PREFATORY NOTE

This Bulletin deals with "economic mobilization," which includes in-
dustrial mobilization. The great peripheral issues touching the subject
of economic mobilization - such as atomic energy, foreign aid, veterans'
benefits and the military establishment itself, all of very great impor-
tance and cost, are not here considered. An exception is the case of
the aircraft program, where the controversy over size develops into a
"lead time-flow time" production problem (five or six years from design
to mass production) more nearly the concern of present economic mobili-
zation planning than other aspects of military mobilization.

This Bulletin seeks to appraise only those elements of a prepared-
ness program which are primarily civilian and economic in character -
even though these elements may be handled concurrently by joint efforts
of civilian and military authorities.

Appendices* cover (1) the history of mobilization planning in World
War I and through peace planning up to Pearl Harbor to show previous ex-
perience and its lessons on peacetime planning. Later World War II ex-
perience is drawn upon in the body of this study and given its legal back-
ground in a second section of the Appendices (II) which is devoted to
the analysis of previous war mobilization legislation and to executive
orders and some court decisions. A third section (III) develops in
greater detail the critical problem of manpower, because of its probably
more crucial bearing on any future war than the more familiar problems of
production facilities and allocation of other resources. It is hoped
that with the availability of the Appendices, the necessarily brief and
analytical treatment of the main study will be more useful, both to Mem-
bers of Congress and to the public.

A previous Legislative Reference Service Bulletin No. 75 dealt with
Planning National Defense, 1950 to 1970. New and critical features of
national strategic problems have emerged in the few months since the end
of 1949, when that Bulletin was written. The present Bulletin fills the
need for a special assessment of the relation of national security to the
present status and future problems of mobilization planning.

This Bulletin excludes detailed treatment for two reasons. First,
the problems presented by a broad area like civilian defense, for example,
are sufficiently different in character and responsibilities from those
of economic mobilization to require a separate treatment in terms of de-
tail. In this broad range of problems related directly to mobilization
planning only manpower problems have been developed (Appendix III), as a
typical case study of one of the major mobilization problems. The second
reason for treating only in outline the argument pro and con of great

* These are published separately, and are available on request.

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policy issues without attempting to develop the conflicting contents of
the policy problems involved in rationing, fiscal measures and similar
problems is the sheer limitations of scope and space. The assumption of
this Bulletin is that Congress and the public want to know the nature of
the big policy problems which they are now called on to decide, and not
the details of administration or the alternative policies of wartime
measures, which at the planning stage are the concern of the Industrial
College of the Armed Forces, and the Munitions Board, as well as the Na-
tional Security Resources Board.

This Bulletin is the work of William Y. Elliott, of Harvard Uni-
versity, Consultant in Industrial Mobilization of the Legislative Refer-
ence Service, with checking as to contents by the governmental agencies
concerned. The Appendices have been prepared, as is indicated, under
the direction of Mr. Elliott, by Thomas D. Perry, of the American Law
Section of the Legislative Reference Service, and by Howard K. Hyde,
Consultant, as indicated in Appendices I, II and III. The other Appen-
dices are official documents reprinted because of their particular rel-
evance to this study.

Ernest S. Griffith
Director
Legislative Reference Service

["TABLE OF CONTENTS", "Page", "<table><tr><td>Prefatory Note</td><td>1</td></tr></table>", "CHAPTER", "I. INTRODUCTION: NATURE AND SCOPE OF MOBILIZATION PLANNING. . . 1", "II. CONTROVERSIAL CONCEPTS ABOUT MOBILIZATION PLANNING. . . . . . 19", "a. Controversial assumptions about the Timing and Nature of Another War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

["TABLE OF CONTENTS - 2", "Page", "CHAPTER", "III. CONTROVERSIAL ORGANIZATIONAL PATTERNS. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

["TABLE OF CONTENTS - 3", "Page", "CHAPTER", "IV. STAND-BY LEGISLATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

["TABLE OF CONTENTS - 4", "Page", "CHAPTER", "VI. ACTUAL DEFENSE MEASURES INVOLVING THE APPROPRIATIONS", "OF PUBLIC FUNDS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

["TABLE OF CONTENTS - 5", "Page", "CHAPTER", "VI. (Cont'd.)", "g. The Stockpile Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

CHAPTER I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this Bulletin is to sharpen the major controversial issues before Congress in war mobilization planning, with emphasis on economic mobilization; to set forth the arguments pro and con; and to present the current status of each. It is hoped that both Congress and the American people may get a better understanding of the policies involved by bringing them all together and showing how they are related.

Mobilization planning on the scale currently undertaken is an entirely new endeavor in American democracy. The newness of this venture, the reasons for it, its potential effects upon Government and the economy all need to be made clear.

Mobilization planning in its widest sense is the welding together of broad political, military, economic and psychological factors, both nationally and internationally, based on assumptions as to the most probable time and nature of future war.

In its narrowest sense, it is simply a technical service comparable to the technical service of logistics planning. As a merely technical service it depends on strategic, budgetary, and political assumptions made by other agencies and brought together by the President. The technical side of mobilization planning is limited to spelling out the economic, organizational, and logistical effects of the overall plan with which it is furnished. It is not, in the telling phrase used by General Eisenhower to describe his duties in the military staff work, "the architect." Technical planning is "the carpenter." The national strategy includes far more than military strategy. It includes moral strength, physical strength, industrial strength and military strength. All of these affect any programs which are undertaken toward the accomplishment of national policy objectives.

The economic key to our national strategy is officially stated in the President's Budget Message for 1951 - an expanding economy, a growing gross national product, or stated still differently, the continued growth of our country in population, in worker productivity, in employment, in investment levels, and in civilian consumption goods. But this economic context and budgetary policy of course depend on the national estimate of security factors, including the dangers to our very existence as a free nation in a free world.

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Basic Assumptions on Which
Planning for Economic Mobilization Must Rest
(As Illustrated by Typical Statements)

Six sets of quotations may serve to set out the major economic mo-
bilization problems. They are not universally accepted, but their accep-
tance or non-acceptance will largely be the measure of a man's sense of
the nature of the problems involved. They revolve, first of all, around
the nature of military strategy and readiness, as the key to mobilization
planning; and, in the second place, the questionable adequacy of present
defense planning and preparation confronted by the present risks of war
(quotations I and II). The third set of problems deals with the nature
of the organization for planning and its adequacy in terms of present
readiness (quotations III and IV). The fourth group of problems relates
to economic mobilization planning as it affects a free economy and as it
is compatible with an expanding economy at a high rate of activity (quo-
tations V and VI):

I. "What we are able or not able to do within the first sixty days of another war will be decisive in its determination of our ability to carry the war to a successful conclusion." ¹/

II. "When even one major power [Russia], surreptitiously or flagrantly, builds and maintains a military machine beyond the recognized needs of reasonable security, a war of aggression is a constant threat to peaceful nations. ...America has already disarmed to the extent - in some directions even beyond the extent - that I, with deep concern for her present safety, could possibly advise, until we have certain knowledge that all nations, in concerted action, are doing likewise." ²/

III. "The NSRB is not preparing itself to run a wartime econ-
omy. The NSRB is a planning and advisory agency." ³/

IV. "It is time we stopped treating the task of mobilizing America as a job for volunteer firemen. There should be a permanent mobilization agency, composed of civilians, capable of swift expansion in any war emergency." ⁴/

1/ Dwight D. Eisenhower, Final Report of the Chief of Staff, United States Army, to the Secretary of the Army, February 7, 1948, p. 17.

2/ President Dwight D. Eisenhower of Columbia University, Gabriel Silver Lecture on Peace, March 23, 1950, in New York. (See New York Times, March 24, 1950, for text of address.)

3/ National Security Resources Board Document 116, "The NSRB and National Security Resources Planning," July 20, 1949.

4/ Bernard M. Baruch, "To Prevent War," *Readers Digest*, February 1950.

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V. "Now the new requirements of national security threaten our freedom. A major security program requires big government and means greater interference in the lives of us all. The danger is likely to be with us a long time. We must, therefore, have a security program that is continuously in balance, both internally and with other government programs. It must be efficiently administered and must avoid waste in the use of limited national resources. We must maintain our dynamic free economy and we must ensure the flow of information to the public necessary to the operation of democratic government." 1/

VI. "The stabilization of our economy at a high and progressive rate of activity is in essential harmony with our security needs." 2/

## Strategic Assumptions That Control Mobilization Planning

The nature of any planning for war, including economic mobilization planning, necessarily depends upon the basic assumptions as to the nature of future war, its extent, its intensity and the probability of its outbreak. A previous Legislative Reference Service Bulletin (Planning National Defense, 1950-1970, by S. Arthur Devan) has considered these problems and set the alternatives that are under immediate consideration. It seems to be a matter of general agreement that any struggle with a Communist-controlled Russia and its allies (satellites) would be of a character even more formidable than the war effort through which this nation has recently passed, particularly in view of the new weapons brought into play, the possibilities of surprise, of extensive and perhaps crippling damage through Fifth Column sabotage, and the other factors involved in an all-out struggle with a system whose immediate military striking power is growing at a more rapid rate than that of the United States. Published figures on the Russian air strength and projected rate of growth may be found in *Life* for February 27, 1950, and in Hanson Baldwin,

1/ *National Security and our Individual Freedom*, A Statement on National Policy by the Research and Policy Committee of the Committee for Economic Development, December 1949, pp. 27-28.

2/ Bernard Brodie, "National Security Policy and Economic Stability," Yale Institute of International Studies, Memorandum No. 33, January 2, 1950.

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Foreign Affairs, April 1950, "Strategy for Two Atomic Worlds." 1/

On the other side, however, must be entered the fact that, as of
today, if the United States survived the outset of a future war without
crippling damage to its industrial potential, it could bring to bear in
a period of two years an overwhelming mobilization of offensive weapons,
based upon a steel production that is from three to four times that con-
trolled by Russia, a coal production at least double that of Russia, and
petroleum production with a complementary refining capacity from nine to
ten times that of Russia. These indices may serve as a measure of present
potentialities if full economic mobilization of the United States could
be efficiently carried out without crippling damage. 2/ Offsetting this
fact, however, is the possibility that Russia might overrun and utilize
the resources of Western Europe and neutralize or enslave England, which
would bring productive possibilities much more nearly into balance; and
that in the initial stages, Russian striking power, with the probable
exception of atomic weapons, would be more immediately usable, certainly
overwhelmingly greater in ground forces than those of the Atlantic Pact
countries. Possibly offsetting this great Russian strength in land
forces is the present superiority of the United States in long-range
bombers, in naval control of the seas (query: effectiveness against
Snorkel submarines?), and in the stockpile of atomic weapons. The strat-
egy of the United States [appears], from the disclosures of the Chiefs
of Staffs and General Bradley in last year's congressional hearing on the
defense merger, still to rest on the deterrent effect on Russian aggres-
sion of maintaining a superior long-range striking force of bombers, plus

1/ Mr. Baldwin speaks of the three Long Range Air Armies created by the U.S.S.R. "independent of the regular Soviet air force command... She is estimated to possess from 100 to 250 B-29 type aircraft and others are being manufactured." The figures for total military aircraft production on an annual basis already far outstrip our own as given in the Life article.

Walter Millis, in "Our Defense Program, Master Plan or Makeshift,"
(Yale Review, March 1950) makes the complaint that we are never fur-
nished as a public with the one side of the equation which would per-
mit us to judge to what our own program must be compared for its
relative adequacy:

"Today one-half the equation is missing from the outset. The
strength of the Soviet Union - now the only military power we need
consider - is one of the most closely-guarded of international secrets.
American opinion has absolutely no valid standard against which to
measure the adequacy of American preparations, and the hints or guesses
as to Russian strength occasionally dropped by American intelligence
sources are anything but reliable guides -"

2/ Whether or for how long the United States retains this measure of in-
dustrial superiority naturally depends in part upon the rate of rela-
tive growth of Soviet facilities; and on how much and how soon the in-
dustrial potential of the United States can be brought to bear to
meet a surprise attack.

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superiority in atomic weapons.¹/ The new factors introduced by the prospects of the so-called H-bomb and by the now established serious leaks of top secret information of atomic weapons through the Russian spy Fuchs in England are not capable of assessment without information which is not available. But they are admittedly serious and enhance the gravity of the threat, as may be judged by the recent announcement by the President of an immediate directive to proceed with the manufacture of the H-bomb, in addition to other atomic weapons.

## Risk Assumptions That Govern Planning Attitudes

The major issues affecting the nature and organization of planning for economic mobilization seem, therefore, on the basis of the foregoing analysis of strategic concepts, to rest on assumptions primarily as to the degree of risk of an outbreak of a war with Russia in the relatively immediate future; and on the degree of insurance which it is necessary to undertake against such a risk. The reasons which underlie basic assumptions as to the improbability of such an outbreak of war have been well stated in an authoritative article by George F. Kennan, Counselor of the Department of State, in the *Readers Digest* of March 1950, entitled, "Is War with Russia Inevitable?" On the other hand, a considered view of the entire military position of the United States would have to include, as Mr. Kennan states in this article, not only the reasons for believing that the Kremlin does not desire immediate war, but the possibility that such a war *might* break out in any one of the several areas of the world where American troops are in direct contact with highly explosive situations, such as in Berlin and Vienna, and the possibility that clashes in other areas which were not intended by the Kremlin to develop into war might produce such a result through a series of perhaps unintended events. There is also the fact that the Kremlin's policies are necessarily completely wrapped in secrecy and that even the best assessment of the best available intelligence might conceivably be misled as to the intentions of the Politburo. The possibility of surprise attack, while the Atlantic Pact ground forces in Europe, much less in the Near East or Asia, were relatively inadequate to stem the number of Russian divisions that could be brought into play, is an eventuality against which a sector of opinion feels that a greater retaliatory strength would be the best preventive precaution. Still another sector of opinion emphasizes greater defensive strength in Europe. Though strength at home and increased military strength for Europe through the Military Aid Program are not necessarily mutually exclusive, one or the other is likely to be emphasized for budgetary or other reasons.

1/ Mr. Hanson W. Baldwin challenges this strategy as outmoded by Russia's development of atomic weapons and by the Atlantic Pact: "In the years of grace now ended, the atomic bomb and the long-range bomber became a kind of Maginot Line in the American mind." He suggests that we might never dare use them, and that therefore greater tactical air strength,

(continued on page 6)

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These enigmas must underlie the whole issue of prospects for war or
for peace. It is entirely possible that the strategy of Moscow may be
only one of continued pressure and reliance upon the internal deteriora-
tion and disintegration of the systems which oppose its aggressive ex-
pansion. It seems relatively well established, however, that Moscow's
intentions are in line with the whole development of Marxist-Leninist-
Stalinist policy, which implies the ultimate destruction of capitalist
and all non-Communist systems uncontrolled by Moscow, by whatever methods
are necessary. 1/ There are several countries in Europe which have felt
the aggressive iron heel of the Red Army upon their necks before they
went behind the Iron Curtain. There was no waiting for democracy to
crumble internally in Finland, and no chance for whole nations to escape
Moscow's control, once overrun by the Russian forces, in Latvia, Lithu-
ania, and Estonia, or, for that matter, in any part of Eastern Europe.
Only Tito won free (at least temporarily)--because he kept the Red Army
out of Yugoslavia. The use of the Red Army and of direct aggression of
every type available cannot, on the record or just as a matter of pru-
dence, be ruled out. What degree of probability exists of a direct
aggression when Russian armaments, now expanding at a rate many times
greater than our own, in war planes, submarines, and tanks, also control
a sufficient number of atomic or other weapons of mass destruction to
make surprise attack possible? What method of discouraging such an
attack or otherwise preventing it offers the best probable security for
the United States?

The Main (Differing) Approaches
---
To Mobilization Planning: Alternative Assumptions

Economic mobilization planning, according to the preceding analysis, directly depends in its nature, extent, intensity and timing upon assumptions as to the gravity of the risk of war, its immediacy or probability

(continued from page 5) more carriers, more and better tanks, and more armed forces (allied and U.S.) become necessary.

Other critics (see joint letter ['A Communication--Weaknesses in Atom Bombing Strategy'] of professors of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the *Washington Post*, May 5th, p. 29) emphasize the passing of atomic superiority in the reasonably near future and the necessity also of relying on better balance of military factors.

In the Supplement of the Report of the House Committee on Armed Serv-
ices on "Unification and Strategy" (1949) attention is called also (pages
21-22) to the possible loss of future peace through indiscriminate stra-
tegic bombing and to the relation of strategic bombing to war strategy
generally.

1/ See "Strategy and Tactics of World Communism," House Document No. 619, 80th Congress. 2d Session; James Burnham, *The Coming Defeat of Communism*, New York, John Day Co., 1950.

