Evening star., 1948-03-02
No Time to DISAGREE

The Congressional Aviation Policy
Boards outspoken report is disturbing not
only by reason of its grim appraisal of
the dangers of attack which confront the
United States, but because it reveals how
poorly prepared we are to cope with them.
In general the Joint board has patterned
its airpower security program after that
of the Presidents Air Policy Commission,
the Air Co-ordinating Committee and other
farsighted groups. But the board has gone
farther than any other body in that it has
placed the blame for one of our major
military weaknesses directly on the unified
high command.
1t is alarming to learn that despite the
fact that the country today is faced
deliberately and continuously" with the
threat of aggressive attack" our Govern
ment has not as yet developed a unified
plan of military action. The board points
out that its efforts during the past seven
months to ascertain the joint requirements
of the Navy and Air Force under a Joint
plan OF action were unsuccessful Not only
is such a joint plan lacking, the report
says, but there is no indication that one
is in the making. Yet the merger act
called up the Joint Chiefs OF Staff to
prepare such plan.
That joint overall plan of action is
yet to be adopted has been indicated by
numerous recent developments, particu-
larly the continuing controversy between
the Navy and the Air Force over their
respective roles in another war. There Is
anything but unity in Secretary Forrestars
unified" establishment over the merits of
super carriers, the scope of carrier-based
air operations or even basic strategy for
future defense and offense The Navy con-
tends its carrier-based bombers should
have the right to range far inland and
strike at enemy targets in support of the
Air Force, while the latter views such
naval strikes as an unnecessary invasion
OF the field of strategic bombing"-a field
which Air Force officials regard as the
exclusive mission of AT bombers.
The board is not so much surprised at
the absence of a unified plan of strategy
as 1t Is at the apparent failure of the
joint chiefs of staff to pursue the matter
vigorously. The board points out that
the reason may lie in part in conflicting
language of the National Security Act of
1947 (merger law), and the executive
order which defines the missions of the
armed services. The Navy interprets the
unif1cation statute as giving it broad
authority to develop and use any weapons
and any strategy approved by the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. The Air Force holds that
the executive order gives it sole operational
authority in certain tactical and strategic
phases of war. The board conceded that
the law and the order appear to be in
conflict, or at least ambiguous" and urged
that they be clarified without delay.
Until the three armed services agree
upon a joint plan of action, Congress will
be severely handicapped, as its joint board
was, in arriving at intelligent decisions as
to the needs of the national military
establishment If Congress thus should
fail to provide the minimum of authority
and of funds actually required to deal with
the grave hazards which confront us today,
the responsibility must be shared by the
defense experts who cannot yet agree on
what is needed.