from the Air Force directive launching the campaign] in House Cte on Govt

Opns, Availability of Information from General Departments and Agencies, 248-51;

Huntington, Common Defense, 381; Evans, Washington Post & Times Herald, 19 May

56; "National Affairs," Time, 4 Jun 56.

30. Air Force (Apr, May 56).

31. "The Army's Month," Army Qun 56). See also "Birds, Bullets and Missiles," Armor

(May-Jun 56).

32. Now Hear This! (Apr 56).

33. John M. Taylor, General Maxwell Taylor: Tbe Sword and the Pen, 209-10; Time, 4 Jun

56, 21.

34. Leviero, New York Times, 19, 20 May 56. Each article was of course date-lined one

day earlier than the day it appeared.

35. Memcon Goodpaster w/Pres, 2 Apr 56, DOE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

36. Evans, New York Herald Tribune, 20 May 56; "Armed Forces," Time, 4 Jun 56; Mark

Watson, Baltimore Sun, 20 May 56.

37. Finney, Washington Post & Times Herald, 21 May 56; Evans, New York Herald Tribune,

20,21 May 56; Watson, Baltimore Sun, 20 May 56.

38. Darrell Garwood, New York Journal-American, 19 May 56; Albert Sehlstedt, Jr.,

Baltimore Sun, 21 May 56; William L. Lawrence, New York Times, 21 May 56.

39. Time, 4 Jun 56, 22. Time's usual colorful (not always reliable) account is the source for

the fact and the physical details of the preliminary meeting in Wilson's office. See

also Evans, New York Herald Tribune, 22 May 56; Wilson Public Statements, 1956,

11:662-65.

40. Time, 4 Jun 56, 22.

41. Wilson Public Statements, 1956,11:666,667-72,677,680,684-87.

42. Ibid, 673-76.

43. Ibid, 677-78.

44. Ibid, 673, 679-680. For contemporary assessments of the 21 May press conference,

see Evans, New York Herald Tribune, 22 May 56; Watson, Baltimore Sun, 22 May 56;

Time, 4 Jun 56, 19-22. Most journalists interpreted the Army colonels' action in

leaking papers to the press as a response to provocative Air Force publicity.

45. Eisenhower Public Papers, 1956,511-16.

46. Memcons Goodpaster w/Pres, 14 May 56 (with Radford) and 18 May 56 (with Wilson

and Randall), DOE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

47. Memcon Goodpaster w/Pres, 24 May 56, ibid.

48. Baltimore Sun, 4 Jun 56; Anthony Lewis, New York Times, 1 Jul 56; L. Edgar Prina,

Washington Star, 17 Jun 56; Evans, New York Herald Tribune, 14 Jun 56; Taylor,

General Maxwell Taylor, 210.

49. Study of Airpower, pt 22, 1675, 1685, 1741-43, 1759, 1767, 1770, 1773, 1786, 1789-

90; Potter, Baltimore Sun, 3, 6 Jul 56. For the "phony" episode, see Chapter XXVII.

The hearings totaled almost 10 hours.

50. Study of Airpower, pt 22, 1614-22, 1676-77 (quotes), 1687-88, 1722-25; Bynum Shaw,

Baltimore Sun, 30 Jun 56.
Notes to Pages 647-62 753

51. Study ofAirpower, pt 22, 1744, 1747-62, 1778-84.

52. Ibid,1797-99.

53. Ibid, 1799-1805, including Wilson's written statement.

54. Elie Abel, New York Times, 25 May 56; Chalmers Roberts, Washington Post & Times

Herald, 25 May 56; Marguerite Higgins, New York Journal-American, 31 May 56;

Watson, Baltimore Sun, 14 Jun 56.

55. US News & World Report, 13 Jul 56 (with full text of press conference at Gettysburg,

5 Jul 56); Edward T. Folliard, Washington Post & Times Herald, 6 Jul 56.

56. Potter, Baltimore Sun, 12 Jul 56; "Excerpts from Twining's Report ...," New York Times,

11 Jul 56.

57. Potter, Baltimore Sun, 11 Jul 56; Study of Airpower, pt 23, 1809-15, 1827; US News &

World Report, 13 Jul 56.

58. Study of Airpower, pt 23, 1807-15, 1822, 1826-32. Twining's statement was submitted

later and included in the published testimony.

59. Ibid, 1851-52, 1861-62.

60. See, for example,Air Force (Sep 56), 15-16.

61. Airpower, 5-6,61-62, 66,109-11.

62. Ibid, 6, 23-40, 112-14, 124-25.

63. Ibid, 7-8, 54-68, 112-13, 118-19.

64. Ibid, 40-54, 117-21.

65. Ibid, 80-94, 122-24.

66. Ibid, 68-71; Study ofAirpower, pt 17,1271-94,1296-1336, esp 1307.

67. Airpower, 105-06. Farther along Saltonstall made the point somewhat differently:

"Our airpower and our naval strength, together with our ground forces, make us

superior to the Soviet Union today" (ibid, 127).

XXIX. STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES

1. Memo Wilson for C]CS, 27 Jan 56, env #71, Wilson Misc files 1953-57,Acc 65A-1768.

2. Huntington, Common Defense, 88-91.

3. The paper is printed in Taylor's Uncertain Trumpet, 30-34, 36-37; memo Brucker for Sec

Def, 15 Mar 56, w/ memo Randall for Harr (ISA), 13 Apr 56, Wilson Misc files 1953-57,

Acc 65A-1768.

4. Memo Radford for SecDef, 12 Mar 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX: 234-38.

5. Ibid.

6. Memcon Goodpaster w/Pres (13 Mar), 14 Mar 56, ibid, 238-41.

7. Ibid; memcon Goodpaster w/Pres (15 Mar), 16 Mar 56, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

8. Memcons Goodpaster w/Pres, 14 Mar 56 and (30 Mar) 2 Apr 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX:

280-83.

9. Memo Pres for SecDef, 20 Mar 56, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL; memcon Goodpaster

w/Pres (30 Mar), 2 Apr 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX: 280-83; mtg in Pres office, 29 Mar 56,

ibid, 276-79. See also Chapter II.

10. Memo Radford for Pres, 17 Apr 56, w/encl, FRUS 1955-57: 290-96.

11. Memcon Goodpaster w/Pres, 18 Apr 56, ibid, 296-98.

12. Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 89-93; Condit, ]CS and National Policy

1955-56,33-40.

13. Watson,jCS and National Policy 1953-54,95-96, 101.

14. Condit, ]CS and National Policy 1955-56, 35-37; Watson, ]CS and National Policy

1953-54, 101-03. Radford's submission of separate views was in accordance with

a recent directive by Wilson authorizing this procedure. See DoD Dir 5158.1,26 Jul 54.

15. Watson, ]CS and National Policy 1953-54, 52-55, 103-05; Condit, ]CS and National

Policy 1955-56,31-32.

16. Memcon Goodpaster w/Pres (30 Mar), 2 Apr 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX: 283-85; Condit,

]CS and National Policy 1955-56,18-19,31-32.

17. Condit,jCS and National Policy 1955-56,32.

18. Ibid, 32-34.
754 Notes to Pages 662-77

19. Memcon Goodpaster w/Pres, 24 May 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX: 301-03.

20. Condit, ]CS and National Policy 1955-56 (ms copy), 50-51. The printed volume has

a briefer version.

21. Condit, ]CS and National Policy 1955-56, 34; memo SecDef for CjCS, 22 May 56,

Sec Wilson's Reading File Jun 55-Oct 57, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1802.

22. Memcon Goodpaster w/Pres, 30 Mar 56, FRUS 1955-57, XIX: 282; memcon Goodpaster

w/Pres, 24 May 56, ibid, 311-15.

23. Memo JCS for SecDef, 20 Jun 56, fldr 381 JSOP 60, JSOP files, Acc 72A-4671; memo

Wilson for CjCS, 20 Jun 56, fldr 1960, Wilson Misc files 1953-57, Acc 63A-1768; Condit,

]CS and National Policy 1955-56, 34-36.

24. Condit, ]CS and National Policy 1955-56, 36; Taylor, Uncertain Trumpet, 39-40. The

author did not locate the "Radford Memo," as Condit and Taylor call it, which is

summarized here.

25. Taylor, Uncertain Trumpet, 40-41; Condit,]CS and National Policy 1955-56,36-37.

Taylor's paper and a long, related paper on JSop-60 are in fldr 381 Feb-Dec 56, box

20, SecDef subject files 1956,Acc 65A-1379.

26. Memo Col R.]. Conran for GenCoun(DoD), 16 Oct 56, fldr 380.01 Alpha 1956, box

20, SecDef subject files 1956, Acc 65A-1379. The staff paper prepared over the

7-8 July meeting was CM [Chairman's Memorandum) 340-56; it showed a total cut

of 775,000. See Taylor, Uncertain Trumpet, 41; Condit, ]CS and National Policy

1955-56,37.

27. New York Times, 13, 14, 15 Jul 56. In a meeting at the White House with the president

and General Persons on 18 July, Radford referred to his paper as a "talking memorandum" and produced a copy, but without actually showing it to the president. See

memcon Goodpaster w/Pres, 18 Jul 56, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.

28. Memo Conran for GenCoun, 16 Oct 56, cited in n 26; New York Times, 15 Jul 56;

Taylor, Uncertain Trumpet, 42; Condit,]CS and National Policy 1955-56,37.

29. New York Times, 14, 15 Jul 56; Wilson Public Statements, 1956, III:972; Taylor,

Uncertain Trumpet, 42.

30. Taylor, Uncertain Trumpet, 42; Condit,]CS and National Policy 1955-56,37.

31. Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States

Air Force, 1907-1960, I, 433-37.

32. Ibid, 436-37, 444; Alfred Goldberg, A Brief Survey of the Evolution of Ideas about

Counterforce, RM-5431-PR, Rand Corp, 1971; HSCA, DoD Approp for 1957,32,116.

33. Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine, I, 445-47.

34. Ibid, 448-50; HSCA, DoD Approp for 1958, 1148-50.

35. Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine, I, 450-52, citing HSCA, DoD Approp for 1958, 916,

1059-70, 1141, and John F. Loosbrock, "What Kind of Forces For What Kind of War,"

Air Force (Nov 56), 43-46.

