Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1951-10-18

afford to put it In this years bud
get. Put that down to the bottom
(. The force requirements will
be squeezed out by squeezing out
the extra pairs of pants and some
Of that equipment. Mr.. Forrestal
entered caution against squeez-
ing too much on equipment. but
Gen. Bradley thought it could be
done: Maybe Louie (Denfeld) can
get along without a better des-
troyer and I can get along with
out better gun. There are things
like that which I think we can
squeeze out of that $23.6 billion
figure and still have an 800, 900
man Army.
Offensive From Britain.
Mr.. -Forrestal challenged them
to clarity their thought in an
other way: if, he suggested. the
plan was based simply on an air
offensive from Britain, would the
Army and Navy require the
strengths they were askingP The
discussion became somewhat in
volved. Gen. Bradley objected
that to plan only for an air Of
fensive was to put all your eggs
in one basket" and the argument
depressed into other considera-
tions. But Gen. Gruenther brought
them back to the main point by
observing that the simple air Of
fensive from Britain had never
"for one moment" been regarded
"as an acceptable concept; it
had merely been taken as a Every
minimum" in the effort to meet
the SIS billion ceiling.
Here was the point Mr.. For
restal wished to drive home. He
had raised the matter simply to
bring out the absurdity" to which
the presidential ceiling led. when
the problem was stated, as he
wanted the Joint Chiefs to state
it, in functional terms. On the
SIS billion limit they could Ger
tainly' mount an air offensive
from Britain, but that was all
they could do, and in that case all
the rest Of the military estab-
lishment became useless. The
result was an obvious absurdity-
unless. as Gen. Gruenther added,
you are willing to gamble on that
(the air offensive)-that it will
bring the end Of the war"
Mr.. Forrestal tried to empha-
size the demonstration: IT want
to say to you men also that I am
going to try to be in this as much
as I can myself, so I would ap-
preciate attending any (JCS)
meetings.
I am not there as a spy. My
job is going to have to be to con-
vince the President and his sue
cessor. If there is one, that we
have taken every drop of water
out of this thing that we could
find-we can't catch it all-but
have got to be able to say that
we have gone into this thing from
the ground up and prefer to go
at it from the top down. This
Is not any Gestapo to try to pro-
duce evidence. :. We are talking
about three things: Maximum
(the McNarney $23.6 billion con-
cept: minimum-$15 billion: in
termediate one, which is what !
want really to get to ceiling"
Forrestal's Aim Cited.
Mr.. Forrestal throughout tried
to keep them firmly on the rails of
concrete proposals involving func-
tional military results. What
want is what We get out of the SIS
billion, and what I want these men
to do is to agree what the distri-
button would be on the SIS billion.
They failed to do that. want to
get what the results will be from
the SIS billions of appropriations.
Second thing Is the intermediate
field which anables us to have a
healthy response to Russia"
Ultimately the Joint Chiefs were
to see the light. at least the ex-
tent Of putting their unanimous
agreement behind an "intermedi-
ate" budget figure. They even cut
it to only $3.50 billion. Even Gen.
Marshall came round; and when,
after the election, Mr.. Forrestal
laid his intermediate budget be-
for the President. he was able to
add that the Secretary of State
him to say that the
contemplated forces would be
most helpful in the period of
difficult international negotiations
ahead. But the President was I'M
after all. The SIS billion
ceiling stood. and with it the
paralyzing weakness it imposed.
down to the outbreak of the Ko-
rean war.
Copyright. 1851. New York Herald
Tribune, Inc.D
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