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Furthermore, if the United States should suffer a truly crippling blow, its superiority in long-run economic potential might be destroyed through lack of readiness at the outset of war. On the other hand, it is clear that to mobilize the full potentiality of the United States for war as of a given date on the assumption of the inevitability of war might tend to provoke war through what appeared to be an obvious announcement of intention. In any case, it would cost the economy at the present time something approaching the economic expenditure of wartime, and would be a step taken only as a measure of desperation. Economic mobilization planning, therefore, is an attempt to find a balance between the amount of readiness which fits into the strategic analysis of risk and the overall budgetary policy, and which will also protect and develop the possibility of as rapid deployment of war potential as the analysis of the present situation demands.

The choice of plans (both for timing and present organization) of economic mobilization depends on alternative assumptions of risk and timing. This choice is a matter for high political consideration and policy determination, in which Congress and the nation have a deep interest and concern. The choice of alternatives presents the gravest difficulty because assessment of Russian motives and plans underlie each assumption. The cost of a long sustained effort in a "Cold War" of indefinite duration has to be weighed on the basis of this choice. But it must also be weighed in terms both of the ability and of the willingness of the people of the United States to bear the economic burden which it may impose. These alternatives (apart from the general opposition to military measures of convinced pacifists, 1/ ) seem to rest on four main alternative assumptions, of which only the first three are relevant to the adequacy of present planning and readiness for economic war mobilization:

Assumption (A):

Since Moscow prefers the triumph of communism without direct military aggression, war is not inevitable. It is possible but not probable. A long "Cold War" is the prospect that we must face without panic and without sacrifices that will exhaust us through too heavy a tax burden or change our free economy. We are now in a period of peacetime preparation and of safe planning over many years, with little danger of active war.

Such an assumption would permit leisurely and relatively less expensive defense measures, through plans to be applied over a period of mobilization after any actual declaration of war. In the meantime,

1/ No argument is made here on the genuinely pacifist case, since if it is sincerely and coherently stated and acted upon, it would involve neither war mobilization nor any other reliance upon military force.

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war preparation should be geared primarily to a gradual lowering of taxes as a means of expanding our economy.

### Summary view of Assumption (A):

_The strength of our free economy is the best defense against commu-nism, at home and abroad._

### Assumption (B):

The present period is one of immediate and critical emergency, in which the risk of the outbreak of all-out war, involving the issue of our national survival itself, the use of weapons of surprise mass destruction, and/or successful and crippling sabotage, make immediate all-out efforts necessary. "War tomorrow," so to speak, is a real risk, and a grave risk - grave enough to dictate the need for a blueprint of all-out defense measures, enactment of stand-by and some emergency legislation and a skeleton organization for the actual operation of industrial mobilization, and not just the creation of civilian planning agencies. How soon should complete war plans be ready? On this view, _now_. Stand-by legislation should be enacted immediately. Increased immediate procurement especially of planes, and educational orders for the main arms types are _Must_ measures for "action now." It should be emphasized that Assumption (B) does not involve all-out and immediate preparation for the outbreak of war, but an increase in all directions, including readiness measures and the tempo of mobilization planning, of measures of preparedness. 1/

### Summary view of Assumption (B):

_We need a bigger insurance policy, either to prevent war or to face it successfully if it comes. That means getting ready now._

### Assumption (C):

An intermediate position between these extremes [(A) and (B)] is adequate to meet the degree of present danger. It is enough to counter present risk by:

(1) Planning for mobilization by well-matured (more than one more year) "problems and methods" studies by the civilian agency (National Security Resources Board).

(2) Building up stockpiles of strategic and critical materials on a long-range program, but with some limited acceleration for the most important items, through the Munitions Board and the Bureau of Federal Supply.

(3) Limited procurement and educational orders placed through the Munitions Board, along with working out of types of controls that _could_ be immediately set up on the outbreak of war, given a good prospect _then_ for swift passage of necessary powers by Congress.

1/ For a fuller development of Assumption (B) see pages 11-12.

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(4) **Preparation** but not **passage** of necessary legislation for war powers; plus supplementary executive orders ready for creation of a new war production agency and collateral control agencies. Present training should be restricted to N.S.R.B. and Munitions Board staffs, and selected parts of old line agencies.

(5) Review by Congress through appropriate committees of the proposed plans to familiarize legislators with the problems, but not to require immediate enactment of new legislation, even of a "stand-by" type.

It will be seen that under (C) above, all of the sections through (5) describe what appears to be present executive policy, including the existing state of planning and preparation for economic war mobilization. 1/

**Summary view of Assumption (C):**

Without further increases in the military budget and with an expanding economy of the "Fair Deal" type, it is enough to plan effectively against the possibility but not the probability of war, with small risk for several years.

**Assumption (D):** May be called Peace Through Friendly Gestures to Russia:

The way to peace with Russia on this view is rather to disarm and not to assume an "aggressive" posture through further armaments or by showing any distrust of Soviet objectives and motives. Moscow's policy, according to the "friendship" school, is at worst only the continuation of traditional Russian imperialism, outlined by the will of Peter the Great - warm water ports on the Atlantic, Pacific and the Mediterranean, and control of Turkey and the adjacent Middle East. The closer friends of Russia accept the Politburo's protestations at face value, and often echo them: "Russia is frightened of capitalist encirclement. Remove the fear and they will relax." If a Russian-controlled Germany, Turkey, China, and even other countries are necessary to dispel that fear, why not pay the price? According to these apologists for Moscow's methods and interpreters of the Kremlin's "limited" objectives, our national policy has only to return to friendship, conciliation, and concessions to Stalin to get peace: Armaments and planning are only provocative to Russian fears. This school naturally prefers the word "friendly attitude" to "appeasement."

No argument is made of the case for or against relying on "friendly" agreements with Russia as the basis for no large-scale planning or preparation for war mobilization. The most consistent statement of this view was completely overwhelmed in the last national election. Should fear

1/ The President has asked for Selective Service on a stand-by basis. The extension of the Selective Service system for three years has been passed by the Senate, to retain the registration machinery for 3,745 local draft boards. The House bill provided for an extension of two years. The Senate bill permits the finding by the President of public necessity before induction into the Armed Forces if Congress were not in session; whereas the House bill requires the finding of a national emergency by Congress.

- 10 -

lend it enough adherents to win future power, most of the problems which are hereafter considered (dealing with effective war mobilization) would conceivably disappear, along with the concern over the possibility of an aggressive Russian attitude that did not depend on our own "good will" in the United States. Mobilization planning would become irrelevant, and would probably be branded as "war-mongering."

**Assumption (E):** May be called All-Out Immediate Mobilization on a Full War Basis:

This assumption, which would call for substantially the same preparation as would be necessary to meet an immediate war, either defensive or preventive, has no discernable following in public opinion so far as that can be detected on the basis of substantial public utterance or political followings. It is an extreme position which would involve the immediate declaration of a war emergency, putting into effect the entire machinery of wartime mobilization and the expenditure of at least one hundred billion dollars annually, if it were to be made effective. Short of an assessment of Intelligence that would indicate the irrevocable and proximate intention of Russia to attack this country, or a conviction that preventive war would achieve less drastic destruction than waiting for a war that is conceived of as inevitable, this assumption has no basis in logic and very little if any in public support. It may be dismissed as a present issue of public policy, since its following is even smaller than that of Assumption (D).

**Summary of the Meaning of Assumptions (A), (B), (C), (D), and (E)**

Since these assumptions seem to underlie the main different attitudes toward mobilization planning which will be subsequently developed, it will be useful to summarize their meaning in a form that is easy to remember, even though it is inadequate without the previous explanation. They will be referred to (as letter) constantly throughout the study.

Let us call **Assumption (A)** "All-out for Free Enterprise as the Best Defense against World Communism in a Period of a Long 'Cold War' Which Has Small Chance of Turning 'Hot.'"

**Assumption (B)**, which one is tempted to call "B for Baruch," however, has a broader range, and could profitably be called "Be Ready for Probable Early Aggression by Russia, both in Planning and in Preparation, as at once the Best Deterrent and the Best Safeguard - Just in Case."

**Assumption (C)** might be called "Compromise between All-out Extremes, in Favor of Relative Military Preparation, a Balanced Budget as an Objective, a Thorough and Longer Range Planning for 'Cold War' that **Might** Get

- 10a -

'Hot,' with an Expanding Economy (Fair Deal Model), Devoted to Increased Welfare at Home and Economic Productivity Abroad."

**Assumption (D):** "Peace through Friendly Gestures and Overtures to Moscow - Either with no Armaments or Independent of Further Armaments." (Not further dealt with) This assumption, which would obviate the need for further mobilization planning, has at present small hold on American opinion. Both major parties and most independent thinkers interpret Russian objectives and behavior under the Kremlin's direction differently. Assumption (D) would make the rest of this study irrelevant, as it would also make irrelevant any concern with matters other than the acceptability of our policy to Moscow as "non-aggression" - in other words, as fitting in with Moscow's aims. It is therefore dropped from this discussion.

**Assumption (E):** All-out Immediate Mobilization on Wartime Basis." This assumption, as is indicated above, would devote the entire emphasis of the economy to war measures at once. It is dismissed as having no support in either public opinion or public policy, in the light of the present assessment of Russian intentions under what are presumably the best available interpretations of Intelligence estimates.

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Relation of Present Policies for Mobilization
Planning to These Alternative Assumptions (A), (B), and (C)

Manifestly, several factors in addition to timing or judgment as to
the phase of emergency in terms of national danger may enter into the
determination of governmental policy on mobilization planning. The de-
gree of preparation must in any case be controlled also by a considera-
tion of what the economy can bear today and can continue to bear during
a "Cold War" of uncertain and perhaps indefinite duration. Present gov-
ernmental attitude may be based on an estimate of what public support
will be and what Congress will legislate, or what the President and his
party advisers are prepared politically to risk in the "off year" of con-
gressional elections. Such political calculation seems to be natural
and necessary in democratic processes. Any decision is ultimately "po-
litical" in this sense. It depends on what policy the political leader-
ship of the nation adopts with a view to national safety but also with
a view to the limits of its conception of public support.

The present stage of preparation for industrial mobilization has
seen several civilian chairmen pass through a short tour of appointment
in the Army-Navy Munitions Board, and over a year of operations of the
National Security Resources Board under the stewardship of an acting
chairman from the Executive Office of the President - it should be noted,
though, after the proposed Presidential appointee failed to be confirmed
by the Senate. It does not indicate that the present policy is based on
any such estimate of present grave risk as is implied in alternative (B)
above. A period of a year, perhaps more, in which it is reasonably safe
to plan and test plans must be assumed. Nor are expenditures called for
on a basis of grave emergency and progressive mobilization on present
plans.

On the other hand, present plans are clearly not so complacent in
their estimate of risk; nor do they view the right way to economic health
in the same light as the exponents of alternative (A) above. The Admin-
istration, although it has progressively reduced the total military
budget, and with it that part devoted to preparations for industrial war
mobilization, including stockpiling, nevertheless has strongly resisted
cuts in the defense budget merely for the sake of getting back to a much
lower standard of tax "normalcy." In fact, a retention of about the
present total tax burden is its present fiscal policy.

The present policy of limited mobilization planning and preparedness
is therefore criticized in some quarters (A) as leading to a too great
burden through taxes on business or investors and thus handicapping the
total economy and weakening it for the long-range struggle to outlast
communism by economic strength. An extreme position of opposition to a
heavy military budget claims the whole defense program as well as aid to
other non-Communist countries is based on a "war scare." This criticism
is leveled generally at total defense expenditure. It rarely comes from
business circles, at least so far as it is aimed at expenditures for in-
dustrial mobilization. However, a more frequent criticism is made

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against government planning which would involve drastic controls and heavy
procurement programs that affect private business. These take the form
of attacks on the Munitions Board and of the N.S.R.B. as involving "regi-
mentation" and stifling a free economy. 1/.

On the other side (B) criticism is directed at the present phasing
of planning for economic mobilization as lacking in a realistic sense of
the danger of sudden, crippling and maybe near-future attack by Russia on
this country. If present strategy were based on the idea of several
years' lead, at least in the highly important A and H-bombs (plutonium
and so-called Hydrogen bombs), over Moscow's admittedly dangerous mili-
tary establishment, recent revelations in the Fuchs case in Britain, the
certainty of an atomic explosion in Russia, and the growing tension and
stepped-up tempo of the Cold War, including Russia's new hold on China -
all this (on the (B) view) would require immediate revision of the nec-
essary costs as well as our time table of defense. It has never been
sure, according to this analysis, that the Politburo, supported by its
military advisers, may not grow tired of waiting for Europe to drop into
its lap, and may decide to take by force what the present ground forces
of the Atlantic Pact countries could hardly deny to Russia's nearly two
hundred available divisions. Or it may act to prevent the Atlantic Pact
forces from attaining an effective deterrent level of strength. Then
not only would our foreign aid programs be lost; they would actually
build up Russia's war strength against the United States. Such a success
for Moscow would complete the overbalance of the world against us by a
practical stranglehold on the manpower, techniques and industrial and
other resources of the Eurasian Continents. We would certainly "be in
for it" - with or without atomic or bacteriological or other attack di-
rectly on us. Therefore, says this reasoning, let us in the name of our
children's future, as well as our own, not depend on two years to plan
and two more years to mobilize for retaliation. Billions spent now may
save not only hundreds of billions more for war, but survival as a free
nation.

1/ See e.g., "National Security and Our Individual Freedom, A Statement on National Policy, by the Research and Policy Committee of the Committee for Economic Development," Fred Lazarus Chairman. (December 1949).

This trenchant statement will be quoted subsequently at greater
length. Here only one main assumption needs to be set forth: "The
fear of war may dominate our lives for a generation. The imminent
threat of war will rise and fall; we may face alternating periods of
optimism and pessimism, but the threat may last for decades. We must
assume that there is little prospect of genuine peace in the near
future. Large-scale measures for national security seem necessary
for years to come."

The C.E.D. report does not directly oppose more defense expendi-
tures or greater readiness measures. Its main challenge is to mili-
tary domination of war mobilization measures, to heavier taxes and to
overly restrictive controls. But its implications, though less ex-
treme, are generally in line with Assumption (A).

- 13 -

Generally speaking, Assumption (B) would require larger expenditures and more immediate steps to get on a "ready" footing. If such measures deterred Russian aggression, they would be cheap at larger present sacrifices. If they failed, they would at least permit us to enter such a war with an advanced state of preparation for immediate industrial mobilization, which might save hundreds of billions in war costs, and might mean the difference between national disaster or survival.

The conclusion seems inescapable that the main controversies over the nature, extent and timing of economic mobilization programs, either of policy or management, which interest several committees of Congress in addition to those on Armed Services and Appropriations, all center on *how great the risk of war with Russia may be and/or when?* The answer is certainly not simple. It seems not to be even reasonably certain. It depends on the adequacy not only of very special and difficult secret intelligence but the political interpretation and evaluation of that intelligence. How much weight should be given to Communist dogma on the inevitability of struggle with the West? What sort of struggle? If that struggle is not to be military, what is the purpose of a pace of armament in Russia not far below that of war years in planes, and why the extreme emphasis of war industries and war production in Moscow's five-year plan - instead of an emphasis on desperately needed consumers' goods - for many years to come? What ratio of preparedness should we attempt and what can we stand as an investment in immediate striking force? How is this to be balanced with a strong economic system and aid to allies growing in strength, coherence of purpose to resist communism, and in the will to fight?

These may seem to be questions of military and political strategy that bear little immediate relation to the questions that Congress may wish to raise about the progress of economic war mobilization planning and preparation under existing legislation. They have, however, demonstrable and direct bearing on present policies and performance as set forth in specific problems considered in the body of this analysis; and they bear also on the possible need for amendments or for new legislative authority, certainly on appropriations under either old or new legislation. For the present balance between extreme positions struck by the Federal Government in its Executive Branch manifestly rests on certain assumptions as to the timing, the magnitude, and the gravity of the risk of war, and the best method of avoiding it if possible, and winning it if necessary. It is not the function of this study to do more than try to state the meaning and significance of the main alternative assumptions on which either policy seems to rest, or which are advanced by substantial bodies of opinion which are critical of present policy.

Congressional action and appropriations must also be based on the implications of these alternative assumptions as to the timing of Economic Mobilization planning. A policy based on the wrong assumptions could have consequences whose gravity needs no further emphasis.

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Relation of Mobilization Planning
to Fiscal and Economic Policy

As has been pointed out, even within the timing and probability of
war assumptions, differing views as to fiscal and economic policy also
dictate a choice of alternatives. Let us consider, as an example, the
basic policy of the Administration on budgetary policy as outlined in
the President's Budget Message for 1951. This keys all mobilization
planning to the expanding economy of the Fair Deal. Major policies in
any area must further this expansion, either positively by actually de-
veloping new sources of wealth and distributing it more widely and eq-
uitably, or negatively by preventing excessive drain on existing wealth.
Query: Does this economic objective set an absolute limit on strategic
and mobilization planning? Or if not absolute, where does it set budge-
tary limits of feasibility? On what does the 13 billion dollar defense
figure rest in current budgetary policy? On a defense plan geared to
integrated war plans? Or on a budgetary remainder after other political
priorities are set? Or on a minimum figure that is a carefully weighed
assessment of these factors related to each other?