36. HSeA, DoD Approp for 1957,268.

37. Ridgway, Soldier, 297-99, 318-19. See also testimony of LtGen James Gavin,in Study

ofAirpower, 704-05, 709, 740-41.

38. Taylor, Uncertain Trumpet, 184-97.

39. Ibid, 196.

40. Paul R. Schratz, "Robert Bostwick Carney," in Love, ed, Chiefs of Naval Operations,

245-49.

41. Rosenberg, "Arleigh Albert Burke," ibid, 277-83, 291-92.

XXX. CONCLUSION

1. Memo Eisenhower [unsgd) for SecDef, 21 Dec 55, DDE Diary ser, PP(AWF), DDEL.
Note on Sources

and

Selected Bibliography

The basic materials used in the writing of this book were retired

records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), designated Record

Group (RG) 330 by the National Archives and Records Administration

and housed at the National Archives facility in College Park, Maryland.

In RG 330 the most important records were the secretary of defense's

central files. For January through October 1953 these were maintained

as decimal files by the secretary's executive office. Document folders are

identified by a CD number based on a Dewey decimal and Navy records

system. For November 1953 through December 1954, and on an annual

basis thereafter, the central files are organized by subject. Two collections

of Secretary Wilson's miscellaneous office files contain useful information,

although each comprises only a single records center box.

Of much importance were various records of the assistant secretary

of defense for international security affairs (ISA). Especially rich in

materials relating to OSD's role in the preparation of National Security

Council papers and briefings of the secretary or deputy secretary prior

to NSC meetings were ISA's policy planning staff files. Other useful collections included those of the assistant secretary of defense (comptroller)

and the records of the meetings of the Armed Forces Policy Council. In

addition to RG 330 materials, the author made use of the records of the

Department of State (RG 59) and Joint Chiefs of Staff (RG 218).

Materials maintained in the OSD Historical Office proved indispensable. Foremost among these were files of the assistant secretary of defense

(comptroller) and other comptroller records that subsequently became

part of the files of the assistant to the secretary of defense and the deputy

secretary of defense. These materials provided much of the basis for the

755
756 Bibliography

chapters on the Department of Defense budget and contributed to other

chapters as well. Copies of Department of State and Department of Defense cables, first kept in the secretary of defense office and later turned

over to the historical office, shed light on certain foreign policy issues,

particularly NATO and Europe. Also utilized were the historical office's

extensive subject reference collection of DoD budget tables, organization

charts, press releases, directives, and newspaper and magazine clippings

compiled from a large variety of sources.

At the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, akey collection was the

Ann Whitman File, which contains records of NSC meetings and other

meetings involVing the president, some of which have not been published. The papers of Charles E. Wilson at the Wilson Archive in Anderson,

Indiana, were of limited use.

The most important published documentary collections included the

Department of State series, Foreign Relations of the United States, and

Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower. The author also

drew heavily from volumes V and VI, which cover the years 1953-56, in

the series by the ]CS Historical Division, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and

National Policy, and the division's numerous unpublished studies, including those dealing with Indochina. The OSD Historical Office's compilation of the public statements of the secretary of defense, a series of

bound volumes that brings together a variety of material from press conferences, interviews, speeches, and news accounts, was a principal documentary source. Wilson's Public Statements comprise 14 volumes.

Published congressional hearings and reports offered a wealth of

information on a wide range of Defense affairs and national security

issues during the period. The Committees on Armed Services in both the

House and Senate held authorization hearings for various budgets; the

Committees on Appropriations in both chambers heard testimony on

military assistance and Defense appropriations. Both the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee subsequently published some executive session proceedings in a series of

historical volumes.

Memoir literature for the period is uneven. While Eisenhower's own

memoirs and those of some of his aides proved invaluable, neither Wilson

nor his deputies-Roger Kyes, Robert Anderson, and Reuben Robertsonpublished reminiscences regarding their tenures. There is a similar dearth

of memoirs by other high- and mid-level OSD officials. The scarcity is

partly offset by memoirs of key military officers, including Generals

Ridgway, Taylor, and Twining and Admiral Radford. Oral history interviews helped fill in some gaps.
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Schwartz, Thomas A. "Eisenhower and the Germans." In Eisenhower: A Centenary

Assessment, edited by Gunter Bischof and Stephen E. Ambrose, 206-21. Baton

Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995.

Schwiebert, Ernest G. "The USAF Ballistic Missiles, 1954-64: A Concise History."

In A History of the U.S. Air Force Ballistic Missiles, edited by Ernest G.

Schwiebert, 33-163. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965.

Snyder, Glenn H. "The New Look of 1953." In Strategy, Politics, and Defense

Budgets, edited by Warner R. Schilling, Paul Y. Hammond, and Glenn H.

Snyder, 379-524. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.

Steininger, Rolf. "John Foster Dulles, the European Defense Community, and the

German Question." In John Foster Dulles and the Diplomacy of the Cold

War, edited by Richard H. Immerman, 79-108. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 1990.

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UNPUBLISHED PAPERS AND STUDIES

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of Defense, 1974.

Hickman, D. J. "The United States Army in Europe, 1953·1963." Stuttgart: Headquarters, United States Army, Europe, 1964.

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1942-1978." 1979.
774 Bibliography

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Lemmer, George F. "The Air Force and Strategic Deterrence, 1951-1960."

Washington, DC: USAF Historical Division Liaison Office, 1967.

May, Ernest R., John D. Steinbruner, and Thomas W. Wolfe. "History of the Strategic

Arms Competition, 1945-1972." 2 parts. Washington, DC: Historical Office,

Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1981.

Rosenberg, Max. "Plans and Policies for the Ballistic Missile Initial Operational

Capability Program." USAF Historical Division, February 1960.

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and the 'New Look' in NATO, 1952-1954." Paper presented at a Conference

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December 1987.
Index

Acheson, Dean G., 553

Adak, 294, 298

Adams, Sherman, 14,327

Adenauer, Chancellor Konrad, 196, 553,

566,567,580,581,582,583,603,666

Adler, Maj. Gen. Julius 0., 401, 403, 404,

406,407,408

Adler Commission. See National Security

Training Commission

Africa, 676; military assistance for,

492-93

"agonizing reappraisal," 571, 572

Air Defense Command (ADC), 115

Air Force ICBM Scientific Advisory

Committee, 433-34

Air Force Strategic Missiles Evaluation Committee (Tea Pot Committee),

431-34

Air Force, U.S.: and airpower debate,

631, 634-48, 651; and basic national

security policy, 461, 465-66; and

bomber gap, 381-82, 384, 387-92,

396-98; and budget review, 54; and

continental defense, 114, 122, 280,

293-94; and European defense, 563,

566, 595, 598; and FY 54 budget, 82-

84, 90-110, 113; and FY 55 budget,

233, 236, 239, 241, 251-52; and FY

56 budget, 317-18, 360-62, 366, 372,

376-78; and FY 57 budget, 473, 476-

84,486-87,606-09,614,616-22,624-

30; and Indochina, 525; and military

assistance, 504; and New Look, 39,

242-44, 664-68, 670-72, 678; and

surprise attack, 429-34, 436, 438-47,

660; and universal military service,

401-02,405,408,419

Air National Guard, 103, 110, 137, 372,

637

Air Reserve, 103, 110,372,637

airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft,

115, 136,279,280,294

Alaska, 115, 122, 136, 279-80, 296, 298,

373, 434

Albania, 195

Aleutians, 298, 621

Alexander, Charles c., 13

Algeria, 462

Allen, Robert S., 173

Allied Powers, Europe, Supreme Headquarters (SHAPE), 202

Alsop, Joseph, 120, 125, 129, 222, 397,

398,516,608

Alsop, Stewart, 120, 129,222,516,608

Ambrose, Stephen, 13

American Military Assistance Staff

(AMAS), 593, 595-96

Amory, Robert, 429, 430

Anderson, Sen. Clinton P., 435

Anderson, Dillon, 78, 79, 297, 298, 453

Anderson, Robert B., 265; and defense

of the New Look, 223-24; as deputy

secretary of defense, 62; and German

rearmament, 579; and FY 55 budget,

75-76; and FY 56 budget, 327, 373;

and FY 56 personnel and force levels,

775
776 Index

263, 264; and JCS proposals for NSC

5524, 453; and military assistance,

500, 504; and moving troops from

Trieste, 585, 586, 587; and NATO

nuclear capabilities, 601; as secretary

of the Navy, 7; and surface-to-surface

missiles, 438

Anderson, Wendell, 593

Appley, Lawrence A., 403n, 404

Appley Committee. See Special Committee on Manpower Resources for

National Security

Arctic, 120,617

Arends, Rep. Leslie D., 34

Armed Forces Policy Council (AFPC),

294,321,337,446,466,468,598

Armed Forces Reserve Act of 1952 (PL

82-476), 400

Army, U.S.: and airpower debate, 634, 636,

638-45, 651-52; and basic national

security policy, 345, 358, 454-55, 461,

464-66, 468; and continental defense,

115, 122, 280; and European defense,

563, 566, 592, 595, 598, 602; and

FY 54 budget, 82, 112-13; and FY 55

budget, 236-39, 241, 245-49; and

FY 56 budget, 259-62, 264, 318-19,

327-33, 360-72, 375-76, 378; and

FY 57 budget, 473, 476-83, 486-87,

606-07,609,611-15,619,624,627,629;

