Evening star., 1953-04-29
Mr.. Kyes on Defense

In his address to the United States Cham
Der of Commerce, Deputy Defense Secretary
Roger M. Kyes has spoken sensibly about the
need for efficiency in both the civilian and
military direction of the Nations security effort
But some of the things he has said, including
his criticism of how that effort has been
managed in the past, will not go unchallenged,
and there are those who will want him to
clarity certain of his rather generalized state
ments on what Secretary Charles e. Wilson
proposes to do in the future.
AS far as his criticism is concerned, Mr..
Kyes has stated sound principle in declaring
that our military establishment must end the
practice of overlooking itself with goods and
equipment without regard to economic con-
sequences and that peacetime neglect Of our
armed strength must never be allowed to
happen again. However, although right in
saying that these things have cost our country
a great DEAL he should have been more explicit
in hitting at unnamed generals and defense
officials for the waste of money" exaggerated
figures" fantastic paper targets" and poor
planning and inefficient execution" of the
program of rearmament and partial mo-
bilization put into effect after the outbreak of
the Korean war in June of 1850.
In support of his structures, Mr. Kyes has
cited one post-Korean mobilization plan that
would have cost $3.50 billion, but he has not
explained that it was drawn up on tentative
basis (and later rejected along with several
other plans) to estimate the requirements Of a
possible all-out armed conflict lasting three
years. It is easy today to describe such a pro-
gram as fantastic paper target" but when
the Communists first struck across the S8th
Parallel, there was a very real fear that the
world was drifting fast toward total war on a
global scale. Accordingly, when weighed against
considerations of this sort, Mr. Kyes' criticism
is unfair, even though the Nations rearmament
effort since 1850 unquestionably has suffered
from considerable waste and ineficiency.
Actually, despite the waste and inef11ciency
(have they ever been avoided in any big mobili-
zation program?), Mr.. Kyes himself has
acknowledged that our rearmament effort has
been administered effectively enough to insure
that peak production will be reached on time
as scheduled and planned. That is why the
Defense Department. now that the leveling-of
period is in sight, is preparing to make changes
in policy. Some of these changes should be
viewed with misgivings. For example, one of
them contemplates drastic cutback in the
research and development activities of our
military establishment-activities that are in
dispensable to the development of new weapons
Another impending change has to do with the
standby maintenance OF an adequate produc-
tive base for war purposes.
The latter change is to involve the shut
down of a certain number of high-cost arms
plants. Mr. Kyes has merely touched upon the
subject but he has said enough to suggest
that the present broad mobilization base is to
be narrowed The degree of narrowing, how
ever, remains to be specified Many people-in
and out of Congress-will be looking for clari-
fication on this point They will want to be
assured that the Nations capacity for military
production will still be kept sufficiently ready
and decentralized to do what it will have to
do if the day ever comes-as it can-when
fantastic paper targets" could be terribly real
things in terms of our survival as free people.