Positive productive programs such as health and welfare are of pri-
mary importance for the President's program and receive the strongest
backing; while the negative unproductive military programs are of secon-
dary importance, to be restrained as much as possible. There are those
who would urge greater cuts in the defense budget, who note a certain
contradiction about a "negative" program that absorbs 31.9 percent of the
total budget [Assumption (A)]. This figure is, however, reconcilable
with a total national strategic plan based on an economic growth imper-
ative, in the judgment of the President's economic advisers.

Still others hold that the defense budget could go much higher with-
out limiting an expanding economy [Assumption (B)]. Indeed, economists
of the Keynesian persuasion would argue that with the present unemploy-
ment figures, higher national expenditures are called for to get fuller
employment and counteract a deflationary tendency. This could be accom-
plished without further taxation, they argue, through deficit financing,
which they hold not to be harmful. The expenditures need not be, of
course, for military items; but military plants and private investments
stimulated by military procurement would be, on this analysis, a reason-
able method of counter-cyclical government spending. This would be even
truer of productive national investment for long-range development of
resources of fuel, energy, water, and transportation.

On the other hand, those who wish at all costs to achieve a balanced
budget, and who see further taxation as both politically impossible and
economically a deterrent to private investment regard the Keynesian ar-
gument for more expenditures and deficit financing as not only unsound
but dangerous. Where the emphasis is primarily on reducing taxes, as in
the C.E.D. report, a further cut is implied - not an increase in the mili-
tary budget.

- 15 -

A choice depends not only on whose economic theory for a sound econ-
omy is correct, but also on what price we should pay for an insurance
policy to prevent aggression. That in turn depends on the estimate of
risk as well as on the nature of the most effective policy to counter
that risk. If the prevention of atomic war were possible only by keeping
a strong enough threat of retaliation to deter the Kremlin from aggres-
sion, few would argue that this country could not bear the burden of
large increases of expenditures. The same argument would hold if the
chances of surviving attack without crippling consequences to the United
States could be bought only at this price.

It is in this frame of reference that the President's policy for
current military preparedness program must be understood. It is not in-
tended to be a full or all-out preparedness program because as such it
would, according to his economic advisers, prevent an expanding, produc-
tive economy. The current military preparedness program is intended to
be not more of a "readiness" program than is consistent with the growth
of the gross national product. In the last report on the Budget, based
on the Report of the Council of Economic Advisers, and somewhat unlike
previous reports, emphasis was also placed on the objective of a balanced
budget in the near future.

Once this basic idea is fully grasped, the separate elements of the
total preparedness program tend to become less the subject for controversy
than the major premise on which they rest. This concept explains in part
why, for instance, we are committed to an Air Force balanced at 48 groups
rather than at 70 groups; to 10 active divisions rather than to 12; to an
active Naval fleet of 652 ships instead of, say, 700; why we now plan
civil defense rather than activate it; why we emphasize skeleton training
rather than full training units in various fields; why we do not further
accelerate the stockpiling program; why we do not commit greater funds to
the construction of highway systems for heavy ordnance; and why we do not
execute the "phantom orders" currently outstanding for machine tools.
This concept also explains why we plan mobilization more in broad strokes
rather than in details. Obviously with a budget to be balanced and taxes
stabilized there is budgetary limit to what can be done to meet all these
needs quickly. That limit depends also on providing "Fair-Deal" security
measures, sometimes called "welfare." Military expenditures, except
within these limits, must be spread over time on a program that faces a
long continued "Cold War." Some must get priority for funds over others.

Division of Responsibilities for Mobilization Planning

One of the difficult things to understand about economic mobiliza-
tion planning is the matter of concurrent civilian-military jurisdiction
and responsibility. The Department of Defense's obligation for the mili-
tary aspects of industrial mobilization planning are defined in the
President's Budget Message for Fiscal 1951 as follows:

- 16 -

"To provide for maintaining machine tools and stand-by industrial plants, for tooling of pilot production lines, and for placing educational orders, as well as for continuing industrial mobilization planning studies with industry. Expenditures for this purpose are estimated at 109 million dollars in 1951 compared with 117 million dollars in 1950."

The National Security Resources Board, on the other hand, is concerned with mobilization planning in relation to our total resources. As set forth in the National Security Act of 1947, NSRB is concerned with advising the President regarding the "coordination of military, industrial and civilian mobilization." Civilian defense is placed under the Board for its present planning, but its scope and complexity may need a separate structure of governmental organization when it reaches the operating phase. This agency's annual budget for staff work in the Executive Office of the President is about 3 million dollars per year.

The proper perspective, however, is not obtained by a single comparison of a 117 million dollar budget with a 3 million dollar budget, any more than is the proper perspective obtained from a comparison of 120 million dollars for planning for mobilization against a 13 billion dollar expenditure for the current military budget.

"Economic Mobilization," says Hanson Baldwin in *The Price of Power*, "is an undramatic, dry-as-dust subject, little considered by the average citizen. But it must have public interest and public support, for it holds the key to future victory, and it can affect more basically than any other security measure the lives and liberties of all of us."

Public interest in economic mobilization planning, as currently reflected by the Congress and the press, is concerned principally with 5 types of problems which may be identified as follows:

1. <u>Concepts in Mobilization Planning</u>

2. <u>Organizational Plans for Emergency</u>

3. <u>Stand-by Legislation</u>

4. <u>National Attitudes toward Preparedness</u>; and

5. <u>Actual Defense Measures involving the Appropriations of Public Funds</u>.

<u>Congressional interest</u> has been keenest in <u>actual defense measures</u> involving the appropriations of public funds, <u>and in issues turning on national attitudes toward preparedness</u>. <u>Press interest</u> has centered mostly on mobilization <u>concepts, organizational patterns</u>, and the need for <u>stand-by legislation</u>.

- 17 -

Controversial Concepts of Organization
And Policies for Mobilization Planning

Controversial Concepts about mobilization planning deal largely with assumptions about the timing and nature of another war; about the best kind of preparedness for it - i.e., the "Fair Deal" State, the "Security State," or the "Free Enterprise" State; the best methods of financing whatever military provisions are determined; and the degree to which psychological and economic warfare in peacetime can and should supplement military readiness measures, given the existence of a "Cold War" that could become "Hot."

Controversial organizational patterns have to do with the proper role of the civilian and military authorities in the control of mobilization planning; with the issue of whether there should be a permanent skeleton mobilization agency in peacetime that would become in fact the actual guiding war agency in an emergency, or whether there should be a planning and coordinating agency in peace that would simply guide the establishment of a totally new and different war agency in an emergency; with the issue of whether there should be unilateral and interallied mobilization planning from the start or whether some appropriate relationship for both should be evolved in peacetime as a precaution against a war emergency; and finally with the issue of whether it is better to approach mobilization planning via a "Blueprint" or a "Problems and Methods Planning" technique.

Then there is always the major issue of whether the Stand-by Emergency Legislation should be enacted in advance of a war, or whether it should simply be kept in readiness "on the shelf" until the need for it actually arises.

Controversial policy alternatives involving national attitudes are illustrated by such issues as whether we should activate Civil Defense measures now or simply plan them; whether the role of small business in a war emergency should be maximized for the sake of preserving our traditional independent competitive pattern, or whether it should be minimized in the interest of speed in war production; whether in the area of manpower there should be a limited peacetime draft and universal military training program, and whether in the event of another war there should be a National Service Act for the control of civilian manpower or alternatively simply "employment ceilings" and "hiring controls."

The controversies having to do with actual readiness measures that nevertheless require immediate appropriations of public funds are, of course, the most significant of all. These involve such things as whether the air force should be balanced at 48 or at 70 groups; whether shipping subsidies should be increased and extended to areas not now covered by subsidies; whether the St. Lawrence Seaway project should be

- 18 -

undertaken; whether the synthetic rubber plants should be publicly or
privately owned and operated; whether billions more should be spent on
public roads for defense reasons; whether more access roads to national
forests should be constructed now; whether the Columbia River power proj-
ect is justified; whether the stockpiling program should be accelerated;
and whether our technological lead in scientific research requires for
its maintenance the establishment of a National Science Foundation.

These are the mobilization planning controversies that are explored
in the subsequent pages--always, of course, from the major angle of their
**national security** implications.

To the extent that the arguments presented herein seem to make all
choices either black or white when middle grey might more nearly repre-
sent the readers' personal preference, two explanations are offered.
Firstly, opponents and proponents themselves present black or white cases.
Secondly, in the last analysis "preparedness" is on net balance a black
or white issue--either we are prepared or we are not prepared. Degrees
of preparedness are, of course, significant as are varying kinds of pre-
paredness. But what the public wants to know is whether we are or will
be prepared against any contingency - whether we can retaliate overwhelm-
ingly against any aggressor under any circumstances. To that fundamental
question "middle grey" is not an answer in a game, if it is as Secretary
Acheson says, "this time: for keeps." Because it is the job of mobili-
zation planning to secure preparedness, the current choice of policy
alternatives in mobilization planning presents the key to the answer of
our ultimate preparedness.

Of course, the range of disagreement is not limited to the "black
and white" contrast, and political solutions which have to blend tax or
deficit financing or budgetary cuts have a wider range of alternatives to
meet the issues. Wide differences on such matters exist even among those
who may generally be grouped together under Assumptions (A), (B), and (C).
The real area of controversy as to annual military budgets involves an
upper limit of perhaps twenty billion at this time, or a further decrease
to ten or twelve billion. Present budgetary policy represents a com-
promise on the lower side, apparently based on estimates of the probabil-
ity of war. Planning policy also reflects a compromise position of the
same sort in its approach to readiness measures and mobilization expendi-
tures in the development of industrial resources, and facilities, and
related measures.

1

Speech of Secretary of State Dean Acheson at a meeting of the Adver-
tising Council at the White House, February 16, 1950. (Known as the
"Total Diplomacy" Speech.) Reprinted in *Life*, March 18, 1950.

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CHAPTER II. CONTROVERSIAL CONCEPTS ABOUT MOBILIZATION PLANNING

People in democracies find it difficult to understand why differ-
ences of opinion cannot be settled peaceably. People in ideological
dictatorships find it difficult to understand how they could be settled
peaceably. This contrast in attitudes goes to the very root of the
meaning of "ideology." To most Americans the Russian attitude of "no
compromise" is simply not believable--until experience drives it home.
The American mind is so deeply saturated with "live and let live," that
it accepts the existence of a Nazi, a Fascist, or a Communist ideology
as the hard fact of the contemporary world with great reluctance, and
often simply with disbelief that any nation or its ruler could be so
"unreasonable." Freedom under a constitutional government for them-
selves is the only thing that Americans will not argue about that does
not seem to them to be unreasonable, yet to the Communist it is a chal-
lenge to his own absolute--the inevitable and necessary dictatorship of
the proletariat to establish what he calls a "classless" world.

"An ideology is a system of deep-rooted beliefs about fundamental questions in human life and affairs.... A difference in beliefs which does not touch fundamentals is commonly termed a difference of opinion.... If our difference of opinion is so inclusive that we can agreee on nothing political, our differences have gone from mere opinion into the depths of ideology. Here the institutional framework is affected.... Freedom cannot be accorded to persons outside the ideological pale. If an antagonist is not going to respect your freedom of speech, your property, and your personal safety, then you are not obliged to respect his. ¹/²/

Democracies, resting on the assumption of tolerance for differences of opinion--up to the point of threatened annihilation of the assumption itself--are confronted by dictatorships, resting on the assumption of no toleration of differences of opinion. Then one of two things must occur. There must be accommodation or conflict. At the point where the rationale of each becomes a "religious faith" in danger of its own extermination, the "pitch" of argument is at an ideological depth--and is in fact war itself.

"The last two great wars have shown an increasing emphasis on ideol-
ogy or political faith as driving forces behind warfare, rather than the
considerations of coldly calculated diplomacy. Wars become more serious,
and less gentlemanly; the enemy must be taken into account not merely as
a man, but as a fanatic.... Warfare thus goes back to the Wars of Faith." 2/

1/ Paul M. A. Linebarger, *Psychological Warfare*, Washington, Infantry Journal Press, 1948. pp. 30-31.

2/ *Ibid.*, p. 10.

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One way to settle the issue peacefully is to throw over our own faith in freedom and to accept Moscow's dictates--with or without threat of H-bomb annihilation. This would mean acceptance of "unconditional surrender" by the United States. The other way would be for Moscow to give up or postpone indefinitely, for some compelling reason, the crusade to win the world for communism under the Kremlin. How could one be sure of the sincerity of Moscow's professions: only if accompanied by "opening up" Russia and by parallel disarmament.

An appreciation of the "all or none" nature of the conflicting ideologies of the 20th Century is an appreciation of the necessity for survival itself. Thus, mobilization planning for a war emergency becomes part of the required equipment, the required procedure, even of peace-loving democracies--unfortunate as that may be. Once the necessity for mobilization planning is accepted--as it now generally is except by the most idealistic pacifists on one side or by deliberate subversives on the other--the alternatives become legion and the controversies heated.

There remains, of course, the improbable but not impossible hope of Dickens' Mr. McCawber that "Something will turn up." It is not altogether impossible that the Soviet system might crack up after Stalin, or be so weakened that it would accept a real settlement including a genuine international control of armaments, or even that a leadership might eventually emerge, ready to "live and let live." But there is also the at least equal possibility that its Civil War might be spread into hot war for the world. Policy has to be based on probables, taking possibles into account, however.

The controversial Concepts about Mobilization Planning deal largely with assumptions about the probable timing and nature of another war; the best kind of preparedness for it--i.e., the productivity state, or the security state, or the free enterprise state; and the degree to which psychological and economic warfare in peacetime can and should be substituted for military preparedness in a democracy, given the existence of a "cold" if not a "hot" war.

### a. Controversial Assumptions About The Timing and Nature of Another War

Whoever makes the decisive assumptions about the timing, nature, scope, and magnitude of a defensive war had better be right, for this is the basic judgment on which the security of the country rests. The point to be driven home is that the aggressor makes the choice of fighting a "war of width"--the blitzkreig technique--or a "war of depth"--the crescendo, attrition, or wearing down technique. But the defending nation must assess correctly the aggressor's intent. Defense mobilization planning against a "war of width" must of necessity be very different from defense mobilization planning against a "war of depth." Some compromise between the two is, of course, possible, and may indeed be necessary.

- 21 -

Aggressors who pin-point their production targets against a deliberate striking date put the nations which must plan defensive mobilization at an enormous disadvantage. Surprise attack assumes new possibilities of crippling results.

Any assumption about a probable strategic plan that might be evolved by a potential aggressor has, of course, the great disadvantage of being conceived without full knowledge of the enemy intent, or his peculiarities of temperament. Even the best intelligence system in the world does not actually penetrate the enemy mind, or will; nor can it foresee and discount all the "accidents" that determine events--the death of leaders, whether the succession produces better chances for peace or a pressure for war to stabilize the new regime. Therefore, against the uncertainties about the application of that enemy mind to the timing, nature, scope, and magnitude of an aggression, defensive mobilization to be safe must be above everything else flexible. But it must preserve enough striking superiority to be a deterrent to aggression. Flexibility above this minimum requirement allows wide choices. It must possess enough elasticity to meet, among other things, such alternative ranges as:

1. Attack by land, sea, air, or any combination of these either at home or abroad, on one front or two, or on many fronts, simultaneously or progressively.

2. Varying degrees of disaster from sabotage, strategic, bombing, atom bombing, and the like.

3. All-out attack from the beginning, or the slow acceleration of a crescendo plan.

4. Various estimated dates of possible attack.

5. Various degrees or levels of defense preparedness.

6. And in this range of assumptions should always be included the possibility that the enemy will never employ direct military power, but will gradually so limit the sphere of United States economic activity and so control the major areas of the world by means other than war, that there will be no need to resort to military power.

And finally, all plans and measures that are conceived must be weighed against security, economic, political and administrative practicality.

Assumptions about the risks that must be assessed in the immediate two or three years ahead are naturally suspect. However, the factors going into short-range assumptions are infinitely more knowable and calculable than those that go into assumptions for a longer period--say for ten years. So the process of mobilization planning is the firm choice

- 22 -

of an assumption about the short-run probabilities with full knowledge
of the calculated risk involved in firming up one assumption, or set of
assumptions, above others. Projections subsequent to the short-range
period must of necessity then branch out into infinitely varied assump-
tions from the most optimistic to the most pessimistic. Guesses beyond
ten years are certainly just guesses with diminishing probability of
rightness. But so long as the basic attitude and power of Moscow re-
main unchanged, that is a fixed factor. Planning must assume a "cold
war," at the least, of many years duration.