and Indochina, 525, 533-34; and

manpower cuts, 168-83, 182,234; and

New Look, 39, 655,657, 661-62,664-

65, 668-72, 675; and surprise attack,

429-30, 434, 438-44; and universal

military service, 401, 405-07, 409, 418-

20, 422

Arnold, Lt. Gen.William H., 585, 587, 590

Atlas, 318, 373, 395, 431, 432, 433, 434,

438

atomic cannon, 479

Atomic Energy Act of 1946. See McMahon

Act

Atomic Energy Act of 1954,577

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 115,

287,446,564

Australia, 188, 536

Austria, 220, 578, 584-88; treaty with,

450,578,588-91,604

Azerbaijan province (Iran), 462

Azores, 122,279,294,298,300

B-29, 115

B-36, 385, 387, 388, 389, 394, 439,617,

626,634

B-47, 244, 288, 372, 385, 387, 394, 395,

617,634,635

B-52, 41, 244, 372, 377, 378, 384, 385,

394,395,486,617,630,634,635,636,

646, 649; accelerated production of,

388-89,427,434,475,481,606-07,620,

621,622,623,637,647

Badger, 380-81, 384, 428, 617

Baffin Island, 122

Baghdad Pact, 514

Baldwin, Hanson, 177,220,221,364,379,

380,386,387,611-12

Balkan Pact, 591-92, 594, 597

Ballistic Missiles Committee, Office of the

Secretary of Defense (BMC), 443-44

Bandung Conference, 450

Bao Dai, 518, 519, 521, 522, 545

Baxter, James P., 423n

Bear, 380-81, 384, 393, 428, 446, 617,

634

Belgium, 552, 573

Bendetsen, Karl R., 582

Benelux nations, 579

Berlin, 188. See also East Berlin

Bermuda conference (summit), 179,203,

532, 565, 569

Bidault, Georges, 521, 527, 529, 537, 538,

539, 569, 572

Bikini atomic tests, 289, 391, 642

Bison, 380-81, 383-84, 393, 394, 427, 428,

446,617,621,634,646,649

Black, James B., 78

Bohlen, Ambassador Charles E., 3-4,

346-47, 451

Bomarc, 137,280,373,651

"bomber gap," 379-98, 434, 646, 652,

678

Bonesteel, Brig. Gen. Charles H., 269, 270,

271, 274, 284, 335-36, 350, 464, 466

Bowie, Robert R., 226n

Bradley, General Omar N., 9, 22, 29, 36,

70,78,96,146,553,565,633
Bridges, Sen. H. Styles, 281, 627, 628, 629

British Columbia, 122

British Commonwealth, 537

British Guiana, 464

Brodie, Bernard, 290n

Brooks, Rep. Overton, 412, 413, 414, 416,

420-21

Brownell, Herbert, 6,44,67,345

Brucker, Wilber M., 7, 437-38, 442, 454,

455,613,638-39,655

Brundage, Percival E, 632

budget: balancing as a priority, 47, 67-

70,74-75,77-78,80,88,143-45,147,

159-61, 164, 166, 185-86, 257-58,

310-11, 319-20, 336, 472, 474, 485,

493-94, 559, 657, 679; FY 1951, 53;

FY 1952, 53, 489, 679; FY 1953, 489,

679; FY 1954, 47, 52, 53, 65-113,

140-43, 144, 145, 490-93, 495, 679;

FY 1955, 53,67, 130, 135, 137, 142-48,

154-57,160-67,231-55,258,264,360,

491, 493, 494-96,611,679; FY 1956,

54,57,256-76,310-11,316-32,334,

359-78,448,471,472,473,474,475,

481, 487, 499-504, 508, 513, 679;

FY 1957, 52, 57, 259-60, 310-11, 320,

447,448,471-88,504-08,509,511-13,

605-30; FY 1958, 447, 654; FY 1959,

654; management in DoD, 7, 45-64, 77

Budget, Bureau of the (BoB), 67-71, 74-

78,141-45,233,310,312-14,316,319,

331-32,472-73,475,477-83,486-88,

494,496,507-08

Bulganin, Nikolai A., 451, 633

Bull, Lt. Gen. Harold R., 121, 122-23,

124,131

Bundy, William P., 462

Burgess, Carter L., 60-61, 326, 408, 409,

410,418,419,422

Burke, Admiral Arleigh A., 440, 441,

609-10,637-38,641,643,662,670-71

Burma, 518, 523

Burns, Arthur, 327

Bush, Vannevar, 22

Byrd, Sen. Harry E, 281

Index 777

Cambodia, 506, 518, 521, 541

Canada, 106,266,386,564; and continental defense, 115-16, 118-19, 122, 127,

130, 133, 136, 138, 279-80, 284, 287,

293, 303

"Candor," Operation, 127, 564

Cannon, Rep. Clarence A., 375, 376

Carney, Admiral Robert B., 159, 440;

and assessment of NATO strategy, 560;

and balanced force structure, 208;

and criticism of reserve plan, 406;

and massive retaliation and troop

withdrawals, 189, 190-91, 192, 193, 199,

201, 202; and Matsu-Quemoy issue,

373-74,376,450; and New Look impact

on the Navy, 244-45; and opposition

to force cutbacks, 670; and role of

airpower in modern war, 633; and

strength and force goals, 262, 365, 373

Casberg, Dr. Melvin A., 8

Castle (Bikini) tests, 281, 391

Central America, 219, 676

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 339,

429,435,452,461-62

Chavez, Sen. Dennis, 377

chemical warfare, 468

China (Communist), 218, 227, 340, 346,

373,434,459,462,518,661,676;and

Indochina, U.S. fear of intervention

in, 48, 203, 217, 223, 225, 463, 468,

518-19,520n, 532, 534,536, 538,540-

42; and Korea, 2-4, 178-79, 203; and

Nationalist China, 261, 338, 341, 345,

450; and Soviet Union, 195, 347, 351,

451-52,457

China (Nationalist), 9, 359, 493. See also

Formosa

Chou En-lai, 450

Churchill, Prime Minister Winston S.: and

Bermuda meeting, 179, 203, 204, 532,

565; and British chiefs of staff study,

147n; and Dien Bien Phu, 538; and

France and EDC, 574, 575; and NATO

buildup, 557; and sharing nuclear

information, 565; and talks with

Eisenhower, 575; and U.S. nuclear

weapons in Britain, 196
778 Index

civil defense, 289-90, 296, 297, 303-04,

306,415,678

Clark, General Mark, 1-2,3

Clay, Lucius, 44

Cohn, Roy, 15

Cole, Rep. W Sterling, 565

Collins, General J. Lawton, 4, 28, 146, 544,

545, 546, 548, 595

comptroller, assistant secretary of defense, 7, 267

Conant, James B., 582, 583

Conolly, Vice Adm. Richard L., 148, 149

containment, 148-51, 185, 189

Continental Air Defense Command

(CONAD), 287, 361, 395, 424

continental defense, 114-39, 277-306,

325-26,424,427-28,445-47,678

Continental Defense Committee, 121-25

Continental Defense Panel (Wedemeyer

Committee), 290-91

Coolidge, Charles A., 28

Cooper, Charles c., 61, 62, 63

Corporal, 439, 479, 587

"counterforce" strategy, 667

Cutler, Robert: and administration plan

for continental defense, 280, 281,

287, 292; and basic national security

policy, 334, 340, 343, 344, 353; and

debate on continental defense (NSC

159), 127, 128, 129, 132, 133-35,

138; and France and EDC, 75; and

massive retaliation, 190, 191, 192; and

mobilization base, 314; and NSC 5422,

275-76, 308, 310; and Operation

Solarium, 148; and redeployment of

u.S. troops, 198; and revising Truman

defense budget, 72, 80; and strength

and force levels, 327

Czechoslovakia, 150,342

Dardanelles, 347

Davis, Vice Adm. Arthur c., 454, 542,

592,602

Dean, Gordon, 290n

Decker, Lt. Gen. George H., 370

Defense Science Board, 35

De Hoffman, Frederic, 290n

De Lattre de Tassigny, Jean, 520, 521

Dien Bien Phu, 48, 229, 253, 258, 261, 345,

355,404, 522,532-40, 547,550,610n

Dillon, Douglas, 527, 528, 529, 537, 539,

547

disarmament, 272, 339, 450-52, 455, 456,

457,458,678

distant early warning (DEW) line, 116,

119,122,280,284,287,293,294,298,

445,446,475,621,651

Dixon, Robert, 465

Dodge, Joseph M., 56, 257; and early

analysis of Eisenhower budget projection, 554; and foreign aid, 490, 491;

and high rate of defense spending, 47;

and JCS chairman's powers, 34; and

preparing FY 55 budget, 140, 141-42,

143,144,145,148,153,154,155,157,

160,161,164,165,170,171,172-73,

174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 181; and

reducing the FY 54 national security

budget, 73, 74, 75,81,82,85,87,103;

and review and coordination of foreign economic policy, 348; selection

as budget director, 6; and Truman's

projected budget, 66-67, 68, 69, 490

Doolittle, James H., 423n

Douglas,James H., 83, 99,100,102,104,

105,619

Douglas, Sen. Paul H., 254

Draper, William H., 555, 559, 561

DuBridge, Lee A., 138, 423n

Duff, Sen. James H., 632

Dulles, Allen, 123, 126, 132, 148, 150,

277; and Moscow flybys (1955), 380;

and Soviet nuclear stockpile, 300,

301, 302; and Soviet science and

technology capabilities, 389-90

Dulles, Secretary of State John F., 69,

70, 125; and aggressive action against

Soviet bloc, 195; appointment as

secretary of state, 6; and atomic

weapons in Korea, 2, 3, 4,152-53,163,

197, 203; and characterization of

Wilson, 14; and costs of continental

defense, 283; and EDC, 553, 554, 556,

558,567,568,569,570-71,572,574,

575, 577; and foreign assistance, 491,
495, 502, 507, 508, 509, 512, 514, 515,

516; and French crisis in Indochina,

521, 523, 524, 527, 529, 533, 534,

535-36, 537, 538, 539, 543, 544, 545,

546, 550; and FY 54 budget, 79; and

FY 55 budget, 164, 170-71, 172, 185,

572; and FY 56 budget, 327, 329;

and Geneva Conference (1954), 540,

541,542; and going to the brink of war,

610n; and military assistance to

Yugoslavia, 592, 595, 597, 598-99;

and NATO and defense of Western

Europe, 553, 554, 555-56, 558, 559,

560,561,563,567,568,569,570-71,

573, 574, 575, 577; and NATO nuclear

capability, 600-01; and New Look

emphasis on offensive retaliatory

forces, 190, 191-92, 198; and New

Look and massive retaliation, 15,

216-20, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225,

226-27, 228-29, 243, 258, 308; and

NSC 5501, 449; and NSC 5524/1, 453;

opposition to indirect aggression,

309; as primary architect of U.S.

