REF ID:A39337 

THK WASHINGTON POST 

Thunday, September 24, 1953 

H 

Merry•Go~Round 

Defense or 

Economy: 

Up to Ike 

By Drew Pearson 

&ecretary of Defens.e Charlie 

Wilson. was fidgety all last week 

because the Joint Chiefs of Staff 

- passed their September 15 dead· · \ine without 

bmitting fig· 

res on the 

military budget 

or next year. he military 

hiefs were 

upposed to 

:iubmit t h e i r 

':> u d g e t estimates 10 days 

ago, but let the 

3eptember 15 

Pearson deadline slip by :without s e n d-

.ing Wilson a single piece of paper or even a single figure. · 

There is, however, an excellent reason for the delay. It 

can be summarized in exactly _ six words, plus a corollary ex· 

planation. . . . The six words are: Russia's 

possession . of the hydrogen 

·bomb. 

The c o r o 11 a r y explanation 

boils down to this: the Joint 

Chiets of statf cannot make any J 

estimates on military needs until they get an over-all decision J 

from the White House on the 

following all • important prob- P 

le ms: 

1. Will the .United States er.ect B 

adequate civil arid military defense protection against the· H-IB 

bomb? 

2. If so, does this defense· f 

money come out of the military 

budget? ' 

3. Does the President intend 

to stick to his budget-balancing - program? Or will he sacrifice 

the budget for the sake of 

sti:_qnar .. deieDJJa _____ .._ 

• 

Ike'; Awesome Decision I 

These are civilian questions the military chiefs cannot an-. 

swer. They are not in theiri 

province. They are the problem I 

of their own civili.an boss, Sec·; 

retary Wilson, and the President I 

himself. They also constitutef 

the most difficult problem facing· General EiSenhower-a problem 

on which he has postponed deci· 

sion but which cannot be post- 1

• 

pbned ;much longer. 1 He must either: A. Let the, 

budget stay out of . balance/ 

again, B. Increase .taxes, C. Ori 

sacrifice the safety of the Nation. ·· · · , - The first two alternatives will, 

1 be dealt with in fliture columns. I 

Regarding the third_..:.the safety. 

I o.f the· Natio~-here is ·some' 

httle-knowh back.grounij. · j 

It was in the spring of' 1952 

I that the inner-Government debate over protection from the 

atom bomb really became inten· 

sive. At that time a. gt6up of 

•, scientists, working' un~er ·the 

' supervision of top Eastern uni· 

/. versities,·prepared a !:Onfidential J rt!port known as "Project East I River," warning that the United 

States· was .fota11y, woefully unprepared to meet an· A·bombj · attack. · .. ~----·~··. . ·..-r 

. This report roused great CO!l· 1 I sternation, argument and dis· • agreement - especially among ~ the military. And ther~ followed 

a second report under the aus- • pices of :Massachusetts Institute e 

of Technology called the "Lin· · · coin Summer Study," which in 

the end came out with almost 

the same conclusion. 

The military, however, were 

hard to convince. And- at first 

the National Security Council 

poob-ppohed the findings. It 

was not until President Truma~ 

put a burr under the council 

that its members began to real· 

ize that the United States was 

blithely and complacently going 

about its business with little • realization that it could be put 

out of commission almost over· 

night. 

Soldiers vs. Electronics 

At this point, Secretary of Defense Lovett, despite all the 

other reports on the subject, ordered a third repqrt, this one in 

charge of M. J. Kelly, head of 

the Bell Telephone Laboratories. Later, on January 19, one 

day before the Eise!lhoweli Ad· 

ministration came m, another 

committee was appointed under 

Gen. Idwal Edwards. ~ Both committees came back 

I with equally alarming reports, 

warning that the United Stat~s 

was in definite danger. All this, 

of course, was well before there 

was any intimation that Russia 

bad ~he hydrogen bomb . Despite all these reports, Gen· 

eral Eisenhower decided that 

another report was needed and 

appointed one of his most trust· 

ed officers in the European in· 

vasion, Gen. Harold Bull, _to 

study the problem of enemy mvasion. 

The Bull report is now C!Jm· 

plete and is equally alarming. 

General Bull has recommended 

less money than the· Kelly com· 

mittee, but even so, about 10 

billion would ha'1e to be added 

to the national budget over a 

five-year period..,-possibly more. 

This is why the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff have been in a predica· 

ment regarding their budget fig- . ures for next year. They cannot make any estimates until 

they know what the over-all policy is going to be; and they ~re 

not at all sure that electronics 

can be substituted for foot sol· 

diers. · . _ d Thus goes tbf biggest an 

most important debate now going on inside the Administration. Upon its outcome will depend whether the budget is bal· 

anced and/or we have higher 

taxes. Even more important, 

upon its outcome will dep~nd 

the future safety of the Nation. 

1C!OP7Nh\. 1953, tile B•ll ~rndica&e. Ju.> 

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