Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1950-08-13

to disrupt, rather than to unity,
largely because of the extremely
vocal opposition of the Navy
which saw it as a move to curtail
its aviation arm in favor of the
newly independent Air Force.
The dispute exploded last fail
with the custer of Admiral Louis
E. Denfeld as Chief of Naval OPP
erations and appointment of Ad-
miral Forrest P. Sherman as his
successor. There is every reason
to believe that since that change
was made the law has been work.
ing more along the lines which
were it's original detectives, that
cooperation among the services
has improved.
1t is an ironic circumstance
that the Juror and the shouting
OF last year, when the row over
unification came to a head over
the roles of the Air Force and Of
the Navy in strategic bombing
would have had no bearing on the
outcome of the events in Korea.
however it was resolved. That
dispute involved the Air Force
B-36 land-baSed long-range stra-
tegic bomber intended to deliver
the atomic bomb and Defense
Secretary Johnson's decision to
cancel construction of a super
carrier sought my Navy aviation
for the same purpose.
But as the war in Korea has de-
veloped, use of the atomic wea-
pom is out of the question-Korea
doesn't afford the type of target
for which the bomb is adapted.
Air Force Curtailed
What the Korean fighting has
done is to show that if any of the
services had its strength pared too
closely in dividing up under uni
fication the funds available to all,
it has been the ground forces of
the Army and Marine Corps.
Our situation in that respect
would have been much improved
had Congress been willing to pass
a law requested ever since 1916
by the White House-unlversal
military training.
1t is noteworthy in discussing
the economies which now, with
the benefit of hindsight, appear to
have been something less than
economy. that Congress last year
voted $615 million more than Pres
ident Truman asked to the Air
Force for new airplanes. This was
to give the Air Force a start
toward the 70-group Air Force for
which it had been pressing ever
since Thomas K. Finletter, now
Secretary of the Air Force, headed
a commission which reported, in
January, 1913, that 10 groups
were necessary. Mr.. Truman i'm
pounded the extra money, and it
was not spent.
Instead of the 48 groups con-
templated originally in budget es-
Inmates for the current fiscal year,
President Truman has recon-
mended. since Korea, an expan-
sion which will produce some
thing that is calculated as SO
groups, or virtually the original
Finletter program.
So we have stumbled through
three years of unification, gain
ing something here, losing some
thing there, in the way of eff
fciency in the national defense
establishment.
Symbol of Danger
The Korean fighting, bitter and
bloody as it is, is but symbol Of
a larger danger. If we were I'M
there, are we not unpre-
pared everywhere around the vast
perimeter of the giant European
ASiatic land mass where one ag-
gressive dictatorship controls one
third of all the population of the
globe, either in its own name or
through satellites willing to do
its bidding?
We were, we are, and of neces-
Sity must be. Mr.. johnson was in
better form year ago when he
in his annual report the
truiSm that no democracy, but
only a dictatorship, can be ready
for war because free peoples have
their eyes set on peace, and die
tatorships can make secret plans
to strike anywhere in their range,
notice.
If there were no Korea today.
would the American people now
support sending American expedi-
forces to Austria, to
Germany, to Iran, to Burma,
lndo-China, or any of the other
places far across the world where
the next Communist aggression
may come? To ask the question
is to answer it. They would not.
Confronted with that dilemma.
we undertook three steps to
counterfeit the danger.
We sought security not in our
own strength, but in marshaling
the free peoples of the world
against any aggreSsor.
We concentrated our own war
plans on long-range strategic
atom bombing of the aggressor as
the strongest available deterrent
against the big war''-a deterrent
which. as of now, seems to be
operating.
We sought to counterfeit the
previous and continuing tactic
of the Observation-Disclosures and
oropaganda-by economic aid to
hose states threatened by COM
and by our own propa-
,anda.
In pursuance of the first of
hese aims we took the lead in
the United Nations.
lnder whose banner our troops,
ire fighting now in Korea. We
,ried to find a means of accommo-
iat1on in which the two centers
# power which existed after the
n