European security policy, 603-04;

and relocating U.S. troops from

Trieste, 584, 585, 586, 587; and removing U.S. troops from Austria, 589-90;

and sharing nuclear information with

European allies, 564; and softer line

on combating communism, 338-39,

340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 346, 348,

351,352; and Soviet position at 1955

Geneva Conference, 457-58, 459-60;

and unpreparedness of NATO forces,

602-03; and U.S. assistance to South

Vietnam forces, 547, 548, 549; and

using nuclear weapons from overseas bases, 162, 201, 202, 204; and

using nuclear weapons in small and

general wars, 467, 468; and views on

Tito's Yugoslav policy, 578-79; and

West German entry into NATO, 579,

582-83; and withdrawing troops

from Korea, 171, 178-79; and withdraWing U.S. troops overseas, 157-58,

159, 199-200

Index 779

East Berlin, 150

East Germany (German Democratic

Republic), 451, 604

Eddleman, General Clyde D., 4, 584

Eden, Anthony, 162, 198, 199, 538, 539,

574,579,600

Edwards, Lt. Gen.ldwal H., 117, 120, 121

Egypt, 338,459,605

Eisenhower, President Dwight D., 1, 5,

7,20,213,369,490,652; and advancing technology, 357; and airpower

debate (1956), 632, 633, 636, 637,

638,639,641,642,643,646,647,648,

653; and armistice in Korea, 2, 145,

178; and balancing the budget, 160,

161; and bomber gap (1955), 382, 387;

and congressional declaration of war

before use of nuclear weapons, 224,

225-26; and continental defense, 118,

120-21,123,127,128,129,130,132-

33, 135, 137, 138, 139, 267, 276,

277, 283, 284-87, 298, 302, 304,

306, 311, 325, 328, 357, 358, 359;

and defense of Southern and Central

Europe, 578, 584, 585, 586~87, 589,

590,591,592,593,597; and defense of

Western Europe, 551, 553, 554, 555,

558, 560, 561, 568, 569, 570, 572,

573, 574, 575, 577, 603, 673; and

development of lRBMs and ICBMs,

435, 436, 437, 444-45, 677; and

development of missiles, 16-17; and

European Defense Community, 200;

and evaluations of Wilson, 13-16; and

explanations of the New Look, 227-

28,673; and force levels, 162-63, 164,

165, 198,214,261,327-28,331,332,

345, 347-48, 357, 363, 366, 368, 371,

410~11,414-15,416,417,418,421-22,

484; and foreign economic policy,

348; and Formosa crisis, 355, 359, 365,

371,450; and FY 54 budget, 65, 66,

67-68, 72, 78, 79, 80, 85, 88, 89, 105,

111,113; and FY 55 budget, 142-43,

144-45, 146, 147, 154, 157, 167, 170-

71,172,173,174,175-76,180,181,185,

214-15, 216, 220, 231-32, 233, 234,
780 Index

251, 253, 258, 262, 610; and FY 56

budget, 258, 262, 263, 311, 319-20, 321,

325, 326, 327-28, 329, 330, 332, 334,

359, 360-62, 363, 366, 368, 371, 372,

374,375,378,387; and FY 57 budget,

471,472,473,474,475,476,477,482,

484,486,605-06,608,611,617,618,

620, 621, 622, 627, 628, 629-30;

and general views on the defense

budget, 47, 64, 69-70, 166, 171,679;

and Geneva Conference (1955), 451,

453, 458; and his cabinet, 6; and

Indochina conflict, 229, 355, 521-22,

523, 524, 532, 533, 534, 536, 537,

538,539,541,544,545,550; andJCS

attitudes on the New Look, 38, 39, 40-

41; and JCS strategic posture review

(1953), 146-47, 151, 158; and Killian

report, 396-97, 677; and massive

retaliation, 218, 227,674; and meetings with Churchill, 275, 574; and

military assistance, 489, 490, 491, 492,

495,596,499-501,502,503,504,506,

507,508-09,510,511,513,515,516;

and military manpower, 168, 169-70,

171,174-75,177,178,181,182,183,

234, 311, 679; and military strategy

and war plans, 654, 655, 656-57, 658,

659, 660, 661, 663-64, 666, 672; and

mobilization policy, 314-15, 324, 328;

and national security policy and

NSC 5501, 338, 342-43, 344, 345,

346-47, 348, 351, 352, 353, 356-58,

449; and NATO, 551, 555, 560, 561,

573, 575, 592, 600; and New Look

and NSC 162/2, 184, 190, 191, 192-93,

195-96, 199; and NSC 153/1, 150-51;

and NSC 5602,467-68,469; and "open

skies" proposal, 451-52, 455; and

Operation Solarium, 148, 149; and

possible involvement in Asian land

war, 223; and possible use of nuclear

weapons in Korea, 4,152-53,163,197;

and potential uses of nuclear weapons, 3, 195-96, 201, 202, 203-04,

221, 308, 309, 467-68, 661, 673; and

Radford appointment as JCS chairman, 36-37; and reactions to 1953-54

recession, 256-57; and redeploying

U.S. overseas forces, 159, 162, 164,

179,182,199,200,260,261,560,561,

570, 573, 577; and removal of U.S.

troops from Korea, 162, 179, 182,

201, 260, 261; and Reorganization

Plan No.6, 33, 34, 36, 41-43; and

reserve forces, 320, 328, 329, 330,

361, 400, 401, 403, 406-07, 410; and

retiring Joint Chiefs, 8-9; and

Rockefeller Committee, 22, 25, 33,

489; and role of the Army, 675; and

SAC, 446; and SEATO, 541; and second

Hoover Commission, 58-59; and

Selective Service, 361; and service roles

and missions, 644-45; and sharing

nuclear weapons information, 564,

565, 566, 576, 577; and Soviet development of hydrogen bomb, 125, 126,

156, 158, 161; and Soviet missile

threat, 268; and tax proposals (1953),

141,256-57; and thoughts on defense

reorganization (1956), 644-45, 653;

and views on armed forces unification, 21; and views on JCS service

loyalty, 29, 36, 37-38; and views on

role of military adviser, 212; and visit

to Korea, 2, 9; and Wilson appointment, 5-6, 44-45, 676; and Wilson's

confirmation, 12; and Wilson's views

on military power, 17-18

Eisenhower, Milton S., 21,22

Elliott, William Y., 284, 288, 300-01,

305,436

Ely, General Paul, 535, 536, 542-43,

544, 547

Eniwetok, 125

Europe, Supreme Allied Commander

(SACEUR),221, 509, 584,603

Europe, U.S. Commander in Chief

(USCINCEUR), 509

European Defense Community (EDC),

200, 493, 532, 551-54, 556, 558-59,

566-79,583-84

Everest, Lt. Gen. Frank F., 206

Everest Committee, 206-10

Ewald, William, 16
F-86D,395

F-89, 280, 395

F-94, 395

F-100, 382, 385, 395, 427

F-101, 377, 395, 396,618,651

F-102, 280, 288,475,617,651

F-104, 377, 395, 396, 475,618,651

Falcon, 280, 373

Farmer, 381, 618

Faroes,294

Farrell, Maj. Gen. Thomas F., 297

Faure, Edgar, 545-46

Fechteler, Admiral William M., 8, 106,

146, 592

Federal Civil Defense Administration

(FCDA), 121, 130,284-85,304,306

Felt, Rear Adm. Harry D., 423n

Ferguson, Sen. Homer, 97, 105, 108, 112,

113, 249, 254

Field Service Regulations-Operations,

332

financial management, 59, 61-63, 239-40.

See also budg~t

Finland, 451

Fisk, James, 423n

Flashlight, 381, 387

Fleet Ballistic Missile Program, 440

Flemming, Arthur S., 298, 300, 302;

appointment to Rockefeller Committee,

21-22; and continental defense, 301,

303; and military reserves, 403, 406;

and mobilization, 315, 469; opinion

on early warning system, 138; reaction to Killian report, 292; and softline approach to Soviet Union, 340, 341

"flexible response," 655, 668-70

Floete, Franklin G., 8

Flood, Rep. Daniel J., 368, 369, 375

Ford, Rep. Gerald R., 370, 375-76

foreign aid, 79, 164,310,348, 352, 489~

96,501-08,511-16,554,558-59. See

also military assistance

Foreign Operations Administration

(FOA),55-56,312,361,490,494,497,

501, 528

Formosa, 9, 188,266,338,341,347,355-

56, 359, 364-66, 369-71, 518, 521;

military assistance to, 500-01, 505,

506, 507, 513, 515

Index 781

Formosa Resolution, 364-65

Formosa Strait, 359, 363, 371, 373, 376,

379, 500-01, 610n

Forrestal, James V, 45, 46

Forrestal-class carrier, 50, 245, 361, 488,

606,637

Forsythe, Col. George, 640

France, 106, 187, 356, 493, 552-54,

556, 559, 567-68, 570, 572-74, 577,

579,581;. in Indochina, 162,225,253,

491-92, 496, 517-21, 526-29, 531,

534, 536-38, 540, 542-43, 545-47,

553, 556, 559

French Expeditionary Corps (FEC),

520-21,523,526,528,532,543-45,547

Furnas, Clifford c., 304

Gardner, Trevor, 391, 396, 431-32, 433,

435,616-17,619-20,625

Garlock, Lyle S., 123, 144,267,274

Gates, Thomas S., Jr., 307, 470

Gavin, Lt. Gen. James M., 14

Geelhoed, Bruce, 10, 14

General Accounting Office (GAO), 496,

498

Geneva Conference (on Southeast Asia),

253, 258, 261, 404, 463, 539, 540-

41,547

Geneva summit conference (1955),451-

53,454,457,458

George, Sen. Walter E, 558

Gerhart, Maj. Gen. John K., 270, 284

Germany, 152, 162, 456, 521, 556, 570,

604. See also West Germany

Giap, Vo Nguyen, 520, 523, 531, 533,

535, 538

Godfrey, Arthur, 18

Gomulka, Wladyslaw, 599

Goodpaster, Andrew]., 38,484,657

Gore, Sen. Albert A., 254

Gray, Gordon, 298, 504, 505, 508, 509,

510, 515, 596, 598

Great Britain, 106, 162, 202, 225, 266,

278,356,493,534,536,538,559,565,

572-75,579,581,583,592

Greece, 40, 218, 489, 506,551,591-92

Green, Paul, 61, 62

Greenland, 116, 136,280,294
782 Index

Gruenther, General Alfred M., 561,601,

603; and disclosure of nuclear information to allies, 56; and maintaining

U.S. forces in Europe, 573; and massive retaliation, 221; and military aid

to Yugoslavia, 593; and military

assistance to NATO, 509, 510, 511;

and NATO nuclear capability needs,

599-600; and redeployment of U.S.

