Evening star., 1946-04-07
Fear of MiIiturism
F., Bogey in America
Phob;alike Clamor on Army and
Navy Not Grounded on Fact
BIZ William H. Harrison.

Phobialike Clamor on Army and
Navy Not Grounded on Fact
By William H. Harrison.
The clamor recently raised against
the Vandenberg amendment to the
Mcmahon atomic-energy bill may be
regarded as perhaps the most striking
symptom yet displayed of widespread
American tendency to be distrustful of
the military almost to the point of
phobia.
In it's original form the amendment
merely provided that the armed forces
have strictly limited voice in. atomic
development related to national secu-
rity. The proposal, however, even
though it would have done nothing Of
the Sort was Immediately subjected to
an astonishing attack on the ground
that it would have wrested this tre-
mendous new power from the control
of civilians and placed it at the mercy
of the Army and Navy, thus creating, in
Secretary Wallace's careless words, the
"potentiality" of military fascism" in
America.
This note, this fear. characterized the
attack throughout, and men like Gen.
Groves, who had carried a grave re-
sponsibility as administrative head Of
the wartime atomic project and who
performed outstandingly If not always
perfectly, suffered personal abuse. In
deed, the more extreme critics of the
amendment seemed deliberately to want
to spread the impression that he and
other military leaders were engaged in
kind of conspiracy to have the atom
all to themselves for ends as dark as
any one could conjecture.
X Il X
In short, although nothing in the Ian
guage or sense of Senator Vandenberg's
proposal could even remotely justify the
lurid meanings read into it, the hob
goblin first raised by Secretary Wallace
began to be taken for reality by lot Of
people naturally inclined-in the best
American tradition-to be on guard
against anything that would under
mine the dominance of civilian author
ity in this Nation. According to those
who should know, the attack probably
was pushed in part by small element
intent on discrediting the Army and
Navy for anything but good or inno-
cent purposes, but the clamor came
largely from well-intentioned. sincere
and even distinguished individuals and
organizations, so that their views could
be attributed only to woeful lack OF
information, unthinking emotionalism.
anti-militarism blown up to phobic pro-
That touch of phobia colored the STU
alton is indicated by the fact that the
substance of the revised Vandenberg
amendment is virtually identical with
that of the original but that it is never
theless satisfactory to those who OPP
posed the original. In other words,
relatively Insignificant change in Ian
guage and procedure, plus possibly
some second thoughts of their own, has
been enough to reassure them that the
threat of military control-which in
fact never really existed-has been
removed.
But though the storm over this issue
has subsidized, there still remain many
evidences of phobic thinking about our
military establishment. The brass
hats"-or more simply and derisively
"the brass"-are on the defensive.
Suddenly, where they were once praised
for their wartime leadership, they now
are told by not few civilians, includ-
ing representatives of labor unions and
educational institutions, that their desire
for a draft extension is American"
and that their espousal of universal
create lot of good jobs for officers, is
the sort of thing that would make
the Nation militaristic. Similarly, their
so-called "caste" system is being at
tackled on all sides, even though they
have set up special hearings to learn
and act upon the real or fancied griev-
ances of enlisted men and even though
it is unrealistic in the extreme to expect
that an Army and Navy can be run
efficiently without strict standards of
discipline or as democratically as our
domestic Government.
1t is most wholesome thing, of
course, that the American people are
traditionally anti-militaristic. 1t is
good, too, that special steps are being
taken to end whatever abuses may exist
in the armed forces and in the relation
ship of officers to men in the ranks.
But the deep animus that has recently
been expressed in many quarters against
the Army and Navy-markedly so in the
unjustified furore over the Vandenberg
amendment-seems as unwarranted as
it is battling. The services, to be sure,
are not perfect. They can make grievous
mistakes. They may harbor a number
of brass hats" who are highhanded or
incompetent or who are poor representa-
tives of democracy. But fairness and a
sense of perspective demand the obser-
vation that the same kind of mistakes
and the same kind of deficient and off,
horse characters can be found in our
civilian society. Fairness and sense
of perspective demand also a proper
recognition of the fact that American
military leadership, taken as whole,
operated bravely and brilliantly in the
war and reaffirmed under fire and in
duty and freedom beyond questioning
It is worth some emphasis, moreover,
that there is nothing in this country