Evening star., 1953-05-27
Let's Have the Facts

Let's Have the Facts
One hopeful note has been struck in the
confused debate over the proposed $5-billion
cut in the Air Force budget for the 1854 fiscal
year, beginning July /. That note was sounded
when Senator Ferguson said he believes that
when the facts are all known" most of the
Senators will go along with the President on
the cut.
The confusion-and much of it certainly is
honest confusion-grows out of the contention,
attributed to Defense Secretary Wilson, that we
are going to get more defense for less money.
To many Senators. this sounds like pipe
dream. Mr.. Wilson may be right, however, If
he is talking about more defense over the short
pull.
There is no reason to believe that the
budget cut will deprive the Air Force during
the coming fiscal year of planes which it might
otherwise have acquired. It will have all the
money that it can spend on planes, and perhaps
more money than it can spend, in that period.
1t is also quite possible that the new Pentagon
team will be able to speed up production so
that, actually, the Air Force will receive more
planes than had been expected. There are
even those who go one step further and say
that better planning, better organization and
wiser spending policies will produce more real
air power, with 120-wing interim" goal, than
would have been produced under the Truman
program, which had 143 wings as it's goal. In
other words, under this reasoning, the 143-wing
program was both wasteful and unrealistic, and
better management under the new team is
going to give us more strength in being for less
money.
This, however, is an opinion It is not one
Of the facts to which Senator Ferguson pre-
sumably was alluding.
r7Iaa
which ought to be made public, relates to the
ratio Of strength, both present and prospective,
between our Air Force and the Soviet air force.
We may not know in fact just how strong the
Russians are. But we have official estimates
of their current total strength and of their
production rates. These estimates have not
been made public. The understanding is, how
ever, that they show two things: % That the
Russian air force, in terms of modern planes
on hand, is substantially stronger than our own.
(2) That the Russian rate of production is
greater than our own, and that Soviet superb
ority in this respect will be increased instead of
diminished in the future
It is against the background of this second
fact-if 1t is fact-that the proposed cut in
the Air Force budget creates so much concern.
The cut may not mean fewer American planes
next year or even the following year. But if
t1lc CuI means 1eWer OrQerS Will De placed IN
the next year or SO, then the time is bound
to come when the cut will leave the Air Force
with fewer planes than it otherwise would have
had. More efficient planning and production
methods should minimize this loss. But these
same factors, without budget cut, should also
result in even more planes than originally
contemplated.
So the basic facts which should be made
public are whether the Russians are both ahead
of us and pulling away, and, if so, whether
there has been any hopeful development in the
world picture which justiies what Senator
Johnson Of Texas describes as another showdown
or stretchout in the defense program. Our
security will suffer if this debate degenerates
into partisan political scramble. But the
critics of the Air Force cut, while guarding
against this political danger, should neverthe-
less seek by every legitimate means to get
satisfactory answers to these key questions. For
our very existence as Nation may depend, not
on whether we are going to do an improved
defense job, but on whether we are going to
make the effort that must be made if the
Russians really are pulling away from us in
the struggle for air supremacy.