troops from Austria, 591

Guatemala, 40, 338, 464

Hagerty, James c., 15,356,630

Hainan, 195, 341

Hains, Maj. Gen. Peter, 593, 594, 595, 596

Hannah,John A., 107, 168, 169, 173, 174,

181,235,320,321,404

Harlow, Bryce, 33

Harriman, W Averell, 144

Havens, William W, 290n

Hawaii, 122,279,287

Haworth, Leland]., 423n

Heath, Donald H., 543, 544

Hensel, H. Struve, 22, 270, 274, 499, 500,

504, 579, 593-94, 596

Heusinger, Lt. Gen. Adolf, 666

Hill, Sen. J. Lister, 103

Ho Chi Minh, 517, 518, 519, 520n

Hoffman, Rep. Clare E., 34

Hollister, John, 505-06, 508

Holloway, Brig. Gen. Bruce K., 423n

Holloway, Marshall G., 423

Holman, Eugene, 79

Honest John, 479, 510,587

Hook, Charles R., 59

Hoover, Herbert c., 35, 220, 589

Hoover Commission, 35-36, 58-64, 390

House Appropriations Committee, 52-

55, 57-58, 71-74, 91-111, 137, 231,

251,368-69,374,496-99,503,612-13,

615,625

House Armed Services Committee, 366,

411-13,415-17,422,642

House Foreign Affairs Committee, 501-

02,511

House Government Operations Committee,34

Hruska, Rep. Roman 1., 109

Hughes, Emmet John, 14, 16

Hughes, John c., 561

Hughes, Rowland, 406; and FY 56 budget, 257, 258, 263, 274, 310-11, 315,

316, 319-20, 321, 325, 326, 327; and

FY 57 budget, 471, 472, 473, 474,

482, 486; and military assistance, 499,

506,622

Hull, General John E., 171, 178,200

Humphrey, George M., 6, 12, 345, 351-

52, 406, 467, 468-69, 491, 492, 554,

570, 602, 632, 679; and continental

defense, 128-29, 138, 154, 179, 185,

201, 302, 304, 306, 327; and FY 54

budget, 67, 68, 70, 72, 74, 78; and

FY 55 budget, 143-44, 148, 152, 156,

157,160,161,164,165,170-71,172,

173, 176, 177, 181; and FY 56 budget, 258, 308-09, 310, 315; and FY

57 budget, 471-72, 474, 622; and

withdrawal of troops, 179, 190, 191,

200, 201

Humphrey, Sen. Hubert H., 254

Hungary, 48, 590, 599

Iceland, 294, 640

India, 351-52, 502, 523, 538

Indochina, 188, 210, 218, 224,247, 266,

269, 340-42, 352, 364, 572. See also

France, in Indochina; Indochina war

Indochina war, 17, 47-48, 222-23, 229,

253,258,260-61,345,517-50

Indonesia, 351

Intelligence Advisory Committee (lAC),

298

intercontinental ballistic missiles

(ICBMs), 16-17, 283, 293, 295, 296,

304-05, 373, 378, 393, 395, 397-98,

431-37, 447, 475, 478-79, 488, 617,

618,635,677-78

intermediate-range ballistic missiles

(IRBMs), 16-17,397,433-34,435,437-

45,479,488,608,609,617,620,642,

677-78

International Cooperation Administration

(lCA), 501, 506, 511
international security affairs (ISA),

assistant secretary of defense for,

267,335,449,452,454,569-70,582,

587,592,596,602

Iran, 218-19, 338, 462, 493, 505-07,

513, 515

Iraq, 462, 505

Italy, 106, 187, 552, 573, 578-79, 583-85,

590-92,602

Jackson, c. D., 148, 159

Jackson, Sen. Henry M., 313, 314, 628;

and airpower debate, 631, 632, 633,

642, 646, 649; and "bomber gap,"

389, 392, 393, 394; and Soviet missile

threat, 435, 608, 616, 617,620

Japan, 187-88,206,210,248,339,351,

434,493,500,502,506,562

Johnson, Louis A., 263n

Johnson, Lyndon B., 382, 383, 414,628

Johnson, u. Alexis, 4

Joint Advanced Study Committee,JCS, 268

Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), 8-9, 18, 22-

25; and airpower debate, 637, 642-45;

and basic national security policy,

185, 195-202, 272-73, 275, 307, 334-

37, 339, 351-53, 449, 452-53, 461,

466-70; and bomber gap, 397; and

budgets, 49; and continental defense,

118, 122-29, 135-36, 278, 283-84,

291-92, 297; and European defense,

552-53, 559-60, 563, 568, 574, 576-

77, 579-82, 584-86, 588-90, 592-93,

595-96, 600, 603; and FY 54 budget,

99, 105; and FY 55 budget, 144-45,

147, 249-50; and FY 56 budget, 266-

67, 307-15, 320-24, 327, 329-30,

361,368,372; and FY 57 budget, 474-

77,610-11,616; and Indochina, 48,

523, 525, 527n, 528-29, 535-36, 540,

543-44, 546-48, 550; and military

assistance, 491, 500, 504-05, 507-10,

515; and New Look, 151-59, 165-67,

185, 209-14, 653-66, 671, 678; and

reorganization, 29-30, 35-38,41-42;

and surprise attack, 426-28, 434, 436-

38, 440-42, 444-45; and universal

military service, 402, 404, 406-07

Index 783

Joint Committee on Atomic Energy

OCAE), 125, 130, 290, 394, 435,

564-65

Joint Mid-Range War Plan OMRWP),

321,324,659,660

Joint Secretaries, 263

Joint Secretaries Group, 263n

Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCP),

659,660-61,662,671

Joint Strategic Operations Plan (JSOP),

312,659,661,662,664,665,672

Joint Strategic Plans Committee (JSPC),

327,404,476

Joint Strategic Survey Committee, 344

Jupiter, 444, 671

Kai-shek, President Chiang, 2, 9, 359,

518

KC-135, 626, 630, 634, 635

Kefauver, Sen. C. Estes, 642

Kelly, Mervin J., 117, 119-120, 121, 123

Kennan, George S., 148-49

Kennedy, John F., 254, 371n, 541

Kent, Roger, 26, 29

Key West Agreement, 28, 29, 637-38

Khrushchev, Nikita S., 451, 458, 594,

599,633

Killian, James R., 287, 292, 294, 299,

301, 306, 396-97, 426

Killian panel. See Technological Capabilities Panel

Kim 11 Sung, General, 3

Kinnard, Douglas, 13

Kistiakowsky, George B., 13-14

Knowland, Sen. William F., 103, 105,346

Knudsen, William S., 6, 10

Korea, 168,247,269,340,352,519,534,

556, 640,662; and budget, 71, 75-76,

79-80, 141-42, 145, 233-34, 236, 259-

61, 328, 330; military assistance to,

500-01, 504-07, 513, 515; and u.S.

policy toward Communist aggression, 196-97, 217, 219, 221, 224,229,

269, 468, 519. See also Korean War

Korean War, 53, 66, 141, 161, 181,

313, 387, 521; and use of atomic

weapons, 1-4, 152-53, 163, 203, 527;

veterans and the double jeopardy
784 Index

issue, 399-401, 411, 413; and withdrawal of forces, 171, 178-79, 182,

193, 200-01, 210

Kyes, Roger M., 7,34,77,93,94,97,132,

133, 134, 138, 154, 172, 199, 223, 433,

521, 561, 565, 573

Labrador, 122

Land, Edwin H., 423n

Laniel, Joseph, 527-28, 532, 536, 538,

539, 540, 569, 572, 573

Lansdale, Col. Edward G., 548

Laos, 462, 506, 518, 521-24, 532-33, 541

Latin America, 308, 351, 492, 676

Leghorn (Livorno), Italy, 584-87

Lehman, Sen. Herbert H., 254

LeMay, General Curtis E., 107,433,512,

625-26,627,628,633,634,635-36,637,

649,662,667

Lemnitzer, General Lyman 1., 423n

Lenin, Vladimir I., 216

Letourneau, Jean, 522, 523,524, 525

Leviero, Anthony, 641, 644, 665, 666

Lewis, Roger, 383, 385

Libya, 640

Lincoln Laboratory, 116, 119, 121

Lindbergh, Charles A., 290n

Lindsay, Maj. Gen. Richard c., 303

Lippmann, Walter, 228

LOFAR (low-frequency acquisition and

ranging) stations, 115, 119, 123, 136,

280, 282, 287, 296

logistics and supply management, 8,

59,60

Long, Sen. Russell G., 378

Lovett, Robert A., 6,18,21,22-23,25,26,

28,29,32,36,62,63, 116-17,263n

Luxembourg, 552, 573

MacArthur, Douglas, III, 528

Mahon, Rep. George H., 53, 71, 93, 94,

97,99, 100, 109, 111, 112, 368; and

FY 56 budget, 375; and FY 57 budget, 612,614,615,616,619, 620, 623,

624,625

Maier, Charles S., 13

Malaya, 218, 352, 519, 521, 534

Malenkov, Georgi M., 125,371,450

Manchuria, 2, 4

Mancinelli, General Giuseppe, 602

Manila conference, 541

manpower, 71, 75-76, 82,155-56,166-

67, 168-83, 206-09, 234, 236-39,

246,260-62,327-28,331-32,357,360,

475-77, 483-84, 665, 679; Air Force,

82-84, 156, 168, 172, 173, 175, 180,

206-08, 237-39, 251-52, 260, 262,

327-28,331,476, 483-84, 626;Arm~

76,156, 169, 171, 172, 173-75, 180, 181-

83, 206-09, 211-14, 237-38, 246-48,

260-62, 327-28, 331-32, 363, 366-

72, 375-76, 476, 483, 611, 612, 614;

