Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1950-09-22
Second Rate Officers

~ to the Arny's best combat Off
GERS, whose leadership may mean
the difference between life and
death. Yet it is common talk in
the Pentagon that some key battle
officers.
There seems to be a reluctance
on the Army's part to send its first
team to Korea. Though the Army
has plenty of crack officers, the
Korean command went to Lieut..
Gen. Walton Walker who happened
to be the Understanding officer un-
der Macarthur and thereby in
herited the job.
Walker served successfully dur
ing the last war under the late Gen.
George S. Patton, Jr. However,
Walkers fellow generals don't think
much of him as a great field COM
mander.
One general summed up the COM
mon opinion of Walker bluntly.
walker is methodical, plodding,
regular army plug horse who sud-
denly found himself a lieutenant
general"
The impression is that while
Walker is not bad general, he
is not particularly good one. Yet
the G.I.'s at the front are entitled
to the best commanding general
we've got.
Walkers chief Of staff is Col.
Eugene Landrum, who COM
manded the Goth division when
1t landed in France in June,
1914. However, he made such
poor showing that he was re-
lieved of his command within
two months and shipped back
to the states. Later, when most
Of the wartime generals were
denoted one rank, Landrum
was dropped two ranks, from
major general to colonel. Yet
he now holds the crucial post as
Walkers chief of staff in Ko-
rea - because, like Walker,
Landrum happened to be in line
for the job.
Back in Japan, the CO section is
General MacArthurs eyes and ears.
Its job is to gather and analyze mil
itary intelligence, so vital in time of
war Yet the CO chief, in charge of
this important listening post, is
Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, a
strutting heel-clicker who has been
accused by subordinates of doctor
ing the intelligence reports to
please rather than inform MacAr-
thur. Born in Prussia, Willoughby's
real name is Won Tschepe-Wieden-
bach, and his principal qualification
is the fact that he served under
Macarthur on Bataan. This is the
estimate of fellow generals.
Explosive Mcclellan
The full story hasn't been told
how 81-year-old Sen. Kenneth Nc
Kellar of Tennessee tried to bop IL
year old Congressman Clarence
Cannon OF Missouri over the head
with a gavel.
1t happened behind closed doors,
while senate and house conferees
were trying to iron out differences
in the appropriations bill. This
brought Mcclellan, the senate ap-
preparations chairman, and Cannon,
the house appropriations chairman,
into violent disagreement.
With an explosive snort, Nc
Kellar accused Cannon Of
"making slurring references"
Then the aged Tennessean be-
gan spouting expletives, which
an eyewitness later reported
"almost peeled the paint off the
walls" One of the milder terms
Mcclellan used to describe Can
non was SOB (Unabbrevi-
ate6.
This was too much for Cannon
who announced he wouldn't take
such abuse from any man" and
started after Mcclellan. Simulta-
neously, the suffering senator
from Tennessee picked up his gavel
which he had been using to rap the
table and tried to rap Cannon.
However, colleagues separated
them before they could do any
damage to each other.
Washington Pipeline
General Macarthur was consid-
ering coming back to the United
States just as the Korean war broke
out. He was interested in an offer
OF a top job at Remington Rand
Before the end of the year,
President Truman plans to set up
a special board to keep an eye on
prices and a new agency to take
over the vital job of civilian defense
Many top mobsters have been
getting careless with their income
tax returns. They have been re-
porting ridiculously small incomes
and Jumping it all under such gen.
eral terms as Misrepresentation"
Mike Reilly, FDR's famous
friend and bodyguard, is now quiet
ly working for the interior depart.