The point to be made in connection with a decision about the nature,
scope, magnitude, and timing of a modern defensive war is that a choice
appears to be arbitrary in the sense that it chooses from a wide variety
of selected alternative assumptions about both the short-run and the long-
run probabilities, in the United States. But it is not arbitrary in the
sense that concentration on any one of them is just a matter of chance.
There is an inner logic in concentrating on some factors rather than
others. This logic gets exposed through criticism and public controversy.
An additional safety factor for democracies is the procedure, therefore,
to which all plans must be exposed--a procedure involving the application
of a wide range of brain power and ingenuity in advance of possible
attack. A possible weakness is the need to "water down" solutions to
please a majority and perhaps to placate minorities which shift ground.
Volatility of public opinion, changing as Moscow blows hot or cold, may
make a steady long-range minimum defense budget difficult. But, gradual
popular acceptance of the hard facts of life can make it possible.

The fact that a considerable amount of time is required in a peace-
ful democracy such as that of the United States to develop a strategic
plan of defense and then to clothe it in armor is secondary to the secur-
ity achieved in its thoroughness--always provided, of course, that the
time is actually available. The greatest question confronting the United
States today is, how much time have we to assume a posture suitable for
atomic defense, or successful war? One year? Two years? Five years?
Ten years? Or forever?

But beyond that assumption lies the question: "Is time on our
side, or on that of the Kremlin?"

Arguments for the Assumption that Time is on Our Side. It is argued
by a large body of opinion that we have not only time in which to prepare,
but also time in which to allow for evolutionary development that will
breed the human ingenuity to bridge the gap peacefully between the mighty
opposites of democracy and communism. It is said, for instance, that the
Russian economic potential cannot sustain a long war; that her steel pro-
duction alone for a whole year is no more than what we produce in the
United States in three months. Moreover, the rate of expansion of United
States industry, if continued, will make that gap even wider. The longer
the war is held off, the greater will grow the disparity in our respective
economic potentials and the stronger our ultimate position. More so is
this true when the allied potential is counted in.

- 23 -

This sort of analysis usually assumes also that the crucial danger has already passed--namely, the danger of the loss of Europe: Marshall Plan Aid, Military Aid, and the trend toward political, economic, and military integration, have secured Western Europe. There can be no doubt that the Soviet tide has ebbed--witness the loss of strength of the Communist parties and more spectacularly witness the defection of Tito. But whether Europe is indefinitely safe and can afford a degree of its own self-defense is more doubtful. It could in the course of some years become as powerful as Russia. But what of the meantime?

It is believed that we have marked superiority in A-bombs at this time that could mean retaliatory destruction for the Soviet homeland. Moreover, we have proceeded with the decision about the production of the Hydrogen bomb. Russia's capacity here is unknown, aside from the possession of one of the world's leading "fusion" scientists in Kapitza, and in the taking over of numerous leading German scientists well equipped for this task. The German air industry and specialists and submarine ("schnorkel") experts were mostly in the Russian-occupied zone and were also taken over.

Past experience would seem to indicate that the Russian temperament does not take extreme gambling risks; that so far under Muscovite policy aggression occurs only when there is a reasonable guarantee of success. It is asserted that the Soviets are relying primarily on the tool of disruption, on the assumption that men's nerves will become frayed, and that they will break; that the world will fall to pieces gradually; and that the Soviets plan to absorb the fragmentations as they occur. That is their bold plan for world conquest, not overt Pearl Harbors. The H-bomb simply adds another powerful weapon for the "war of nerves."

This line believes that "spontaneous wars" can be avoided or kept under control so long as the Soviets do not want them to get out of hand--as they do not unless they are sure of the results; and that in any event no spontaneous war anywhere in the world can get out of hand so long as we do not want it to get out of hand, which we do not. Of course, the danger of being destroyed by atomic attack makes this a more touchy matter.

Furthermore, the multilateral network of democratic bulwarks is now supposed, on the same analysis, to be sufficiently strong to bind the world together, as is evidenced by the overwhelming support in the United Nations for the principles which we espouse. The record proves that this is not a Two-World system--that it is a Multi-World system in which a majority of the nations is consistently ranged against a minority of six, possibly seven or eight with China and Tito.

To be sure the "cold war" is the price that we must pay for peace--the implications of which are rightly expressed by Anne O'Hare McCormick in an article in the *New York Times* of December 28, 1949, which says,

- 24 -

"The cold war is uncertainty. It is living by the day. It is going armed on the razor edge of danger. It is a war of potentials piled up and deployed, in order to avoid using them like the armies of Marshal Saxe, who thought a good general should maneuver his forces so skillfully that they need never be wasted in battle. It is above all a war of wits-- power wisely directed and sure of itself, resourcefulness to meet and take advantage of unexpected events. The only way to wage the cold war successfully, in fact, is not to settle down as if it could not degenerate into a shooting war."

Finally, the "time on our side" school of thought argues that an assumption, explicit or implicit, that the war is inevitable--that the only issue concerns the *time*-- would be a betrayal of our heritage, a denial of the continuity of history which proves not only the destruc- tiveness of mankind, but also its essential constructiveness. As Henry L. Stimson puts it, "The only deadly sin is cynicism." For cyni- cism breeds hopelessness and resignation or gambling attitudes. Of course, the rejoinder is that to face facts is not cynicism. Rather, not to face them may be the most dangerous attitude of acting or not acting because of wishful thinking.

Arguments for the Assumption That Time Is Not on Our Side. Those who believe that the Soviets intend to dominate the world in one way or another, and who believe that they could do it if they choose well their time, claim on the one hand that time may be on our side in rearming Europe, but that it is on the Soviet side so far as the rest of the world is concerned. On the other hand, there are some who claim just the op- posite--that time is on the side of the Soviets in the short run, though not perhaps in the long run. Bernard M. Baruch, for example, argues this position. 1/

"At the peak of the last war the United States produced nearly as many airplanes, tanks, guns, and other war material as the rest of the world combined. While supplying 43 nations with food and munitions, we joined our British, Canadian, and Australian allies in amphibious landings almost simultaneously upon the beaches of Normandy, and the reefs of the Marianas--a demonstration of military power unprecedented in history. There was one weakness: to shift our gigantic productive energies fully to war took two and a half years. Upon that weakness any foe must base his war plans. He must ask: How long will it take to mobilize America's crushing potential for war? In that time what para- lyzing blows can be struck directly at the United States? In that time how much of the world can be overrun to acquire additional war resources and to push nearer the bases for direct assault upon this country? How to bridge this gap of time between our normally peaceful ways and the

1/ Bernard M. Baruch, "To Prevent War," *Readers' Digest*, February 1950.

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mobilization that war requires is the crux of America's defense problem. The wider the gap the more tempting a target for attack we become, the less certain any ally can be of our reaching it in time. The surest deterrent against another war is to narrow the gap so that no enemy can delude itself in gambling upon overwhelming us with a surprise blitz. ... The crux of our danger--the time lag in America's mobilization--is being largely neglected. That neglect will grow ever more perilous as the potential enemy acquires a stockpile of atomic bombs and as ever-swifter weapons of destruction are developed. ... Here we come to the essence of the American dilemma. Totalitarian dictators keep their economies perpetually mobilized, with military production given constant priority over production for lifting living standards. They have made their normal state of existence a ruthless imitation of war itself. In contrast, our free individualistic ways are the complete opposite of the regimentations and denials that total war demands. Because mobilization for war requires us to turn our economy inside out, we tend to resist these measures; yet it is this very time lag in our mobilization which offers a potential enemy his one hope of successful aggression. The freedoms we prize so highly are thus perhaps our gravest danger."

In similar vein are the arguments made by those who have studied the history of civilizations and who point to individuals who have defined the probabilities of defeat and who were yet successful in the risks they took. Many dictatorships have ignored their economic deficiencies for sustained war, and have resorted to external aggression at critical times to cement their discontented peoples behind them in common purpose against an alleged hostile world. Moreover, it is argued that "spontaneous wars" have gotten out of hand--witness the Sarajevo incident that ultimately involved a large part of the world. More important still to be noted is a suitable body of military opinion which has no doubts but that the Russian divisions, poised, equipped, and overwhelming in preponderant strength, could at this time overrun the continent of Europe; that Russian tactical air force is the equivalent of ours, if not much its superior. Further, we might not wish to use atomic weapons on our friends in the occupied countries; and if we did not, that even though the Russian homeland were to be partly or almost entirely obliterated by our retaliatory bombs, the Soviets could still pursue their world objective from occupied territories. ¹/

Still again, it is argued that at any time now, the disruption technique may not be so effective, and that an overt attack in which the Soviets have nothing to lose even if nothing to gain, might well be resorted to for the sheer sake of precipitating the chaos out of which their kind of philosophy would tend to emerge. ²/

1/ See also Mr. Hanson Baldwin's "Strategy for Two Atomic Worlds." *Foreign Affairs*, April 1950, for the argument that Russia's possession of atomic energy might prevent war use of the bomb and force reliance on more conventional weapons.

2/ "The Nature of the Enemy," *Life Magazine*, February 27, 1950, pp. 30-31.

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*Life Magazine* summarized the "time on their side" school of thought as follows:

"This week (February 27, 1950) *Life* appraises the military defenses of the United States in the light of the military capacity of the Soviet Union. This appraisal is undertaken in awareness that the problem of U. S. defense is not entirely a military problem....

"The net showing of our report is that the defense necessities of the U. S. have been avoidably underestimated by the President, by his Secretary of Defense and (to the extent that they have participated in final policy decisions) by the chiefs of the military services. Not in extenuation of these officials but to indicate the scale of the turn-about in attitudes and policy now required, this must be added: The official estimate of U. S. defense necessities has on the whole been welcomed by the U. S. Congress, the public and the press.

"To hope for any slackening or change of Communist purpose is worse than idle. To hope for any lasting agreement, balance of force, accommodation of aim and circumstance which will enable the two worlds of freedom and Communism to live side by side in permanent peace is worse than idle. But to hope that the prospect of mutual obliteration will sink in upon and affect the guiding minds of Soviet Communism is not idle. To hope in turn that it will alter the enemy's calculation of what pays and does not pay--of what does and does not constitute a situation assumed to be 'ripe' for final Communist assault--is not idle. To hope further that the prospect of mutual obliteration will seep home to the peoples of the Communist world, as it is now seeping home to the peoples of the free world, is not idle. To hope finally that the enormous pressures engendered by these processes of realization will compel a shift of Soviet Communism's attitude toward the uses and control of ultimate weapons is not idle. To watch for such a shift--never to count upon it, never to mistake it for a fundamental change of purpose, but always to watch for and seize upon it if it occurs--is the task of Western statesmanship."

The nub of this argument is that the "timing" demands an insurance factor of much greater immediately deployable strength as a matter of preventing war rather than the risking of everything on the assumption of a several-year mobilization period.

*Current Status of the Assumption about the Timing and Nature of Another War.* Current mobilization planning is based on the assumption that M-day is *not* imminent though an element of risk is ever present; that there may be time to prepare in the long-range sense, provided shorter-range essentials are assured; that the war is *not* inevitable; that if it comes, we must not assume that this will necessarily be the

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last war that this country's manpower and resources will be forced to
undertake; and that the continuation of our current policies of relative
military preparedness, expanding economic potential, foreign economic aid,
support for the United Nations, and the underpinning of its strategic
regional weaknesses by defense pacts and military aid--that these are the
effective deterrents to aggression. Supplementary to these major policies
is an emphasis on flexible planning of wartime controls, on technological
research, on training of skilled manpower, and on readiness measures
such as the stockpiling of strategic and critical materials, the main-
tenance of adequate synthetic rubber capacity and the like, as a recogni-
tion of the urgency to overcome the time-lag between the Nation's current
mobilization potential and the full potential required if war should come.

Probably the best public exposition of the prevailing governmental
attitude on the time and nature of another world war is to be found in
Vannevar Bush's _Modern Arms and Free Men_:

"What will be the nature of future total war if it comes again
to the world? It would be highly technical, and it would be fast
and furious. It would leave the world shaken and broken. It would
cost millions of lives and exhaust the accumulation of treasure of
many years. It would not destroy civilization, but it would assuredly
set it back. . . .

"That time can be made to run in our favor in a military sense
appeared from our examination of the probable nature of future war.
Time can run for us indeed if we strengthen the organization of our
military machine, carry on with vision and good sense every impor-
tant aspect of the development of military devices, and at the same
time maintain our economic system healthy and prosperous. In these
ways we can meet the primary aspects of cold war as Hitler practiced
it: the direct military threat on the frontier, the propaganda of
lies, and the sowing of economic distrust. We can do so with the
conviction that time runs in our favor.

"It is the other aspect of cold war that is baffling, the
boring from within, the utilization of the advantages of a free
democracy to undermine it in countless ways, the penetration to
positions of authority and the misuse of that authority for the ob-
jectives of a foreign power, the playing upon internal prejudices
to further strife, the existence of a disciplined network of spies
and saboteurs in our midst, taking its orders from Moscow. . . .

1/ Vannevar Bush, *Modern Arms and Free Men*, Simon and Schuster (New York, 1949), p. 57.

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"It is certainly to the interest of those who remain free and to us, to see that subversive seizure of power does not happen: and the support of legitimately constituted governments by neighbors, and by us, will be much more readily effected as the standard of living rises."

To which the Baruch, *Life*, Eisenhower line of criticism would say in the main, "Amen"; but would add a strong warning that we must speed the "readiness" factors of present planning, and not take chances with relative striking power, defense measures, and other factors calculated to deter aggression by increasing its risks; or to defend ourselves successfully should it come.

## b. Alternative Approaches to a Theory of the Best State for Mobilization

### (1) The "Prosperity" State Versus the "Security" State as a "Readiness Measure."

The broadest general cleavage on basic political and economic assumptions may be stated as between the "Prosperity is the best answer to World Communism" philosophy (Prosperity State) and on the other side, "Military Security is at present the only guarantee of any kind of free world" philosophy ("Security State").

Both the "Free-Enterprise" philosophy and the "Fair-Deal" philosophy emphasize prosperity. The former emphasizes lower taxes, less government intervention and less "welfare" as incentives to private investment, while the latter stresses broader social distribution of the benefits of our expanding economy and relies more on public investment and fiscal controls. Both believe in higher productivity, though they differ as to how to get it. For that reason the (C) assumption has been called in its economic philosophy, "High Level Productivity with Wider Distribution State" or, for short, "High Productivity-Distributive" State, or "Fair-Deal" State. The (A) assumption does not contest the need for large defense expenditures, though many of its exponents feel that present taxes could be judiciously cut by drastic further military economies. The (C) (Fair Deal) assumption feels that present military expenditures are justified but that increases might endanger the expanding and distributive features of the economy and might also lead to undesirable inflationary developments.

The (B) assumption feels that Military Security at this time comes first, but that it can be fitted into a sound economy, either by judicious deficit financing, by cuts in nonmilitary expenditures, or if necessary by higher taxes.

Preparedness involves Military, Economic, and Moral Armament--each in the right proportion and in the right interrelationship, to obtain the right equation. Security is always a problem of balance and of power. In the search for balance and for power the question arises again as to whether we must equate defense for a "war of width"--the blitz technique--

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or for a "war of depth"--the attrition technique. That is fundamental. If for "width," then military armament should be maintained at such a high readiness level, that the enemy could not destroy our ability to retaliate immediately in any event. Moral armament becomes the second consideration and must take the form of rigid self-discipline not to use the military potential unless necessary. Economic armament salvages what productivity it can under the weight of the prime military structure: or, it can be argued, actually increases employment and expands the economy in periods of unemployment if it is properly handled by limited deficit financing as in the Keynes analysis. If, on the other hand, we are equating for a defense of "depth," economic armament might well receive the major emphasis for the long pull. In this event moral armament would have to take the form of superhuman resistance (if attacked) to supplement deficits in military weapons until the economic potential is ultimately able to fill that gap.

Actual policy will always have to be a balance between the two in any democracy: "Guns and butter." But the choice at some point between more butter or more guns, so to speak, is important. Perhaps the question should be phrased, "What is the minimum of guns that will protect our future lives and freedom as well as butter?"

The obvious does not need to be labored: a mistake in casting up this equation, no less than that of the equation about *time*, might break the major continuity of history, dooming the United States, and with it Western civilization.

The point is that the Soviets would like to offer us the choice of being beaten in a "cold war" economically, or of being beaten in a "hot war" militarily, assuming that one cannot have both in adequate measure. This assumption itself remains to be proved. Many economists think that an expanded defense budget would be quite compatible with an expanding economy. If the defense expansion is kept within limits, they argue, we can stand the economic cold war better than Russia and her satellites can. In one or both ways the Soviet Union would like to weaken us by "bleeding" us; retaining in her own hands the decision as to whether the war shall be "cold" or "hot."