civilian, 73,167,239-40; Marines, 156,

168, 172, 173, 175, 180, 182, 183,

206-08, 237, 260, 262, 327-28, 331-

32,374,378,475-76,484; Navy, 156,

168, 169, 172, 173, 175, 180, 183,

206-09, 237, 260, 262, 327-28, 331-

32,476,484. See also personnel management; reserves

Mansfield, Sen. Michael J. (Mike), 254,

502, 558

Mao Tse-tung, 347, 518

Marine Corps, U.S., 39; and airpower

debate, 636; and FY 55 budget, 233;

and FY 56 budget, 318, 360-61, 364,

366, 374, 378; and FY 57 budget,

475-76, 484, 486-87, 609-10; and

manpower cuts, 182-83,237, 327-28,

332; and New Look, 657, 662, 664,

672; and universal military service,

401,408,418,420

Marshall, General George c., 18,22,95

Marshall Plan, 489, 516

Martin, Rep. Joseph w., 414

"massive retaliation," 40, 216-30, 350,

354,611,655,661-64,668-71

Matador, 372, 510, 566,642

Mathews, Elbert G., 464

Matsu, 373, 376, 500

Maybank, Sen. Burnet R., 249, 250

Maye~Rene, 521,522, 524,525

MC 48, 579, 599-603

McCarthy, Sen. Joseph P., 15, 366n, 598
McClellan, Sen. John 1., 103, 105, 107

McCormack, Maj. Gen.James,Jr., 148, 149

McLain, Lt. Gen. Raymond, 408

McMahon Act (Atomic Energy Act of

1946), 564, 565, 566, 576

McNamara, Robert S., 13

McNeil, Wilfred J., 7, 16, 36, 84, 123,

267, 455, 665; as comptroller under

Truman, 45-46; and continental defense,

133-34, 293, 305-06; and Cooper

Committee, 61-63; and cuts in 1953

current defense spending, 72, 73-

74; and definition of "obligation,"

497-98; and DoD budget process,

49-58; and FY 54 defense budget,

76-78, 85, 86, 94-96, 107-08, 112-

13, 140; and FY 55 defense budget,

143-44, 154-57, 160-61, 213, 233,

235, 239-40; and FY 56 defense

budget, 273-74, 316-17, 319, 320,

324, 499; and FY 57 defense budget, 473, 483, 484-85, 505, 510; as

"gray eminence," 46-48; and IRBM

development, 443, 444; and military

assistance, 499, 505, 510; and NSC

5422,273-75

Mekong Delta, 253, 526, 530-32

Mendes-France, Pierre, 540, 542, 544,

545,573,575,600

Midway, 294, 298, 301

MiG-15, 385, 386, 387

MiG-17, 382, 385

Millis, Walter, 177,220,221,228,229-30

Milton, Hugh, 406

Military Air Transport Service (MATS),

110,618

military assistance, 361, 489-516, 554,

558-59, 656; administration of, 55-

58, 489-90, 496-99; to Yugoslavia,

591-99. See also foreign aid; Indochina war

Military Assistance Advisory Group

(MAAG), 530-31, 543-44,547-50

Military Sea Transportation Service

(MSTS), 110, 240

"military-industrial complex," 375

"missile gap," 652

mobilization base, 311-16, 320-24, 469

Index 785

Molotov, V. M., 4, 457, 458

Monroney, Sen. A. S. (Mike), 254

Moore, Maj. Gen. Robert S., 503

Morocco, 225,462,640

Morse, Sen. Wayne 1., 113

Moscow, 79, 218-19, 340, 347, 451,

518,532,579,589,592,617. See also

Soviet Union

Moscow air shows, 267, 371, 377, 379-

80,393,427,647,648

Munitions Board, 8, 32

Murphree, Eger v., 623, 631

Murphy, Robert, 584, 595-96

Mutual Security Act of 1955, 56, 497,

498, 501

Nash, Frank c., 4, 7, 78, 521, 524, 565-

66, 570, 581, 582

National Guard, 137, 376, 406-08, 410-

11,419-20,422,602,614; segregation

issue, 414-17, 420. See also reserves

National Security Council (NSC): and

basic national security policy, 169,

275, 307-08, 334, 340-45, 347-56,

449, 452-54; and bomber gap, 380,

397; and budgets, 49; and continental defense, 116-17, 126-35, 138,

276, 284-85, 294, 298-99, 301-02;

and European defense, 554, 564,

567-70, 572, 574, 582, 585-86, 594,

599; and FY 54 budget, 47, 68-72, 78-

82, 140; and FY 55 budget, 143-45,

149-51, 158-64; and FY 56 budget,

257-58, 268-69, 307-16, 320-21,

326, 328; and FY 57 budget, 473-74,

485; and Indochina, 528-29, 535-39,

543-45, 548, 550; and military assistance, 490-91, 493, 506-07, 514-15;

and New Look, 184-202, 213-14; and

surprise attack, 426, 428-31, 435-36,

444, 448

National Security Resources Board, 116

National Security Training Commission

(NSTC), 399-401, 403-04, 406-08,

412-13

Nautilus, 671

Navaho, 373,432, 433
786 Index

Navarre, Lt. Gen. Henri, 524, 525, 526,

527, 528, 529, 530, 531, 532, 536, 538

Navy, U.S., 39, 244-45; and airpower

debate, 634, 636-43, 645; and basic

national security policy, 454-55, 461,

465-66, 468, 470; and continental

defense, 115, 122, 137, 280-81, 294,

296; and European defense, 595, 598;

and FY 54 budget, 113; and FY 55

budget, 233, 236, 239, 241, 251; and

FY 56 budget, 318, 327-28, 332,

360-62, 364, 366, 373-75, 378; and

FY 57 budget, 473, 475-78, 480-84,

486-88, 606-09, 627, 629; and Indochina, 525; and manpower cuts,

168-74, 183, 237; and New Look,

664-65, 670-72; and surprise attack,

438-43; and universal military service, 401, 408

Nehru, Prime Minister )awaharlal, 2

Net Evaluation Subcommittee (NESC),

277, 277n, 281, 283, 288-89, 295,

299-300, 321, 334

Netherlands, 552, 573

Nevada Proving Ground, 391

Newbury, Frank D., 8

New Look, 9,17,38-41,47,82,148,157,

160, 165-67, 168, 328, 337, 404, 423,

493, 551, 554, 559, 565, 576,611-12,

616, 664, 673-79; and the Air Force,

39, 82, 214, 221, 223-24, 243-44,

250, 666-68; and the Army, 39-40,

168, 193, 209-10, 214, 221, 223-24,

245-50, 259, 330, 345, 673, 675;

conception, 184-204; and continental defense, 114, 130, 133, 277, 286,

306; and the FY 1955 budget, 166-

67, 231-55; implementation, 205-30;

and the Navy, 39, 193, 221, 223-24,

244-45,250,670. See also "New New

Look"; nuclear weapons

"New New Look," 655, 666

new obligational authority (NOA), 50, 51

New Zealand, 188, 536

Newfoundland, 122

Ngo Dinh Diem, 519, 542, 543, 544, 545,

546-47, 549

Nguyen Van Hinh, 543

Nike, 132,247,280,282,287,475,479-

80, 638-39, 643

Nimitz, Admiral Chester w., 22, 26-27

Nitze, Paul H., 117,523

Nixon, Richard M., 178, 283, 301, 302,

304,437

North Africa, 206, 341, 343, 351, 373,

462, 545

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO): and basic national security

policy, 453-54, 461, 665-66; and

European defense, 15, 187,217,327-

28, 331, 451, 551-63, 565-66, 568-

83, 587-88, 590-96, 598-604, 673;

and Indochina, 521, 523, 540; and

military assistance, 508-11, 656; and

nuclear weapons, 202

North Korea, 2, 106, 153, 178. See also

Korea; Korean War

North Vietnam, 462, 541. See also Vietnam, Democratic Republic of

Norway, 509

Nova Scotia, 115,279

NSC 135/1, 117

NSC 141, 69,117,118

NSC 149, 80-85,119,492

NSC 151, 566

NSC 153, 147, 150

NSC 159, 121, 126-35, 136

NSC 162,158-60,165,169-70,171,184-

204,264-67,307-08,312,334-38,347,

349,353,450,493,560,562,565

NSC 164, 588

NSC 5405, 534n

NSC 5408, 138, 276, 277, 285, 286, 293

NSC 5420, 404-09

NSC 5422, 268-76, 285, 286, 307-11, 312,

315, 325, 334, 335

NSC 5429, 541, 545

NSC 5440, 348-50, 353

NSC 5501, 353-58, 423, 426, 449-50, 453,

454-57,460-61,466,467,661

NSC 5524, 453

NSC 5601, 597

NSC5602, 302, 460, 466-70,661,662,663

NSC 5606, 302, 303, 304

nuclear weapons: and allies, 152-53, 162-

63,195-97,198,200-04,210,225,273,
275,337,562,564-66,571-72,576-

77, 587, 600, 603, 674, 678; damage

and destruction, 120, 152, 215, 289-

90, 295-97, 424-26; research, 291,

391, 397, 427, 431-45, 448, 460-61,

488; sea-based, 39, 397, 439-40, 441,

443, 478n, 636-38, 671; Soviet, 125-

26, 127, 130-31, 186, 222, 268,

281-83, 294-96, 297, 298-302, 325,

391-92, 397-98, 424-35, 457, 460-

61, 605, 608, 633-36, 675, 677-78;

strategy and use, 40, 41, 82, 152-53,

156, 157-59, 162, 163, 169-70, 177,

194, 195-98, 204, 209-10, 218-30,

258, 273, 275, 291-92, 329, 337,

343, 346-47, 350, 364, 423-48, 465,

466-69, 479, 609-10, 614-15, 618,

633-35, 639-40, 642, 655, 660-72,

675, 676, 677-78; tactical, 40, 177,

197-98, 203, 210, 218-19, 438, 443,

465, 479, 667-68, 671; use in Indochina, 222-23, 468, 537, 540, 610n;

use in Korea, 1-4, 152-53, 163, 203,

527, 610n. See also New Look; roles

and missions competition

O'Daniel, Lt. Gen. John w., 525, 526,

530, 531, 533, 543, 544, 547, 548, 549

Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM),

121, 126, 130, 138, 274, 285, 288,

294,297,300,311-315,320,407,430,

436-37

Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD):

and budget review, 46-49, 87, 671;

and continental defense, 134-35;

