REF ID:A39366 

••• THE WASHINGTON POST 

Sunday, September 6, l953 5B 

Matter of Faet · 

H-Bombs Know No ComP.romise 

By Joseph and Stewart Alsop . THIS COUNTRY STILL seems largely un- aware that the air defense problem even exists. 

Yet it is the subject of increasingly anguished debate within the highest Administration 

circles. One informed guess is that the Admin· 

istration will move less than half-way toward 

the kind of air-defense effort proposed by the 

Eisenhower-appointed Bull committee and a host of previous committees. 

Instead of raising current air defense outlays by three or four billion dollars a year, air defense may get an additional one or two billion 

dollars. With the Soviet air-atomie threat grow- ~ all the time, this seems rather like throwing a line half·way to a drowning man. Yet, In view 

of tbe painful fillea and political dilemmas 

posed by the alr0 def8Dle problem, a balf0wa7 

compromise on the Issue apparently is a reason· able guess. 

The fiscal dilemma is obvious. In round figures, the Treasury stands to lose some nine 

billion dollars from prospective tax reductions. 

The deficit for the current fiscal year is esti· 

mated at more than three billion dollars. This means either new taxes, a heavily !\mbalanced 

budget, or huge reductions in spending-above all, for defense. 

Short of new taxes, the budget President · Eisenhower must present to Congress next Jan· 

uary cannot even approach a balance, unless 

the defense budget is reduced well below 30 

l:iillion dollars. A defense budget less than that 

cannot conceivably include the kind of air defense appropriations which .the Bull committee 

and its half-dozen predecessors ·have proposed as the minimum essential for the national se- curity. 

THE POLITICAL DILEMMA derives, of 

course, from this fiscal dilemma. A heavily un- balanced budget will be attacked effectively by the Democratic opposition, with many a quota· tion from campaign-time Republican promises. Any attempt to raise new taxes will be attacked even more forcefully. Yet, a failure to deal at all with the air· 

defense .problem, so dramatically highlighted by the Soviet hydrogen bomb, wlll also be grist 

to the opposition mill. And next year is an election year. · · This enorm9usly painful dilemma, moreover, 

must be resolved very soon, as the budget 

must be prepared well in advance of the Presi· 

dent's January budget message. First among those who will influence the final decision are the new Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

THERE IS GOOD REASON to believe. that 

Air Force Chief of Staff Nathan Twining· favors 

the Bull proposals, and some reason to believe 

that Army Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway does not. The most important voice will be 

that of the very able new chairman, Admiral 

Arthur Radford. Radford is deeply concerned over the air-defense problem, and quite aware that this country now bas no real air defense 

at all. 

But the new chiefs have only a few weeks 

to complete their "sweeping new look" at 

American defense planning. In this short tim!, 

they are unlikely to iron out a flat and final 

position on air defense. Some sort of com• 

promise, such as their predecessors made re- peatedly, seems much more probable. 

Defense Secretary Wilson is .deeply and "]nlb• 

licly committed to the Joint Chiefs' "new look." 

For this reason, and because he greatly admires 

Radford, he is likely to go alonr with any Joint 

Chiefs' position on the issue. At least, he is 

much less likely to be the advocate of economy 

at any price he might have been six mo,nths aro. 

The leader of the economy faction is Budget Director Joseph Dodge. Dodge performed a major service when he reorganized Japan's· chaotic economy. But both as banker and 

Budget Director, deficits seem more dangerous 

to him than hydrogen bombs. 

Able Treasury Secretary George Humphrey 

also is a passionate deficit-hater. He has taken 

the position that, if the experts decide that an effective air defense is really necessary, the 

Administration should bite the bullet and take 

the politically poisonous course of asking for new tales. '· · 

THUS MOST of the influences on President 

Eisenhower are in the direction of half-way measures to meet the . threat. Mr. Eisenhower 

is a natural believer in compromise, and he is 

also very conscious of his position as the neo- phyte leader of a party which stands for lower 

taxes and a balanced budget. The trouble, of course, is that you cannot 

compromise with hydrogen bombs. ·For all his 

love of the "middle way," moreover, his whole 

background and character dispose the l'resi• 

dent to put national security first. 

Since the decision in the end is the Pres!· 

dent's lonely responsibility, the half-way guess 

may not be a very~ good guess, after all. Al 

half-way measures might quite conceivably be 

the prelude to national de\l"astation, it is to be 

hoped that this is so. 

OOP:rrl1ht, 19&3, N. Y. H8l'ald TribUl11, Ina.