Opponents of the "high level productivity-distributive state" sometimes call it the "welfare," "farewell," or "socialist" state. Some of them in the broad group lumped under (A) assumption of the introduction oppose the "security" state, too, and feel that the "Free Enterprise State" is all that is needed to ward off our present dangers. Others would only oppose higher taxes for present defense. The friends of the "high productivity and welfare state" call it the "Fair Deal" state.

1/ For an interesting post-mortem on the German mistakes with respect to mobilization planning, see J. Kenneth Galbraith, "Germany Was Badly Run" in *Fortune Magazine*, December 1945.

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Opponents of the "greater military security state" call it the "war-
fare" or the "garrison" State. Its friends term it the "security" state.
Actually, of course, all such symbolic partisan (whether pro or con)
designations are in part, at least, false and misleading--the use of
selected stereotypes to win support or condemnation on the basis of
clichés. There is often a substantial body of real agreement among all
these schools. (A), (B), and (C) assumptions generally agree that
heavy defense expenditures are necessary; some social welfare measures
are necessary; private investment for capital expansion is essential;
foreign aid and its corollaries, at a level to float European recovery
and free world economic stability are necessary. The disagreements are
dramatized for political emphasis by inevitable catchwords. They are
important but tend to become exaggerated.

The problem is to provide both productivity and security so that
the Nation does not get caught on either horn of the dilemma posed to us
by the Soviets. The issue is how much productivity and how much se-
curity. Once the principal emphasis is agreed, the next issue becomes
the choice of alternatives yielding either more productivity or more
security, or both, if possible. 1

(1) "Fair Deal" vs. Military Security State.

Arguments for the "Fair Deal" State as a "Readiness Measure." [As-
sumption (C)]. At the outset it is argued that advocates of the "Fair
Deal" state assume the adequacy of security--i.e., a nucleus of "readi-
ness" capable of quick expansion in war, a hard core of preparedness
units, evenly balanced as to each other, and expandable in short order.
They do not in any sense abandon security considerations in favor of
economic expansion. They take "a calculative risk." Moreover, the "Fair
Deal" concept has its origin in the "New Deal" concept of the 1930's,
antedating by far the necessity for its military security rationale in
the late 1940's and 1950's.

It is noted by proponents of the "Fair Deal State" that about 71
percent of the current tax dollar goes to pay for past wars and to pre-
pare against future wars--or as President Truman expresses it, "to prepare
for peace"---and that this represents a disproportionate share of the
national income. We would be stronger, it is argued, if we broadened our
economic base by extended social security coverage, by greater Federal
aid to education, by greater public health and welfare expenditures; by
expanded rural electrification; by the development of flood control,

1/ For an analysis which concludes that "the stabilization of our econ-
omy at a high and progressive rate of activity is in essential har-
mony with our security needs," see Bernard Brodie, "National Security
Policy and Economic Stability," Yale Institute of International
Studies, Memorandum No. 33, January 2, 1950.

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navigation, reclamation projects; by atomic energy for peacetime uses; by
improved transportation facilities.

In short, by providing more, and distributing more equitably the
necessities and luxuries of life to more and more people, this political-
economic philosophy holds, we insure a _productive expansion in our gross_
_national product_, a healthy circulation of the economy's benefits, and an
increased individual contentment. 1/ People will, on this economic argu-
ment addressed to an assumed basic self-interest in human nature, be even
more devoted to this Nation and to the way of life it insures, will want
to defend it fully, will resist subversive influences, and will in fact
be able to do so in a long economic pull in the event of another major
military engagement. They will be a shining example of a prosperous and
healthy democracy in a world torn by the conflict of competing ideologies.
Their ability to export more and more of their material assets will tend
to raise the standard of living of other peoples in the world, when they
are willing to accept a larger volume of imports in exchange. These
material riches, spread around to all the people, are the real weapons
against Soviet Communism. Those, plus the democratic emphasis on freedom
and human dignity. We ought, therefore, if not to reduce taxes, at least
to plough more of those collected back into the economic potential where
they will be soundly used for peacetime benefits as well as for the mo-
bilization units kept as a nucleus for wartime which could always be
rapidly expanded in the event of an emergency. We should, on this phi-
losophy, reduce overall military expenditures for a "standing"-prepared-
ness--which may ultimately be deployed in great waste in any event, or
kept as a stockpile of obsolescing if not obsolescent weapons. To do
otherwise would be to fall into the trap set by the Soviets for siphoning
off our true strength in an unproductive top-heavy armaments structure.
Specifically translated, this general argument receives its official ex-
position in the President's Message to Congress of January 7, 1950, on
"How the Economy Stands")

"Toward this end [successful, prosperous, peaceful state] I
should like to point out certain principles on which we can all base
our economic efforts. The more widely these principles are under-
stood, the better able we shall be to solve our common problems and
reconcile the interests of different economic groups. The more
widely these principles are used as the basis for economic action
and decision, the more rapid will be our national progress.

"First, our economy can and must continue to grow. An ex-
panding population and an increasingly productive labor force

1/ See forthcoming bulletin by the Legislative Reference Service, The Welfare State: The Case For and Against, for more extensive discussion.

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require constantly expanding employment opportunities and steadily rising levels of investments and consumption. Within five years we can achieve an annual output in excess of 300 billion dollars. The gain in national income would be equal to an average of nearly $1,000 for every family in the United States. This would greatly improve standards of living. It would go far toward our goal of the complete elimination of poverty. It would provide employment opportunities for about 64,000,000 workers. ...

"Second, the benefits of growth and progress must be extended to all groups. Only in this way can the long-run welfare of any group be preserved. ... Expansion to a 300 billion dollar economy within five years would place 30 to 45 billion dollars more per year in the hands of consumers for buying the needs and comforts of life. ...

"Third, this growth will not come automatically, but requires conscious purpose and hard work. ... The government must keep open the channels of competition, promote free collective bargaining, and encourage expanded opportunities for private initiative.

"Fourth, the fiscal policy of the Federal Government must be designed to contribute to the growth of the economy. ... In fields such as resource development, education, health and social security, Government programs are essential elements of our economic strength. ... Furthermore, we must maintain our programs for national security and international peace. These programs are the defense of the world against disaster. Upon them our whole future depends.

"Fifth, we must deal vigorously with trouble spots which exist in our economy even in times of general prosperity. ... Special measures are needed to help low-income groups and, even more important, to provide them with better opportunities to help themselves. We must deal with the particular problems of communities or areas which are depressed, or whose economic growth has been retarded."

Taken with present budgets, and planning for defense this spells out assumption (C) of the introduction. For our present purposes it is not necessary also to spell out in detail the arguments for achieving the same or greater prosperity via the "free enterprise" state rather than the "welfare" state. The defense or military aspects are either those of assumption (A) or assumption (C), and the arguments for obtaining ultimate military strength by way of prosperity are interchangeable with those underlying the foregoing paragraphs.

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Arguments for a Greater Military "Security State" As a "Readiness Measure." [Assumption (B)] On the other hand, it is argued that first things must come first, and that survival is the issue with which we are faced, not welfare; that the war whose risk we surely face will be swift and wide--a home-front atomic blitz which could achieve its victory before the economic potential could be aroused for successful retaliation. Therefore, to mobilize on the assumption of a rising production curve that would not reach maximum striking power for one or two years after the first blow, is sheer folly; that what we need to do right now--even so it may be very late--is to take billions out of luxury and governmental waste or out of "welfare" if need be, but preferably by resorting to a little more anti-cyclical deficit financing. Instead of the general plans of assumption (C), this view (B) would substitute a dependable, thorough electronic (radar) detection screen; billions more for an effective guided missiles program now, not years hence; and still more for an Air Force balanced at 70-groups (to maintain a healthy aircraft industry), rather than at 48. Nor can the development of adequate defense against "schnorkel" subs be forgotten. None of these measures can be quickly improvised. Wartime expansion needs a broad, ready peacetime base. The Services submitted a plan for national security in 1949 for 1950-51 that called for a total of twenty-two billions for defense. They could probably adjust safely to somewhat less--but they got 13.8 billions--about 60 percent. Planning for availability even several years hence requires larger appropriations and greater efforts now. In brief, military "readiness measures" should be maximized all along the line--not just on paper (though even that would shorten the vulnerable period)--but in fact. Immediate implementation of the actual "survival plans" should be the order of the day.

This program would mean not only a major about-face on an armaments program currently going into a decline in favor of a welfare program, but it would mean heavy expenditures in "war-supporting industries"--expenditures not now contemplated for such things as those extra stand-by railroad cars, those needed ore carriers, those additional raw materials for stockpile, those "paper-planned" airways and airports, those new harbor tugs and lighters added to the "mothball" fleet, those extra subsidies for air and ocean shipping--to mention but a few of the "readiness measures" that become so imperative if our very survival is at stake. Nor should we on this view cavil about taxes, if needed. We pay 6 percent of our national income for defense. Russia's percentage can-not run less than twenty-five and many economists think it is larger. In a "hot war" we would have to spend all we could raise. To prevent a hot war a few billions more annually is the difference between enough and "too little, too late." Or alternatively we should rely on deficit financing particularly in a period of rising unemployment. Present unemployment figures are around 4.5 millions where 1.8 is the usual figure for a sound marginal basis for full productivity. The 71 percent of the current tax dollar that goes into past and future security is the price that we have paid for unpreparedness in the past. The true economy is to

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prevent wars by deterrent retaliatory strength, not to have to win them by superior grit, at terrible cost. But Democracies can, as our past history has shown, bear the load and remain free. An appreciation of the significance of the battle that we are facing--not just in ideas, but in weapons--in the crucial early years of the 1950's means *your money now for survival then, or your welfare now for your obliteration then*. In the metaphor of Mr. Baruch, this "requires a modern equivalent of the early American settler who plowed with muskets ready at hand." This spells our assumption (B) of the Introduction.

**Current Status of the "Security" Issue.** Confident that no conceivable attack on the United States in the immediate future could completely knock out our ability to retaliate overwhelmingly against an aggressor, the Administration's position on the controversy of "productivity" versus "security" is that we have both, but that in the long run the productivity emphasis is the most constructive means to the security end. There are, of course, important arguments in favor of the productivity emphasis as set forth in the Fair Deal program that are unrelated to the security question, but generally the inter-relationship is close. It is summarized in the President's Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, January 1950, as follows:

"We must preserve our national strength. **Strength is not simply a matter of arms and force. It is a matter of economic growth, and social health, and vigorous institutions, public and private.**"

And in the 1951 Budget Message, the President shows the relation of the defense program to the welfare program.

"We must continue to make the expenditures necessary to maintain a position of relative military readiness. . . .

"This Budget provides for **active forces** in a high state of training, available for immediate use if necessary and as a **nucleus for rapid expansion** in the event of an emergency, and for reserve forces, organized and trained for early mobilization if necessary. This budget contemplates the continued development of **planning** for industrial mobilization and the accumulation of a **stockpile** of strategic and critical materials. It continues to **emphasize research and development** to keep our military technology abreast of scientific developments and procurement of newly developed weapons to improve the equipment of the ready forces. At the same time this **program** is sufficiently flexible to provide a **basis for rapid changes** should developments in technology or international conditions make them necessary. . . . For the past two years we have been adjusting our military programs to achieve a **balanced structure** which can be maintained over a period of years without an undue use of national resources."

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An independent confirmation of this position is to be found in the
Hoover Commission Report: 1

"True national security depends more upon economic stability and political strength than upon military power."

Nevertheless, so that we might also be prepared in military power, the President decided in January 1950 to proceed with the production of the hydrogen bomb. At that time he explained to the public: "It is part of my responsibility as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to see to it that our country is able to defend itself against any possible aggressor. Accordingly, I have directed the Atomic Energy Commission to continue its work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or superbomb. Like all other work in the field of atomic weapons, it is being and will be carried forward on a basis consistent with security. This we shall continue to do until a satisfactory plan for international control of atomic energy is achieved. We shall also continue to examine all those factors that affect our program for peace and this country's security."

This is the military emphasis of the current administration program, spelling out that aspect of the assumption (C) of the Introduction.

(2) Individual Freedom (Free Enterprise State) Versus Military Security State.

Case for "The Free Enterprise State." The (A) assumption (Free Enterprise Prosperity as the Answer to World Communism) would deny the validity of the present burden and methods of taxation, even at present levels; would urge that to go further in public development and large-scale procurement for defense leads to socialism, particularly if tied to distributive welfare measures. Danger of Russian direct aggression is small as long as our free economic system is strong. How can we win Europe to it, if we don't practice it ourselves? Many exponents of the "Free Enterprise State," of course, want as much or more defense expenditure than do the "Fair Deal State" exponents. These do not fall under assumption (A). They are more concerned to cut welfare than defense in order to reduce taxes. The implications of the CED's position against more taxes, or even present taxes, and against heavy procurement fall under assumption (A).

In an article in Fortune Magazine for October 1949 Russell W. Davenport states the case against the "welfare state" and the way to avoid it through a "free corporate enterprise" state:

1/ Report to the Congress by the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, "The National Security Organization,"
Washington, D. C., February 1949. p. 5.

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"Since the depression of 1932 there has existed in the U. S. a trend that runs parallel with the socialist trend in Britain and Europe. Inaugurated by the New Deal, it has been carried further by Harry Truman's Fair Deal and its program for a "welfare state." Opponents of the trend have cogently argued that, if continued, it can lead nowhere except to socialism. Their case is fairly overwhelming. They point to the mounting taxes required to meet welfare costs, the loss of initiative, the rigidifying of the economy, the destruction of open markets, the growth and concentration of government power. While none of these effects has run its full course in the U. S., it is easy to show that all of them have begun. The conclusion can hardly be escaped, the the "welfare State" is of necessity the prelude to a total state."

"State socialism (is) a great reactionary movement, signalizing the failure of man to realize the dream of democracy. For the dream of democracy was always clear: that the state was a necessary and limited evil rather than a desirable and boundless good: that the springs of progress, happiness, and security are to be found in individuals, acting in their private capacities, in response to their self-interests and their moral judgments. It was the belief of the founders of this country, well-substantiated until the rise of the corporation, that men and women could be relied upon to implement the Rights of Man to their own mutual interest, and thus to keep the state at arm's length. It is now time for the business community to show that corporate action which is still private action, and which emanates from individuals, can achieve the same result: that the Rights of Man can be made just as safe in corporate hands as they were in individual hands."

Although the problem of "how much liberty" versus "how much authority" has been the central theme of all political theorists from Plato, through Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Jefferson, Wilson--and although the pendulum of history has swung from extreme to extreme, it has come to stabilize somewhere near the middle in the modern Western constitutional system. That is perhaps an explanation why even the prospect of motion to either side of this constitutional and free center arouses bitter debate and some fears as is evidenced in the recent report of the Committee for Economic Development, titled *National Security and Our Individual Freedom*:

"Though adequate security is essential to protect our freedoms, the program aimed at security raises new threats to our freedoms and to our way of life. Under it there has been a great increase in the role of the military in our government, a great increase in bureaucracy, an expanding dominance of government over industry and an increasing interference with individual freedoms."

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**Arguments That Individual Freedoms Have Been Jeopardized.** The CED report argues that a 20 billion dollar annual security program--nearly 10 percent of our national production--endangers individual freedom in a number of ways--through peacetime selective service, through loyalty investigations which turn into witch hunts, through censorship over scientific and technical information, through limitations on public information, through jeopardy of the traditional supremacy of the civilian over the military; and through the individual liberties which are our rightful heritage. These liberties are defined as "free markets, individual initiative, and a minimum of direct government control." Threats to these liberties are found in the burden of taxes on the economic system which impedes private initiative; control of business activity through government contracts; and recurrent proposals to impose direct controls over economic activity. These trends, if not checked, will, it is alleged, result in the "garrison-police state" which is described as follows:

> "In such a garrison-police state, the soldier and political policeman rise to power while the institutions of civilian society and of freedom shrink. In the name of security, channels of public information dry up; the press becomes a mere purveyor of official handouts. Cut off from significant information, editors, commentators, and group leaders become less accurate in their judgments. The process of public discussion atrophies. Political parties decline. The power of Congress dwindles. Administration by civilians shrinks, relative to administration in uniform. The courts weaken. Cut off from information, the power of the citizen fades. Local plans are subordinated to central purposes. The free market is constricted. Labor is hedged in by special regulations. Consumers find their range of choice reduced. Decisions come to be made by an all-powerful government. All freedoms suffer."

The argument continues that security, while necessary, has not had proper regard to its appropriate limitations; that neither liberty nor security can be absolute and that both can be increased by the proper self-discipline applied to each. "Just how much we allow security measures to impair freedom must depend on circumstances, and the relative risks to security on the one hand, and to the survival of free institutions on the other. At the present time, the balance must be weighed in the direction of freedom."