and European defense, 581, 595, 598,

603; and FY 55 budget, 142-45; and

FY 56 budget, 263, 274, 308, 316;

and FY 57 budget, 473-74, 480-84,

486-88,607,629; and Indochina, 524;

and military assistance, 56-57, 497,

504; and reorganization, 7, 32-33;

and surprise attack, 427, 433, 439-

40, 446-48; and universal military

service, 407-08, 411

Okinawa, 145,434

"Open Skies" proposal, 451, 455, 458

Index 787

Pace, Frank, 28

Pacific, Commander in Chief (CINCPAC),

9, 36, 523, 525

Pakistan, 462, 493, 505-07, 513, 515,

542, 597

Passman, Rep. Otto E., 503

Pate, General Randolph McC., 610,

662,663

Pearson, Drew, 173

Pearson, Lester B., 225,600-01

Peng Dehuai, General, 3

Permanent Joint Board on Defense

(PJBD),115

personnel management, 59, 60-61

Persons, Wilton B., 14,33

Pescadores, 359,365, 500

Peterson, Val, 125,304

Pham Van Dong, 539

Philippines, 40, 188, 434, 506, 537,

541-42

Pike, Thomas P, 8

Pleven, Rene, 556

Poland, 48, 599

Polaris, 671

Popovic, Koca, 593

Port Arthur, 451

Potter, Sen. Charles E., 15

Powell, Rep. Adam Clayton, 414, 415,

416,417

Power, Lt. Gen. Thomas S., 382

Price, Don K., 22

Prochnow, HerbertY., 506, 507, 514, 515

Prochnow committee, 506-07, 513-15

Putt, Lt. Gen. Donald 1., 389, 391

Quantico,Virginia, conferences at, 18-19,

49, 146, 393

Quarles, Donald A., 283, 285, 427, 432,

446, 648, 667, 668; and airpower debate, 633, 643, 647, 652; appointment

as Air Force secretary, 396; as assistant

secretary of defense for research and

development, 7; and FY 57 Air Force

budget, 608, 617, 618, 619, 620, 622,

623, 625; and threat of Soviet science

and technology, 389
788 Index

Quemoy, 345, 364-65, 373,450, 500

Quesada, Elwood R., 290n

radar picket ships (DERs), 115, 135,

279, 294

Radford, Admiral Arthur w., 18, 38, 41,

125,178,179,261,268,351,406,563,

641, 644, 645; appointment to JCS,

9, 36-37, 146; and "bomber gap,"

384, 392, 393-94; and combat force

requirements, 162, 163, 165-66, 169;

and continental defense, 128, 131,

132, 133, 277, 281, 282-83, 299-300,

301; and Dien Bien Phu, 534-38, 540,

550; and European defense, 563,

582, 583, 586, 593, 600, 602; and

Indochina, 523, 528, 529; and initial

New Look funding, 41-42, 154, 156,

157, 159, 160-61, 176; and formulating the New Look, 209-10, 213, 215-

16, 223, 224, 227; and FY 55 budget,

235, 243, 248, 249, 250; and FY 56

budget, 307, 322-23, 327, 365, 369,

373; and FY 57 budget, 476, 483, 484,

611, 615-16; and massive retaliation,

189, 192, 196; and military assistance,

507, 512; and missile development,

435, 441, 442, 444; and national military strategy, 657, 658, 660, 661,

663-66, 670, 672; and NSC 5501,

341-44,355; and NSC 5602, 466, 467,

468-69; and role of nuclear weapons,

177-78,197-98,201,202-03

"Radford Plan," 664-66

RAND Corporation, 302

Randall, Col. Carey A., 18,331-32

Rayburn, Rep. Samuel T., 605

Red River Delta, 520

Redstone, 434, 438,439,442, 443

Redstone Arsenal, 438, 439, 441, 442,

443,479

Reed, Rep. Daniel A., 66

Reorganization Plan No.6, 33-34, 58, 59

Reorganization Plan No.7, 490

research and development, 390-91, 396,

427, 431-45, 448, 480, 488, 616-17,

619-20, 625, 651-52; organization

in DoD, 6-7, 59,63. See also science

education

Research and Development Board, 8, 32

reserves, 320, 361,399-422,488

Reston, James, 129

Rhee, President Syngman, 1,3,162, 171n,

178,261,610n

Richards, Rep. James P., 501-02

Richardson, Elmo, 13

Riddleberger, James, 592, 593, 595, 596

Ridgway, General Matthew B., 18, 146,

159,192,196,213,261,407,529,553,

586, 589, 614, 615, 668, 670; and

Army in modern warfare, 193-94,

668-69, 675; and Dien Bien Phu,

536-37; and Formosa, 364-65; and

FY 55 defense budget, 235, 242-43,

245-50, 255, 262, 334; and FY 56

defense budget, 259, 260, 330, 331,

333, 363, 366, 367-68, 369, 370, 371-

72, 374, 376; and FY 57 defense budget, 479, 612-13, 619; and manpower

cuts, 39, 174, 176, 181-82, 193,207-

09, 211-12; and memoirs, 610-12,

664n; and national security policy,

336-37, 344-46, 354, 358; and NATO,

555, 560, 566

Rivers, Rep. 1. Mendel, 367

Robertson, Reuben B., Jr., 302,439,442,

446, 468, 486, 582, 597

Robertson, Walter S., 4

Rockefeller, Nelson A., 21, 23, 33, 34

Rockefeller Committee, 7,19,21-34,489

roles and missions competition, 37-40,

189, 194, 244-45, 250, 330, 332-33,

376, 438-45, 455, 468, 609, 613-15,

620,632,637-45,659,664,668-72,677.

See also budget; New Look

Romania, 590

Roosevelt, Rep. Franklin D., Jr., 221

Russell, Rear Adm. James S., 440

Russell, Sen. Richard B., Jr., 11,331,378,

382, 388, 418, 419, 420, 421, 620-21,

622,623,626,628,631
Sage Brush, 609

Salan, Raoul, 524

Saltonstall, Sen. Leverett, 11, 130, 281,

632,642,651,652

Sarnoff, David, 22

Saudi Arabia, 640

Schaffer, Fritz, 581, 583

Schine, David, 15

Schlesinger, James, 13

science education, 389-90, 394, 460-61

Scotland, 294

Scrivner, Rep. Errett P., 57,96,109,111

Seaton, Fred, 8

"Secretaries Conference," 18-19. See also

Quantico, Virginia, conferences at

Section 1311, Supplemental Appropriations Act of 1955, 54-55,498

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment

(SAGE), 289, 293, 475

Selective Service System, 408, 412

Senate Appropriations Committee, 52-

54,96-112,252-53,371-72,374-75,

377,503,512,626,637-39

Senate Armed Services Committee, 9-

12, 278, 331, 364, 371, 382, 392,

418-19,435,534,620,622,632

Senate Foreign Relations Committee,

130,223,364,502,512

Sergeant, 439

"Seven Wise Men," 491

Shepherd, General Lemuel c., 8, 146,

208,245,365,373-74

Short, Rep. Dewey]., 412, 413-14, 417,

421

Siciliano, Rocco, 406

Sikes, Rep. Robert 1., 247, 252, 368,

369, 375, 613

Skifter, Hector R., 305

Slezak, John, 307

Sloan, Alfred P., 12, 16, 17,23

Smith, James H., 440

Smith, Sen. Margaret Chase, 97, 99, 100,

103

Smith, Walter Bedell, 148,223,523, 540,

572,573,633

Snark, 373,432, 433

"Solarium," Operation, 3, 148-51, 158,

184, 309

Index 789

South Korea, 2,178,188,210,220,266,

493. See also Korea; Korean War

South Vietnam, 462, 468, 541-42, 546-

47, 549. See also Vietnam

Southeast Asia, 17, 40, 48, 258, 262,

264,267,338,354,462-63,495,517-

19, 532, 534, 536-37, 540-41, 550,

673,676

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

(SEATO), 514, 541-42

Southern Europe Task Force (SETAF), 591

Soviet Union (USSR), 40, 114, 131, 134,

148, 186, 189, 192, 203, 228-29, 244,

264-65, 268-69, 273, 279, 281, 295,

301, 329, 338-39, 341, 347, 349, 351,

353, 383, 385-86, 426, 429-31, 434,

451-52,456,460,540,572,578,588-

92,604,674-79. See also Moscow

Spaatz, General Carl A., 22, 27, 101,633

Spain, 506, 568-69

Special Committee on Manpower Resources for National Security, 403-04

Special Evaluation Subcommittee, NSC,

117,120-21

Sprague, Robert c., 423n, 425, 635;

and continental defense, 130, 278-79,

281-84, 285, 287-89, 297-99, 301-

02,305,325,428,429,430

Sputnik, 43, 653

Stalin, Joseph, 79, 338, 450, 453, 564,

599,675

Stassen, Harold, 172, 285, 340, 348,

468, 490, 521, 563; and military

assistance, 491-93, 499; and West

Germany, 567-68

State, Department of: and arms control,

308; and basic national security

polic~ 338-40, 449, 452-53, 455-62,

464-65,678; and continental defense,

284; and Indochina, 524-29, 531, 537,

549; and military assistance, 490,

494-95, 497, 506; and NATO strategy,

598-600, 602; and nuclear weapons,

273; and U.S. troops in Europe, 584,

592; and Western Europe, 566-67,

572-76, 599, 604; and Yugoslavia,

578-79,594,597

Stennis, Sen. John c., 224, 621
790 Index

Stevens, Robert T., 15,76,77,208,337,

350; appointed secretary of the

Army, 6-7; and FY 55 budget, 245,247,

249; and FY 56 budget, 261, 319,

323-24, 331, 366-67, 369, 370; and

manpower reductions, 169, 174-77,

182,211-14

Stevenson, Adlai, 223, 224

Strategic Air Command (SAC): and basic

national security policy, 455, 469;