**Arguments Against the Free-Enterprise (A) assumption (CED Position).** On the other hand, it is said by some critics that the CED Report, National Security and Our Individual Freedom, might better have been entitled National Freedom From Threat and Individual Freedom From Sacrifice. It is alleged that implicit in the report is the desire for "laissez-faire" business as usual and lowered taxes. But is the U. S. military posture coupled with this tying of one hand behind the back really convincing? Civil rights and property rights are claimed to be used interchangeably, to the confusion of the whole issue. In further

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An exposition of the dilemma of liberty versus security, with the conclusion in favor of security at this time, is to be found in William Y. Elliott and Neil A. McDonald's *Western Political Heritage*:

"The defender of constitutional democracy today, with good reason, can look at the contemporary world and feel that the systems where this type of democracy is most firmly rooted have little for which to apologize in comparison with other systems-- providing the world in which they exist does not become one of cataclysmic world struggle for survival of its major power systems..."

"They (the constitutional democracies) tend to maximize the protection of individual liberties. In this emphasis on individual liberties, but under accepted and fundamental law, the progress and stability of constitutional systems are also far from discouraging, if one considers their economic success. ..."

"If unification of a world of law cannot be achieved, the totalitarian systems, in their successive incarnations, always alike in their objectives and in their methods, may eventually destroy the possibilities of democracy. Those who bemoan the encroachments of the military on pure science are looking at a significant but relatively small sector of what such a world will inevitably produce through the struggle for national survival in every political and economic area. ..."

"We confront the task of preserving the kind of life which has created people who were perhaps more free from fear and from want than has been possible at any previous period of human history in any quarter of the globe. We do not wish to see erased from their faces the candor and the calm that comes with the lack of suspicion of man toward man and with the inner security that freedom gives through self-respect. Whether we shall have both the wisdom and the courage to meet the problems of leading such a world order in the face of the challenge to those very foundations from the great remaining totalitarian system; whether we shall have the sustained faith in our own values to undergo sacrifice and to survive depressions or the threats and perhaps the reality of future wars--and remain a free people--all that must rest in the lap of the future. If, however, humanity is to be organized from Moscow as a center into what Aldous Huxley satirized in "Brave New World", or George Orwell in "1984," the eternal moral values which go with freedom will some day have to be rewon by the same patient struggle that has brought them forth in the development of Western civilization to our day. It is surely better to undergo any sacrifice, even to "the last full measure of devotion" rather than lose this heritage for ourselves and this possibility for the world."

17

W. Y. Elliott and Neil A. McDonald, *Western Political Heritage*, New York, Prentice Hall, 1949. pp. 961-963.

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**Current Status of the "Freedom-Security" Controversy.** The Administration, like the CED, believes that the balance, at this time, must be weighted in the direction of individual freedom, and points to the fact that current mobilization planning places no compulsory burden, other than taxes and a stand-by selective service, on industry or labor.

The President's State of the Union message of January 5, 1950, reiterates the freedom precept:

> "Strength is not simply a matter of arms and force. . . . We can achieve peace only if we maintain our productive energy, our democratic institutions, and our firm belief in individual freedom."

To which the (B) assumption would add "To be free, it is first necessary to be strong enough to protect freedom."

### c. Psychological and Economic Warfare Vs. Military Preparedness in Mobilization Planning

Since April 1945 the world has come to be aware of the replacement of the "hot war" against totalitarianism, by the "cold war" of the Soviet Union against the western democracies, and to realize that the Soviet concept of total war is only a part of that ideology's larger concept of a permanent war. What has not been thoroughly understood is that while the Soviets have put aside actual firepower--at least for the time being--the military weapon has been replaced by two other formidable weapons, psychological warfare and economic warfare. Against these we are said to be exceedingly vulnerable because we have never appreciated their importance, the degree to which they are being used against us, nor how to use them most effectively for ourselves. Indeed, democracies have a guilt complex about psychological and economic warfare in time of peace--are even reluctant to admit that foreign-aid programs are in the nature of economic warfare. This guilt-sense--which is fully exploited by the Moscow cry of "dollar imperialism," and the like--comes from our innocence as a people of any experience of a real struggle for existence against an enemy determined to destroy our constitutional way of life. Even the most idealistic and generous aid programs carried out by the most scrupulous means make us uneasy because we are aware of influencing other nations, even though that influence may be open to their rejection and entirely a matter of voluntary acceptance--and completely "above board." We shrink from "propaganda" directed against others or to other countries to such a degree as to offer ourselves as a vulnerable target for the most unscrupulous counter-propaganda. Some of this is the legitimate fruit of real idealism. But its continuance in the face of obvious Russian aggression, enslavement of her own and other peoples, is today dangerously naive.

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Americans are therefore at a grave disadvantage in meeting potential dictatorial enemies who have no such moral scruples and who exploit the very reluctance of democracies on this area to the point where gradual victories on a non-military battleground may eventually "hem us in" without the explosion of a single atom bomb. Thus, while time may be on our side in buttressing Europe militarily, time may well be on the Soviets' side in the rest of the world where they acquire whole areas like China without open warfare. The dilemma of the democracies is to steer a course between default on the psychological and economic warfare battleground, and overt war-like actions. This dilemma is vividly described by Dorothy Thompson.¹

"Were the pattern of World War II to be repeated, the number and quality of atomic and other air-conducted weapons might be decisive. But World War III is not repeating that pattern. I say 'is' not. For World War III is already on, and in it many ancient states have already fallen to the enemy, and always under circumstances where neither A nor H-bombs could be used.

"This war is fought by political aggressions, maneuvers, putsches, and propaganda; by fifth columns, undermining morale, creating guilt and self-doubt, and conducting economic sabotage in the countries to be victimized; and by military aid to bandit armies. The model is the Partisan war, carried on during World War II behind, in support of, or in spite of, regular armies, all without conventional aggressions. Such civil wars cancel out great bombing expeditions, and circumvent A or H-bombs.

"By such warfare the Soviet Union has completely reduced China--which the Japanese by conventional warfare were unable to do. In Southeast Asia this warfare will be unremitting. Precisely when the situation in French Indo-China was beginning to stabilize itself--according to the rather optimistic speech of Malcolm MacDonald, British Commissioner for Southeast Asia at the Colombo Conference--the Soviet Union has recognized the Communist partisan, Ho Chi-minh, and the Chinese Red Armies will certainly give his bandit armies military support. Undoubtedly a systematic plan has been worked out in Moscow for the step-by-step reduction of the whole of Southeast Asia, including the Philippines. But in opposing this type of aggression A or H-bombs are perfectly useless.

"The defeat of communism requires a world-wide resistance movement as implacable as the Communists', which will take open and secret political action. It requires the total repudiation of Yalta and Potsdam by Congress, under the pressure of the American people. . . .

¹/ Dorothy Thompson, *Evening Star*, Washington, D. C., February 7, 1950.

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"One can think of half a dozen political actions which, if taken by our leadership and people, would have a more devastating effect on Soviet morale than the H-bomb. But we will never take them as long as the atomic stockpile and the H-bomb constitute a Maginot Line of the mind."

Senator Bryan McMahon's startling proposal that the United States provide a five-year, 50 billion dollar fund to be granted for development to all needy nations, including the U.S.S.R., was an effort to use the weapon of economic and, perhaps, political and psychological warfare. That the public was startled by such a proposal--not only by its dollar magnitude, but by its basic idea, coming from the chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy--is evidence of the general lack of appreciation of the importance of psychological and economic warfare. But it is most important also to note that a primary part of Senator McMahon's proposal was that Russia be faced with a flat requirement to accept a parallel rate of disarmament and the Acheson-Lilienthal-Baruch (U. S.) plan for the control and inspection of atomic energy. Our action was to be on this strictly *quid pro quo* basis.

Senator McMahon said: 1/

"Although it flows from many weeks, and indeed months, of continuous reflection, I offer it only as an example of the bold steps which the Soviet atomic explosion, the shadow of the hydrogen bomb and the pyramiding arms race should persuade us to consider."

"We now spend about $15,000,000,000 annually for armaments. Why not offer to take two-thirds of this sum, or $10,000,000,000, and, instead of amassing sterile weapons, use it to foster peace throughout the world for a 5-year period? Why not offer to spread the annual $10,000,000,000 over three programs: President Truman's Point 4 proposal, development of atomic energy everywhere for peace, and general economic aid and help to all countries, including Russia? Such a Global Marshall plan might combine with the marvelous power of peace-time atomic energy to generate universal material progress and a universal cooperative spirit. In exchange for our own contribution of $10,000,000,000 annually, which we would save from the military budget, we would ask, first general acceptance of an effective program for international control of atomic energy, and second, an agreement by all countries, enforced through inspection, that two-thirds of their present spending upon armaments be devoted toward constructive ends. Administration of the annual $10,000,000,000 which we offered to make available for 5 years would be carried out through the United Nations."

1/ "The Hydrogen Bomb" A Plan for Atomic Peace. Speech of Hon. Brien McMahon of Connecticut in the Senate of the United States, Thursday, February 2, 1950.

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Such a proposal, if advanced by our Government, might vividly bring home to all the world's population--in a manner far more successful than we have so far used--the profundity of our desire for peace. It would accomplish this result even if it accomplished nothing else. If the proposal were actually accepted, we would have concluded the cheapest monetary bargain in the history of the world; we would have probably saved mankind from destruction by fire; and we would have paved the way toward a new era of unimagined abundance for all men, based upon atomic energy constructively harnessed."

He went on to add that if it failed, we should at least face the
necessary consequences and sacrifices with a more united understanding
and will.

Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, added a further development of this reversal of the
"peace offensive" of Moscow by showing how necessary "Universal Disarma-
ment Down to Rifles" would be, if a real limitation of atomic war were
to be found, rather than an armed truce, lasting only to the outbreak of
war. The following excerpts from this important speech will make clear
his position, which has been registered by a series of resolutions
requesting the President (and later the United Nations) to call a uni-
versal disarmament conference since 1946:

"There must be complete world disarmament, with proper inspection, if the hydrogen and the atomic bomb are not to be manufactured and not to be used. To prevent their use, you must destroy war itself. Unless you destroy war, you cannot prevent the use of the atomic and the hydrogen bomb, or any of the other great weapons now in the offing.

"... "The effort toward world disarmament is fraught with no realistic danger. If an invitation is extended, all eyes will turn to Russia. When Russia speaks, we will know what the score is."

"Now let me go back to the statement of the Secretary of State that we must build up strength everywhere we can and keep our nerves steady, and so forth. We had better look over our own defenses at home first, if that is to be our policy. Unless we are strong, then neither we nor the democratic nations that are dependent upon us can survive. Are we strong enough? The only way we can measure our strength is by contrasting it with the strength of a potential enemy. What is the strength of our potential enemy? Russia must be the core of this potential enemy strength. How strong is Russia?"

Following a discussion of the comparative strength of the United
States and Russia, Senator Tydings proceeds:

"So I think, if we are not able to have an adjustment of our difficulties with the Russians, from here on out we will have to take a completely new look at our defenses. If we are not able to stop the arms race, through the medium of world disarmament or something approaching it, we shall have to be stronger in the future than it was ever necessary for us to be in the past."

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After enlarging upon the necessity of expanded plans for national defense if the arms race does not cease, Senator Tydings pointed out another alternative of saving this nation's, even mankind's, fate--that of a renewed effort toward international disarmament.

"If the Russians, at some future date, should accept our proposals for the prohibition of the manufacture, possession, and use of A- and H-bombs, without agreeing to our other proposals for the scaling down of conventional weapons, we would be caught in a trap. We cannot afford to agree to the prohibition of the A- and H-bombs only. There must be accompanying and compensating disarmament in the field of conventional weapons, to offset this sacrifice of our armed might. Otherwise, our own people and the people of western Europe would strongly oppose it, and I believe the United States Senate would not vote to ratify any such agreement, for the simple reason that it would transfer military dominance, particularly in Europe, from ourselves to Russia.

"If the two proposals pending in the United Nations are not henceforth handled by the same committee, so that any disarmament by one great nation is compensated for by equal disarmament by others, then we ought to recall our offer from the United Nations. The establishment of two committees to deal with two different kinds of armaments no doubt sprang from the best of intentions. However, such a policy is neither sound nor wise, nor likely to be rewarded by real accomplishment."

Adding to Department of State counselor George F. Kennan's statement that there are only three alternatives for the United States in this crisis--isolationism, war, or a continued campaign against communism both in this country and abroad--the senator continues:

"I would offer another alternative to the three which the State Department says are our only recourse: the alternative of taking the initiative, stating our objective before all the world and carrying our message in every manner possible to all people behind the iron curtain."

A more drastic program of psychological warfare is advanced by James Burnham:

"The United States should give the Soviet Union credits of from 25 to 50 billions of dollars and a promise of no war in exchange for the liquidation of the objectionable factors of Soviet Communism--including the opening up of their whole system and a real renunciation of the psychological warfare being conducted by them throughout the

1/ George F. Kennan, "Is War With Russia Inevitable?" Reader's Digest, (Pleasantville, New York) March 1950. pp. 1-9.

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world." 1/

Paul Linebarger has spelled out the nature of psychological warfare
in great detail.

"Psychological warfare is organized persuasion by non-violent means. It seeks to win military gains without military force." 2/ It is offensive and defensive in character. It is useful in peace and in war. It is a visual or auditory aid to the accomplishment of national policy. In peace it plays on the minds, emotions, and actions of people for a specific purpose through the mass media of the press, the radio, the television. In war it does the same thing through propaganda leaflets, the spreading of rumors, the broadcasts of a "Tokyo Rose," and the like. 3/

Economic warfare, like psychological warfare, has many definitions-- sometimes as a means to an end; sometimes as an end in itself. It is different when applied in peace than when applied in war. Generally speaking, economic warfare is the use of diplomatic, economic, and financial power in peace or in war, directed toward the weakening of enemy resources, and the strengthening of one's own position. Like psychological warfare, it is nonmilitary in character--except in actual war when blockading and strategic bombing take it into the field of military operations--but its objectives are the same as the objectives of military victories. In time of war, the principal theatre of economic warfare has been the neutral power. In time of peace, its theatre is universal, but particular emphasis is placed on the sources on which the enemy depends, and on the sources from which he would hope to operate his springboards of offense. Examples of economic warfare used by the Allies in World War II were the blockade, export and import controls, preclusive buying, the safe-haven program, and the blacklist technique. 4/ Examples of economic warfare currently being used by the

1/ James Burnham, *The Coming Defeat of Communism*, New York, John Day Co., 1950. Mr. Burnham obviously does not expect these proposals to be accepted, since they would in effect mean the renunciation of the whole nature and objectives of Moscow's communism. But he points to their usefulness as a counter propaganda move: they unmask Moscow.

2/ See Paul M. A. Linebarger, *Psychological Warfare*, Washington Infantry Journal Press, 1948. Chapter 3, pp. 37-48.

3/ An interesting definition of modern psychological warfare in time of war is to be found in a translation and digestion by the *Military Review*, of the Command and General Staff College. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, January 1950. Vol. XXIX Number 10, from an article by Commander S. Haroldsen in *Militaer Orientering* (Norway), No. 10, 1949.

4/ For an analysis of the effectiveness of one small segment of economic warfare levied by the Allies against Germany in World War II, see David L. Gordon and Royden Dangerfield, "The Hidden Weapon," *Harpers*, 1947.

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Western powers are export control on military items against the Soviet and its satellites in East-West trade; the economic aid programs; and technical and capital assistance programs.

In short, *in time of peace* economic warfare in its offensive role is a long distance blockade against the enemy and a shoring up of allies on the material and financial front, just as psychological warfare is a long-distance offensive against the creeping paralysis directed by the enemy at the human mind. In their *defensive roles*, both psychological and economic warfare are inseparable from the total national strategy which has for its objective superiority in moral, economic and military armament.

The current mobilization planning dilemmas connected with psychological and economic warfare are of two kinds:

1. Those involving national action in advance of open hostilities as a possible preventive measure, and

2. Advance planning of the role to be played by them when military war has actually been declared.

The first dilemma--that involving action now--is characterized by

1. A national public attitude of reluctance to admitting psychological and economic warfare as legitimate tools of a peaceful democracy (unless rationalized under some such concept as "aid to allies.")

2. A lack of attention to the whole subject on the part of the government.

3. A lack of appropriated funds to carry out any large-scale use of these weapons.

The second dilemma--that involving action after the outbreak of hostilities--is characterized by

1. A lack of balance and integration between a planned military strategy and the planned economic and psychological warfare strategies to be used if, as, and when a military involvement occurs.

There is a growing awareness on the part of the press and Members of Congress of the necessity for peacetime psychological and economic warfare. There is also a growing awareness also of a lack of integration and balance in the relationship between such economic and psychological warfare programs as are currently in being and planned and the military preparedness program, military risks, and military commitments. Unless this balance and integration is achieved, the economic and psychological warfare programs could bring about genuine conflict at a particular place and time that would not meet present or future military capabilities. The need for a balanced grand strategy in all forms of warfare is imperative.

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At present the positive sides of economic "cold" war consist largely in the various foreign aid programs. The negative side is almost entirely limited to the export controls, which under the ECA Act and remnants of the War Powers Acts, subject the direct exports of war potential items to Russia or the satellites to control and seek to prevent countries which receive ECA aid from themselves exporting such items to Russia *et al*.

Meanwhile, of course, the Soviet Union continues to conduct *actual* economic and psychological warfare against the Western allies, not just to *plan* for it after the outbreak of a war. In terms of trade, limiting exports for our steel industry, by fomenting strikes, and securing our industrial technology, Moscow is very busy.

*Arguments for an Increased Emphasis on Psychological and Economic Warfare.* Those who argue for greater emphasis on psychological and economic warfare in peace as well as in war point out that the Soviet technique of *disruption* is the principal tool on which the Soviet government relies in its international relations. The Soviet idea is to break men's wills by a diplomacy of non-cooperation; by a network of lies about the difference between what the democracies say they stand for and what they actually stand for; by a widespread use of saboteurs in the realm of ideas and words, as well as in government and industry. When men have been sufficiently unnerved, it is assumed that their fortitude will crumble, and with it the institutions for which they stand. H-bomb threats, open or skillfully implied, will be used. Then the Soviets will pick up the pieces, and acquire the world by accretion rather than by aggression. Believers in this view point to the official Soviet statements in the *Daily Worker* publications around the world--the line that the Soviets will not undertake a Pearl Harbor because they know that the United Nations is morally aligned against overt aggression; or what is more to their interest, that the democratic economic potential arraigned against aggressors will not be mobilized unless there is overt aggression. So while we build up physical weapons of destruction against a repetition of Pearl Harbor, they concentrate their major efforts on psychological and economic warfare which delivers the confused world over to them while we sit on our stockpile of atom bombs and watch. We cannot win, it is said, against the flank maneuver, when we are concentrating mainly on the frontal attack. Therefore, we had better take more of the defense or welfare *billions* now and put a few more *millions* into a counter psychological and economic warfare offensive. This means a propaganda-truth campaign--the best propaganda being the truth—not just to those nations known to be on our side, nor to those "in-between-states," but also to those behind the Iron Curtain. In the words of Wallace Carroll: 1/

"A strategy of persuasion is essential if the United States is to succeed in its paramount aim of assuring a just and lasting

1/ Wallace Carroll, *Persuade or Perish*, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1948.

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peace. . . It must proceed from the realization that behind the governments are the peoples, and that it is more important to win the hearts of men than the cold and formal approval of their rulers. . . . There was a lesson (from World War II) that should not be forgotten. Across the Channel in those days were the peoples who had been beaten or cozened or tricked into temporary servitude. We never lost faith in them. We never abandoned them to their oppressors. We gave them such sympathy and support as we could. We told them we knew that they were with us, and that when the day came, they would stand with the forces of freedom, and they did. Today an iron curtain separates us from the peoples who would be free, and there are some among us who would abandon them. Let us remember the other peoples who were overrun but never conquered. And let us hold aloft the torch of hope, like the goddess at our gates, to tell the hungry and oppressed that after the darkness and the storm they will find liberty and peace."

Advocates of a greater emphasis on psychological and economic warfare now as well as after the outbreak of war point to the imperative need of achieving integration and balance in the grand strategy.

**Arguments Against a Greater Emphasis on Psychological and Economic Warfare.** Arguments against the increased use of psychological and economic warfare by the United States in time of peace are the arguments generally aligned against the use of propaganda and economic restrictions by a democracy. It is alleged that these are overt acts of war in and of themselves, and that therefore they are self-defeating; that they are the weapons of dictatorships and not of democracies; that we do not and cannot know how to use them skillfully because they are repugnant to our very moral fabric, and that unless we can use them skillfully they will backfire against us. It is argued that their intensified use may ultimately so increase the tension that spontaneous shooting could occur, or the potential aggressor could become so squeezed as to have to resort to overt retaliation on a serious scale. Moreover, it is said that these weapons may actually strengthen a potential aggressor, by forcing him into the use of synthetics in materials and in ideas to the point where he is no longer dependent upon the outside world. On this very point it is alleged that the best thing that the Soviets could have done for us was to cut off our supply of manganese. By so doing, they compelled us to find alternative sources which lessened our dependence on them. Again, because the results of this kind of warfare are not really measurable, it becomes a great morass into which to sink our funds, and that this is one quicksand we can well afford to by-pass. Finally, it is argued that our best hope is to lead the world by the example of our prosperity, our freedom and our dignity, rather than to try to lead it by "pressure."

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Another sort of objection to the diversion of military funds to psychological and/or economic warfare rests simply on the statement that such a choice is not necessary. Military strength, it is argued, is the best sort of psychological warfare: It affords a sense of some limited security to our allies, and deters further Russian aggression, as no mere propaganda could. It is the only insurance policy for foreign aid and without it, economic deprivation of war potential to Russia is of little effect. Furthermore, the relatively small sums that can be effectively used in peacetime are not a large item and should not be greatly expanded. Beyond these narrow limits, which do not constitute an addition to the budget of substantial dimensions, any big programs should give way to more effective restraints--namely, striking weapons.

### Current Status of Psychological and Economic Warfare in Relation To Military Readiness
Psychological warfare and economic warfare are, of course, established military procedures in time of war. They are also established planning procedures in time of peace.

Psychological warfare measures in being are "The Voice of America" program, the "information programs" conducted out of counterpart funds under the ECA legislation, and the "information programs" carried on in connection with the Military Assistance programs.

Economic warfare programs in being are the Economic Aid Program for Europe, Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Technical and Capital Assistance Programs both planned and in being.

The Administration is committed by legislation to a "total security" approach and therefore is committed to a consideration of proper balance among the various elements of security, two of which are inducably psychological and economic warfare. That this is recognized is evidenced by Secretary Acheson's "total diplomacy speech" in which he pointed out that "We are struggling against an adversary that is deadly serious. We are in a situation where we are playing for keeps. Moreover, we are in a situation where we could lose without ever firing a shot."¹/ The primary concern is to see that the economic and industrial

1/ Summary of Remarks of Secretary of State Dean Acheson at a Meeting of the Advertising Council at the White House, February 16, 1950.

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# CHAPTER III. CONTROVERSIAL ORGANIZATION PATTERNS

Since the organization and administration of any war effort--even in its mobilization planning stage--are a sine qua non of that effort, it is natural that these subjects should receive first attention by those who, concerned about the prospects of another war, want to be assured of the "what, where, when, who, and how" of government administration in this regard. Because of the large element of personal preference--based on one's own personal experience in business, profession, or government service--these subjects lend themselves all too readily to controversy, since experience is such a variegated factor. Human ingenuity in matters of public administration is all too well known. Perhaps it is because of the great variety of possibilities in the matter of organization charts, and the variety of functions which could flow from the ease with which a connecting line between organizational boxes can be moved about on charts, that many people conclude in the end that organization does not matter--that what does matter is the men who run the organization. This is a view set forth in the "Report of the War Resources Board" appointed on August 9, 1939, to review the Industrial Mobilization Plan of 1939 prepared by the Army and Navy Munitions Board. On this point the Board said: "Our experience convinces us that the organization of wartime agencies should be concerned not alone in terms of functions or organization charts but still more important--in terms of the men able to make agencies work."

Nevertheless, there are some organizational and administrative patterns that more than some others enhance the abilities of the men who direct them, and ease their procedural handicaps.

The organizational controversies discussed in the following section have to do with civilian versus military control of mobilization planning; with the issue of a permanent nuclear planning agency as against a temporary planning and coordinating agency; with the problem of how closely national planning should be integrated with interallied planning in peacetime; and with the question of the "Blueprint" approach in contrast to the "Problem and Methods Planning Approach." The more precise meaning of these terms will become apparent in their more detailed consideration.

## a. Civilian Versus Military Control of Mobilization Planning

Civilian versus military control of any phase of mobilization is a perennial argument and particularly so in the area of mobilization

1/

"Report of the War Resources Board," Washington, D. C., 1939. p. 4.

planning. It should be quite clear, however, that the civilian case against the military is the case against the career military service, not especially with that aspect of the military service under civilian leadership. Until the passage of the National Security Act of 1947, mobilization planning was the function of the military. The only officer of the Government specifically charged with this function by law until 1947 was the Assistant Secretary of War--a function actually performed by the career military service. Moreover, although World War I caught us without mobilization planning in the modern sense, World War II did not. In the interim between wars, the military authorities had evolved a set of blueprints known as the Industrial Mobilization Act of 1939. Franklin D. Roosevelt did not choose to use it presumably because the only agency that could implement it was the Army-Navy Munitions Board at a time when the country was still rejecting the possibility of a war in which the United States would be directly involved. The year 1940 was an election year and a plan of military origin had political disadvantages. There were other disadvantages, as well. The plan placed great power in the hands of industrialists, and concentrated that power in a place just short of the President.

By way of illustrating the possibilities for conflict, the following excerpts are quoted from a symposium on "National Defense and Democratic Society," in which John D. Millett¹ summarized some of the difficulties in civilian-military relationships of World War II.

"Problems of civil-military relationships emerged in two important settings during World War II. In the first place, at various times in the heat of controversy between the War Production Board and the procurement authorities of the War Department, the Army was accused of wanting to 'take over' control of the economy. While there was little substance to these charges, disagreements persisted on policy and procedural matters between the WPB and the Army. Yet the basic division of responsibility was never challenged. The Army bought military supplies directly; the WPB determined the total volume of that procurement and expedited its delivery. Cooperation and adjustment in this arrangement were indispensable, and not always so freely given as was desirable.

"Secondly, the great demands upon America's scientists to assist in developing the weapons of World War II brought forth a whole new experience in relationships. There were times when the scientists regarded officers as obtuse and obstructionist; there were times when military men regarded scientists as impractical and temperamental. Security considerations often competed with the scientist's concern for exchange of data, and with his greater regard for professional recognition than for monetary compensation.

1/ This article appeared in the *American Political Science Review*, June 1949, Vol. XLIII, No. 3.

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"A conflict between military and political leadership over strategy was less evident in World War II than in World War I.

"Some complaint has been voiced in the last four years about the military in various high governmental positions."

Although the National Security Act of 1947 quite firmly established the principle of civilian control--at least in the planning of economic mobilization--recognition of the legitimate jurisdiction of the military over certain aspects of industrial mobilization has succeeded in providing a dual system by military and civilian agencies which by its very nature continually raises the old ghost of which should predominate, and which will in fact predominate.

This is brought home in the Report of the Hoover Commission: 1/

"The pressure of events has resulted in a budget of approximately $15,000,000,000 in the current fiscal year, more than a third of all Federal appropriations, and large military budgets must be the expectation for the immediate future. Under these circumstances, the Nation must make very sure that means of exercising civilian control are strong and effective. We repeat, that under these circumstances, we must hold the military rigidly accountable to the President, the Congress, and the people. We must do this not only to safeguard our democratic traditions against militarism, but to insure that military policy shall be in close accord with national needs and national welfare: and also to insure that the huge military budget shall be used with efficiency, and that costs shall be commensurate with actual needs without damaging or destroying our national economy. At present we can be sure of none of these things."

As evidence that the issue of civilian-military control in defense planning is still a perennial issue, the following excerpts are taken from the recent Report of the House Armed Services Committee on Unification and Strategy in the Armed Forces: 2/

"22. Civilian control of the Nation's Armed forces is integrally a part of the Nation's democratic process and tradition; it is strongly supported by the committee. ...

"32. The appointment of a career military officer as chairman of a committee composed of civilians on the Assistant Secretary or Under-Secretary level is an unfortunate and

1/ Report to the Congress of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, February 1949, pp. 2-3.

2/ For context of above quotes, see "Summary of House (Armed Services) Committee's Report on Defense Planning," *New York Times*, March 2, 1950. p. 23.

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undesirable precedent which inverts the civilian control
concept so closely identified with unification."

Arguments for Civilian Control. Hanson Baldwin, for example, ex-
presses the case for civilian control thusly: "Civilian, not military,
control must guide economic mobilization in war and in peace because
economic readiness and economic mobilization touch at least the periphery
of every phase of national life, and democracy is built upon the funda-
mental principle of civilian supremacy." ¹

Even in war the President of the United States, as Commander-in-
Chief of the Army and Navy, still wears civilian clothes, and even the
Cabinet posts having to do with military matters are staffed by civilian
rather than military personnel. In modern total war, it is argued, the
military organization, while important, is still only one part of the
total picture. Its part must be coordinated with all other parts. It
should not dominate all other parts. A fear is expressed in many quar-
ters that it will always try to dominate them, no matter how decisive
the mandate to the contrary. Evidence of this is to be found in the
Budget Bureau's Report on The United States at War:²/ viz.:

"As shown by the Industrial Mobilization Plan, it was the
doctrine of the Army that the military should take direct control of all
elements of the economy needed for war, once war was declared. Under
'total' war, this would include total control of the Nation, its man-
power, its facilities, its economy. Starting with this simple and
'logical' concept, and being absolutely certain from 1939 on that war
was coming, it was natural that the generals and colonels and majors,
even those drawn from civilian life, were dissatisfied with the Presi-
dent's slow approach to war mobilization and with his reliance upon
civilian personnel in all of the posts which were concerned with labor,
industry, public opinion, and the economy. In spite of these decisions
by the President, the Army never gave up the effort to increase its
control in these areas."

In a report to Arthur M. Hill, chairman of the National Security
Resources Board, June 4, 1948, Ferdinand Eberstadt clearly spelled out
the rationale behind the preference for civilian control:

"It is not the duty of the military to correlate manpower
needs; it is their duty to get the men required to fill their ranks,
regardless of the many other necessary uses this Nation has for its man-
hood. Theoretically, selective service systems are supposed to consider

1/ Hanson Baldwin, *The Price of Power*, Harper, 1948. See also, Hanson Baldwin, "The Military Move In," *Harper's Magazine*, 1948.

2/ *The United States at War*, Bureau of the Budget, 1946, p. 129.

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conflicting requirements, but they are inadequately equipped to do so. The Munitions Board is under the duty of coordinating contracts so as to avoid conflict between the military programs themselves; it is not its duty to adjust these programs to the needs of the civilian economy or even to such related programs as those of the Atomic Energy Commission or European Recovery. The National Security Resources Board was created because of the acute realization of the limitations upon purely military planning, and of the lamentable consequences which must follow if there is nothing to balance large military demands on the Nation's resources."

Proponents of civilian control allege further that in recent years the military view of the appropriate mobilization planning technique has shown several characteristics markedly different from those of the civilian mind. For example, by tradition the military have a tendency to the "blueprint" approach, whereas civilian agencies tend to prefer a "problem and methods planning" approach. (These terms will be explained in greater detail in a subsequent section.) Again, in the view of the civilian agencies, the military tend to overstate their requirements to the detriment of the essential civilian economy: the military services naturally argue the realism of requirements which provide a margin of extra protection in the form of double supply lines which make it possible for them to overcome such disasters as occurred in the Battle of the Bulge with the loss of the primary supply line. In procurement matters it is alleged that the military have a predisposition for placing contracts with large plants rather than with small plants as a matter of simple convenience, whereas the civilian agencies with a view to utilizing scarce resources, tend to emphasize the importance of the smaller plants. Still again, the civilian argues that the military mind is much more concerned with manpower and the munitions of war to the neglect of other basic ingredients of an economy, such as wage stabilization, price control, rent control, war financing and many psychological considerations affecting morale.

**Arguments for Military Control.** On the other hand, it is said that the military mind, through its natural environment, must be war conscious. At all times it has a war experience behind it, and a war potential before it. These are its terms of reference. Civilians are believed not to have a true appreciation of the specific sinews of war. The slow progress that civilian planning appears to make in pursuing the medium of the democratic processes, is just cause for impatience. Moreover, it is said that since the military authorities have the actual appropriations for letting the contracts, for establishing stand-by facilities, for procuring the strategic and critical materials, they are the only ones that really understand the mechanics of planning and they should be completely responsible for it. Finally, it is alleged that civilian authority tends to become dispersed, even when it is superimposed over the military agencies and that divided authority is always dangerous where military issues are at stake.

Military men, like Marshall, who have been put in positions of high political influence have shown themselves to be at least as conscious of American democratic traditions as others. Generally, the administration has had to fall back on men in uniform because civilians either could not or would not serve, or serve long enough, to do the job.

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## Current Status of Civilian-Military Control of Mobilization Planning.

So long as modern warfare is total warfare, the issue of civilian versus military control will probably continue to harass all planning. Modern warfare involves the total resources of the economy and therefore military and civilian planners must work in the same area.