and bomber gap, 383-85, 387, 395,

634-37,639; and continental defense,

115, 297, 305-06, 372, 643; and

FY 57 budget, 621, 625-27; and

manpower cuts, 174; and massive

retaliation, 225, 662, 664-67, 671,

678; and surprise attack, 424, 433,

445-47,608,617-18

Strauss, Franz Joseph, 581

Strauss, Lewis 1., 125,301,468,564

Suez crisis, 668

Summer Study Group, 116, 118-20

supply and logistics (S&L), assistant

secretary of defense for, 8

Switzerland, 589

Symington, Stuart, 10, 112, 222, 435,

668; and airpower debate, 631-33,

646-53; and "bomber gap," 381-82,

385, 389, 393, 398; and FY 55 budget, 235, 252-53; and FY 56 budget,

377-78; and FY 57 budget, 620, 621,

625-26,628,630

Taber, Rep. John, 503

Tachen Islands, 261

Tactical Air Command (TAC), 667-68

Taft, Sen. Robert A., 68, 72, 88, 146,220

Talbott, Harold E., 7, 76,118,350,431-

32, 434; and "bomber gap," 380, 382,

388,389; and FY 54 budget, 97-100,

102, 104, 105; and FY 56 budget,

317-18,373,377

Talos,122,280,638-39,643,651

Taylor, General Maxwell D., 354, 439,

675; and airpower debate, 638, 640,

641-43,645; and FY 57 budget, 609,

613-15; and massive retaliation, 39-

40, 41; and missile development,

441-42, 444, 479; and national military strategy, 655, 661-62, 663-66,

669-70,671,675

Tea Pot Committee. See Air Force Strategic

Missiles Evaluation Committee

Technological Capabilities Panel, 287,

292,294,301,306,396-98,423-31,433-

47,440,445-46,448-49,454,677

Terrier, 638n

"Texas Towers," 122, 135,279

Thailand, 506, 518, 523, 542

Third World, 40, 187-88,271,339,340,

358, 461

Thomas, Charles S., 7, 8, 350, 373, 440,

454,466,475,610,642

Thompson, Llewellyn, 584, 590

Thor, 444

Titan, 434

Tito, Josef Broz, 451, 578-79, 591, 593,

594, 595, 596, 597, 598, 599

Treasury, Department of, 490n, 506-07

Triad (strategic), 478n

Trieste, 338, 573, 578, 583-85, 587-88,

591-92

Truman, Bess, 5

Truman, Harry S., 1, 2, 5, 18, 21, 22,

28, 36, 220, 225, 230, 232, 253, 256,

489, 490, 519, 550, 558, 568-69,

591, 673; and continental defense,

114,116-18; and foreign aid, 489-94,

516; and proposed FY 54 budget, 47-

87,90-96,101,103,108-09,113,140,

141, 164

Tu-4, 115,300,384,424

Tunisia, 462

Turke~462,489,493,505-07, 509, 513,

515, 551, 591-92, 597

20th Century Minutemen, 401-03,

404,408

Twining, General Nathan E, 99-100,

189, 192, 238, 243-44, 294, 351,

365,372-73,402,406,441,536,560,

662, 668; and airpower debate, 631-

32, 637, 638, 641, 643, 644, 645,

646, 647, 648-50, 651; and "bomber
gap," 382, 383, 388, 393, 396; and

FY 57 budget, 608-09, 617-19, 621,

623, 630; and the JCS strategic review, 146, 152, 153, 157

unified commands, 27-29

United Kingdom, 294, 505, 552, 564. See

also Great Britain

United Nations, 203-04, 536

universal military training (UMT), 400,

401,403,404,409,412,413,421

Universal Military Training and Service

Act (PL 82-51), 399-400, 403, 406

Urey, Harold, 221

Valluy, Lt. Gen. Jean, 540

Van Zandt, Rep. James E., 416

Vandenberg, General Hoyt S., 146, 252-

53; and FY 54 budget, 90, 96, 97, 100,

101-05, 106, 107, 108, 109-10, 111

Viet Minh, 462, 468, 517-20, 522-24,

526, 529, 532-36, 539-40, 542, 545-

46, 549

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 518,

540-41. See also North Vietnam

Vietnamese National Army (VNA), 544,

547-48

Vinson, Rep. Carl, 331, 366, 367, 371,

411, 413, 414, 415-16, 417, 418,

421,642

von Braun, Werner, 440

von Neumann, John, 431, 432

Vorys, Rep. John M., 501-02

Vulture (Vautour), 536, 538

Warsaw Pact, 451, 590

Watson, Mark, 173-74

Wedemeyer, General Albert c., 290-

91, 292

Wedemeyer Committee. See Continental

Defense Panel

Welch, Joseph, 15-16

Wensinger, Maj. Gen. Walter W., 404,

405,407,409

Index 791

Wensinger task force, 404-05, 407, 409

West Germany, Federal Republic of,

187-88, 339, 451, 493, 505, 551-53,

559, 566-68, 573-83, 587, 590, 601-

02, 604

Weyland, General Otto P., 667, 668

White, General Thomas D., 382, 402,

647, 667-68

Whitten, Rep. Jamie 1.,57

Wickersham, Rep. Victor E., 413

Wigglesworth, Rep. Richard B., 503

Williams, Lt. Gen. Samuel P., 549

Wilson, Charles E., 4, 36, 201, 611, 673,

676, 679; and airpower debate, 634,

636-38,641-49,651,653; appointed

as secretary of defense, 5-6; and

"bomber gap;' 380-85, 387-96, 398;

and Central and Southern Europe,

584-87, 588-91, 598, 600-01, 603;

characterization of, 12-20; and confirmation hearings, 9-12; and continental defense, 118, 119, 120, 122,

126,128,130,131-32,190,191,283-

85, 289, 291-94, 299, 304; and

Cooper Committee on fiscal matters,

61-62; and DoD budget process, 49-

50, 52, 57, 204; and Hoover commission proposals, 58-61, 63-64; and

Dien Bien Phu and Vietnam, 534,

538, 541, 542, 548, 549, 550; and fo~

mulating the New Look, 205, 208,

209, 210, 212-13, 221-22, 223-24;

and FY 54 budget, 69-87, 91-113,

140; and FY 55 budget, 143-46, 147-

48, 153-54, 157, 159-67, 235, 238-

40, 253; and FY 56 budget, 259-62,

264, 326-27, 329-32, 363, 366, 368-

69, 377; and FY 57 budget, 473-78,

481-85, 615-17, 619, 620, 621-24,

627-30; and Indochina, 521, 525, 550;

and management of DoD, 44-48; and

manpower cuts, 168-72, 174-82; and

military assistance, 491, 496, 505, 506,

507, 509, 510; and missile development, 432, 435-36, 440, 441-45, 448,

677, 678; and national military strategy, 654-55, 660, 663-64, 665, 666,
792 Index

672; and national security policy,

272, 274, 307, 309, 310, 312-16,

321-24, 335, 337-38, 340-45, 350,

352-53,356,358,426,449,453,466-

67,469-70; and new Joint Chiefs, 5-6;

and NSC 162 and nuclear weapons,

195-97, 199-200, 202-03; and OSD

and JCS roles, 35, 41-43; and reorganization of Pentagon, 21-34; and the

reserves system, 404, 406, 410-11,

413, 421-22; selection of top assistants, 6-8; and Western European

defense, 554, 556, 561,563, 567,568-

74,576-77

Wohlstetter, Albert, 655

World War 11, 141, 278

Yarmolinsky, Adam, 13

York, Herbert, 290n

Yugoslavia, 459, 573, 578-79, 583-85,

591-99,604

Zhukov, Marshal, 451

ISBN 0-16-050948-3

9 780160 509483

90000
Seemingly conlidcnl lhat il was riding the crcst of history, the

So\;el nion deliberately cliltiVdled an aggrcssi\'c image. lis innuellce

appeared to be spreading to all pans of the globe. Members of the

press along \\;th l>cmocr,us in the House and Senate painted a grim

picture. The United Slate5 \\'35 vulnerable to air allack; its allies in

Europe were weak and dispirited. Communi m had triumphed in

China; Western innll nce in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle

East was in decline .... Perttaps the American century had airead)'

IlaSSed . __ . Eisenhower and Wilson would nOI I~ stampeded by Ihis

litany of doom. Eisenhower brought to the presidency a thorough

knowledge of defense su,ucg}', a deep ulldersianding of the stmClllre

of forces, and perhaps mosl importalll. a well-dc\'c1oped skepticism

of the miliLary budgct process, He believed that too often thc serviccs

advanced programs and interests inspired as much by inlerservice

rivalry for funds as by a genuine concern fnr achieving Lhe besl

national defense. As COllllnander in chicf he remained conlldent in

lhe milital1' supcriority of lhe Uniled Stales and its allics. He was

especially imprcssed by the pcrsuasi\'e power of :.nomic wcaponry,

a conviction confinned in his judgmelll by the utccessful seuJemelll

of the Korean conflict. Eisenhower's faith in lhe technological lead

enjo)'ed by the UniU.:d Sl<ltes in ad\"allced weaponl")' recei\'ed important reinforcement from his secrelal"}' ofdefense.

for EiscnhO\·:er. whal counted most about Wilson was his demon..

SU'3ted competence in managing bigness. the salient characteristic of

the Defense DeparuncnL For other departlneul5 tJ1C president chose

executi\-es primarily for their expenise or experience in their depanmenu' fields of endeavor. Unlike his predecessors. Wilson had

no experience or acquired knowledge in foreign or military affairs.

credentials that would 1101 have been required by a presidelll of

Eisenhower's military and international stature, What lhe president

did need and wam was a seasoned executive who could efTecti\'c1y

implcmcnt his defcnse policies and rUIl the vaSl !'Clll:tgon empire,

Lhe world's biggest pureh,lser and user of armanlcnls I.echnology,

Wilsoll seemed LO be custom-buill for the job, an exccutive who

would not be daunted by bigness. At first he seemed to be daunlcd

by something else, perh<lps the unfamiliarity of the managerial

problems he initially cnCOlllllcred, DoD was an adminislrati\'e headache, plagued with inherited organizational and management troubles,

some of them historic. awaiting long o\'erduc solutions. Whate\'er the

reason, Wilson apparently sought early on to ha\' weekJy conferences

,,;th the president. But Eisenhower quickl)' put a stop LO that, telling

Wilson. "Charlie, )'011 nUl defense." Wilson got tile message, and his

self-confidence quickly returned_ Thereafter he ran DoD more or less

as he had nm General Motors. minus the profil imperati\'e ....

-Excerpts from Stratq:y, Money, and th~ New Loolc