The Munitions Board has direct responsibility over the military aspects of industrial mobilization planning in the following areas, subject always to review by and coordination on the part of the National Security Resources Board:

1. Formulation of Requirements

2. Priorities and allocations Control

3. Allocation of Industrial Production

4. Establishment and Maintenance of Reserve Plants

5. Stockpiling of strategic and Critical Materials

6. Manpower Mobilization

7. Industrial Security

8. Economic Warfare

9. Economic Stabilization

10. Machine Tools and Production Equipment

11. Storage, Transportation and Communications Mobilization

12. Conservation of Materials

13. Procurement

14. Materials Survey

15. Industrial Preparedness Measures

A Memorandum to the Staffs of the Munitions Board and the National Security Resources Board, on the "Delineation of Peacetime Responsibilities Between the Munitions Board and the National Security Resources Board," issued jointly by John R. Steelman and Hubert E. Howard, January 23, 1950, outlines the primary responsibilities of the two agencies as follows:

### "1. General Relationships.

a. The National Security Resources Board and the Munitions Board are agencies established by the National Security Act of 1947 as amended. As such their responsibilities are directly derived from the needs of the National Security Program. The mission of both Boards is primarily in the economic and industrial fields.

"b. As an agency of the President, the functions of the National Security Resources Board are on a national level with responsibility for advising the President concerning the co-ordination of military, industrial, and civilian mobilization. The National Security Resources Board is a planning and advisory agency.

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"c. The Munitions Board is an agency of the Secretary of Defense within the Department of Defense. Its responsibilities pertain primarily to planning the military aspects of industrial mobilization. The Munitions Board is the representative of the Department of Defense in all economic and industrial fields. As such it has been designated by the Secretary of Defense as the primary point of contact within the Department of Defense for representatives of the National Security Resources Board and elements of the Department of Defense, are arranged through initial contracts with the Munitions Board.

"d. The National Security Resources Board looks to the Munitions Board for the collection of needed data from the operating elements of the Department of Defense; for refinement, analysis, and interpretation of such data and for the conduct of analytical studies. To prevent duplication, the National Security Resources Board and the Munitions Board utilize the same advisory committees wherever possible.

"e. The National Security Resources Board develops the broad outline of an action program which would be required in an emergency and has the overall coordinating responsibility for seeing that war mobilization plans designed to meet various alternate situations are developed by the appropriate Governmental agencies. The Munitions Board prepares those industrial mobilization documents controlling Department of Defense activities in this field."

This division of functions requires close and willing cooperation. If the planning of the National Security Resources Board is to be effective, it can not be met with a pattern of industrial procurement and potential staffing for war controls already set by the peacetime operations of the Munitions Board. On the other hand, the Munitions Board must operate; it must procure and be prepared for any eventuality. It cannot wait for master plans that are not forthcoming in time to get on with its day-to-day job. The relations are logically well conceived. The chairman of the Munitions Board is a civilian and so are his superiors in the Defense Department. But the continuous cooperation of both agencies is essential.

### b. Skeletal Mobilization Organization Vs. Planning and Coordinating Mobilization Organization.

The question of whether to maintain in peacetime a permanent skeletal mobilization organization that would become the war directing agency itself in time of war, or whether simply to provide a temporary planning agency which would drop out of the picture (as in World War II in the case of the National Resources Planning Board) in favor of a new

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war agency (such as the War Production Board) if the war actually begins, is one of the most debated of all issues connected with mobilization planning. Here one must come to grips with the basic issues of *what* is to be done, *by whom* it is to be done, and *where* it is to be done--probably in that order of importance.

*What* is to be done is a matter that falls within the context of the international climate and the national strategy with respect to it at any given time. If the climate is peaceful and the strategy is to perpetuate it, then *planning* against a remote contingency would be the order of the day. If the climate were tense, and the strategy were watchful preparedness, then *planning* of "readiness measures" and the training of personnel would lend an operating accent to the *what* that is planned.

Depending on the *what* that is to be done, the *who* that will do it becomes a matter of preference as between career planners (i.e., government servants) and career executives from the ranks of industry, labor, or the professions.

The *where* of the agency and the men to carry out the *what*, follows again from the nature of the job and the urgency with which it is concerned. If mobilization planning is to be done as a staff function at a very high level, as for example in the Executive Office of the President, then it probably should not be an operating agency as well. If it is to be a nuclear operating agency, then it quite properly belongs in an operating atmosphere--attached to one or several of the regular departments, or perhaps even having an independent status of its own.

*Arguments for a Permanent Skeletal Mobilization Organization.* The arguments for a permanent skeletal mobilization organization that could and would do an operating job as well as a planning job, are mostly geared to the advantages of having a known organizational pattern at all times. Supporters of this school of thought say that it is much sounder to have the organizational foundations built on concrete, so to speak, rather than on shifting sands; that with designated responsibility goes full accountability *in advance*, rather than *post facto*; that the permanent agencies will take more seriously the requests for assistance made by another permanent agency than they will those made by a temporary agency; that the job of mobilization planning should be a permanent career for civilians just as the armed forces are permanent careers for soldiers, sailors, marines, and air personnel; that there would be a great saving in time in the event of an emergency; and that the advantages of having a handy operating agency in the transition from a peace to a war economy are very coercive.

Mr. Baruch expresses strong views on this one also: 1/

1/ Bernard M. Baruch, "To Prevent War," *Readers Digest*, February 1950.

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It is also urged that such a skeleton agency, with a trained reserve, under civilian control is the only way to prevent operating control going into military hands at the sudden outbreak of war, if only by default.

### Arguments for a Mobilization Planning and Coordinating Agency.
Those who oppose a permanent skeletal operating organization and prefer a staff planning and coordinating agency, do so largely on the assumption that planning is the appropriate peacetime function of such an organization and that wartime operating requires a different kind of personnel. It is said, for example, that planners are not necessarily good administrators and vice versa. These advocates of a temporary planning agency point out that the men who should run the war are the leaders of industry and labor, and that these men are simply not available except in war itself. To assume that planning personnel in a permanent bureaucratic agency could run war production, is sheer nonsense, so they say. Moreover, until the men are appointed who are actually going to do the job, it is better to rely on the ability of the old line agencies doing a temporary wartime operating job under the guidance of the temporary planning agency, leaving flexible the form of emergency organization that will be best adapted to conditions at the time, and to the men of the hour.

Kenneth Galbraith, for example, points to the German experience as a mistake to be avoided. There mobilization planning was a part of the permanent structure of the regular government for a period of seven years prior to World War II. It got into a bureaucratic rut where it lost its vitality and vision, and was ultimately by-passed by the political leaders who disregarded considerations of "economic depth" (industrial expansion to wage a sustained war of attrition) in their preoccupation with "armament in width" (a wide but shallow military capacity across the board that could strike a simultaneous surprise blow deep into the heart of the enemy's war potential.) To Mr. Galbraith the establishment of an actual war organization in advance of the job of running the war, violates a fundamental tenet of security--namely, structural flexibility. ¹/

¹/ J. Kenneth Galbraith, "Germany Was Badly Run," *Fortune Magazine*, December 1945.

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**Current Status of Mobilization Planning Organization.** Responsibility for coordinating military, industrial and civilian mobilization planning was placed in the National Security Resources Board, a civilian agency, by the National Security Act of 1947.

The issue of whether the National Security Resources Board should consider itself a permanent nucleus organization for running a war effort in addition to planning the mobilization, or whether it should remain simply a planning and coordinating agency, was presented, in part, to the President in the spring of 1948. The President decided against the permanent nuclear concept at this time in a letter to Mr. Arthur M. Hill, chairman of the National Security Resources Board, of May 24, 1948:

> "I do not intend to vest in the National Security Resources Board any responsibilities for coordination of the national security programs of the Government which require the exercise of directive authority over any department and agency, or which imply a final power of decision resting with the Board. It is my view that the proper role of the Board is the exercise of its statutory duty to advise the President. . . . Such functions of allocation and scheduling as may be possible under existing law, and direct contact with the industries involved in voluntary or mandatory control activities, should remain with the Government agencies to which they are now assigned. . . . The Board should undertake immediately to keep me informed and to advise me on what further steps need to be taken from time to time to improve the preparedness position of this country with regard to national resources for security, as contemplated in the National Security Act. The preparation of long-term programs necessary to maintain this country in a state of adequate preparedness so that mobilization could be rapidly and smoothly accomplished is the first task of the Board. In this connection, the maximum use should be made of the staff and information available in existing departments and agencies. This would have the effect of avoiding duplication of effort, would enable the size of the Board staff to be kept to a minimum, and would give the departments and agencies a greater familiarity with security matters and a greater capacity to respond to more pressing calls should they arise. . . . In our present preparedness effort, the Board must consider itself as a Presidential advisory agency and conform its actions and recommendations to producing information and advice upon which Presidential action may be taken. . . . The functions I have outlined--both those concerned with mobilization planning in the event of war and with more current problems--are positive and important. Successful definition and accomplishment by the Board of its role in these areas can be of assistance to the President and to the agencies of the Executive Branch. . . ."

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While this letter turned the attention of the National Security Resources Board from the business of current economic controls to planning for controls in wartime, the nucleus concept was really laid to rest in N.S.R.B. Document 116, July 20, 1949, the pertinent section of which reads in part:

> "The N.S.R.B. is concerned with the fulfillment of two major jobs. The first is that of mobilization planning. . . . The second major job concerns current policies and programs through which the Nation may achieve an adequate state of readiness against the eventuality of a future war."

However, the nucleus concept has not been completely settled as a matter of public controversy, judging by the repeated advocacy of establishing permanent nuclear segments in existing old-line executive agencies, or even the establishment of separate nuclear agencies for such activities as civilian defense. No matter how often or how authoritatively it is answered to the contrary officially, doubts like those raised by Mr. Baruch and by Hanson Baldwin are still raised. As the public senses an acceleration in the intensity of the "cold war," more and more interest is aroused in the training functions that could be prepared by an operating mobilization agency, rather than in the planning functions of a staff agency. There is a feeling that "shaking down" an entirely new organization takes too long to risk in a future war. A stand-by basis for an operating organization like the wartime WPB may be at least as necessary as an Army Reserve, and certainly as reasonable as stand-by plant facilities--if quick action is needed.

But so long as the National Security Resources Board is a Presidential staff agency, advisory in character with a leadership function in the mobilization field, it is not considered appropriate for it to be an operating agency. Nevertheless, it seems to be felt that at some time there may well be a real need for a series of such permanent operating nuclear mobilization agencies for training purposes within the Departments of Commerce, Labor, General Services Agency, etc., in addition to the staff agency in the Executive Office of the President. In this connection, it is interesting to note that Canada has what it calls a "phantom ministry" approach to mobilization planning which is in effect the nuclear approach.

### c. Interallied Cooperation in National Mobilization Planning.

It will be remembered that in the United States' second year of World War II, the need arose to relate national mobilization to interallied planning and operations across the board. Beginning in 1942 with the establishment of administrative machinery through Executive Agreement between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, five civilian interallied boards were set up--namely, the Combined Raw

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Materials Board, the Combined Food Board, the Combined Shipping Adjustment Board, and the Combined Production and Resources Board, and the Munitions Assignment Board. In addition there was the combined military board known as the Combined Chiefs of Staff.

The circumstances under which the civilian Boards were developed are well put in an article by Courtney C. Brown, in the Department of State Bulletin for July 1, 1945:

"The inauguration of the several Boards reflects the order in which urgent supply problems appeared. In the early days of the war our principal concern was with the loss of rubber, tin, and certain other nonferrous metals, coarse fibers for naval use, and other miscellaneous raw materials. These materials had been obtained in large quantities from the Philippines and the Netherlands Indies in the pre-war period. The Combined Raw Materials Board was one of the first of the several Boards to begin operations.

"Extended transportation routes, loss of merchant shipping, and the great demands on transportation to move military supplies and personnel to bases in Africa, India, the United Kingdom, and the southwest Pacific were factors which meant that every ton of shipping should be used in the most effective manner. Both the United States and the United Kingdom had their own governmental machinery to adjust their import and export shipping programs; but maximum efficiency in the use of the ships available to the United Nations could not be realized without a central body that would look upon the combined fleets as a pool and would recommend transfers from one service to the other as the need might arise. The Combined Shipping Adjustment Board accordingly was inaugurated at the same time as the organization of the Combined Raw Materials Board.

"The early activities of the Axis did not seriously jeopardize the major sources of food on which the United Nations had relied in pre-war years. There had been a succession of good crops in such important producing areas as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. With the progress of the Germans through Europe, the Danubian basin and the dairy and hog-producing areas of northwestern Europe were closed off. Operation of the North Sea fisheries was seriously impaired. Also, the rice of Indochina, Thailand, and Burma was shut out by the Japanese, and the fats and oils of the Philippines and the Netherlands Indies were cut off. Sugar from Java and the Philippines was lost. By and large, the food position was not a serious one, except in the United Kingdom, and even there the problem was more one of shipping than of supply. However, in June 1942 it was felt necessary to organize a combined board to deal with the food position when the much greater demands which related to the prosecution of a world-wide war began to impinge upon what would have normally been regarded as an abundant supply.

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"The Combined Production and Resources Board began at the same time to combine the production programs of the United States and the United Kingdom into a single integrated program and to assure the continuous adjustment of the combined program to meet changing military requirements. The Board was instructed to keep the Combined Chiefs of Staff and the Combined Munitions Assignment Board informed concerning the current availability and future possibilities of production, and in turn was to be informed concerning military requirements by those agencies.

"The whole operation is complex, but it has worked remarkably well in rationalizing the production, procurement, and distribution of short-supply items in the interest of the war. In essence it has achieved an administration of international trade in those commodities selected by the Boards for attention which have been in short supply but which at the same time are essential for the prosecution of the war and for the maintenance of essential civilian economies. Occasionally, allocation recommendations have been made to prevent a wasteful use of shipping space in transporting commodities that were not seriously short. The framework of the operations and the pattern of the recommendations have been geared to the problem of scarcity."

The purpose of this extended quotation of World War II experience is to show that the need for interallied planning and coordination becomes imperative at some point in the mobilization planning framework. The question arises as to whether it is better to proceed from the very beginning on an interallied planning basis, or whether it is desirable to proceed with purely national planning until such time as the emergency actually occurs, or still another alternative--whether to carry national planning to some mid-point and then to correlate broad principles and necessary information with certain potential allies. The real question is that of relative timing on interallied cooperation in national mobilization planning. Involved are a point of organization and a point of substance, viz.:

1. The proper organization relationship of unilateral mobilization planning to multilateral mobilization planning in the actual preparation of national and interallied balance sheets of requirements and resources, the preparation of unilateral or joint readiness measures, and the national and international development of survival plans; and the substantive issue of

2. Major nation control of a multilateral organization versus majority control by all allied countries.

**Arguments for Unilateral Mobilization.** It is argued that mobilization basis even among Allies for reasons both of convenience and of security. Balance sheets of national resources and evaluations of degrees of preparedness revealing areas of vulnerability are the most secret kinds of information affecting our security. This inventory must be shared with no other country, not even a friendly ally because

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there is always the weak link in every chain. Moreover, before one
could cast up an interallied balance sheet, it would be necessary to
proceed first with the determination of the national balance sheets.
Furthermore, we could not wait upon an agreed multilateral pattern.
Security demanded urgent, constant attention to keeping our own house
in order. Such peacetime planning assumes the "Allies" with whom we
would plan would remain our allies in war, and we can not know for
sure which nations would be involved in a multilateral mobilization--
that to the extent that there is a multilateral security problem it
would more appropriately be handled through the United Nations' mech-
anism or the Regional Defense Pacts. Finally, it is reasoned that
any further mobilization planning would precipitate more of an inter-
national crisis than the one it would seek to solve.

**Arguments for Multilateral Mobilization Planning.** In exactly the opposite tenor, it is maintained that our international commitments on a multilateral defense basis are well known--the Rio Pact, the North Atlantic Pact, the Military Assistance Programs, and such other arrangements as have been or indeed may be worked out through the United Nations. Why not then assume from the start a multilateral mobilization planning approach so that ground ultimately to be covered in any event will be deliberately directed and integrated from the start. Otherwise, there will of necessity have to be much reversing of assumptions, retreating of ground, and duplicating of effort when the burden of combined requirements to fall on all or any one of the national resources balance sheets becomes clear. Combined deficiencies could be covered on a strategic basis in "readiness measures" that would go beyond the limitations of national boundaries in a wider safety concept. Indeed, in some areas, such as ocean shipping, it would not make sense to proceed on the assumption that the vessels of no other nation would be available to this country in the event of a war emergency. The experience of World War II proved that it was necessary to adopt a Combined Boards' procedure halfway through the war for raw materials, production, shipping, food, and munitions. Because it had not been worked out in advance, essential pooling operations were never really developed. Finally, it is concluded that pooling agreements in advance are more likely to be protective of national security than are the circumstantial agreements thrown together during the heat of battle.

**Will we find it possible to draw on the strategic resources of our allies without such an organization?** In any case, ought not we to use ECA and other aid to assure our rights to strategic supplies, in advance, as Congress seemed clearly to intend in several sections of the ECA Act?

**Arguments for Major Power Control of a Multilateral Organization.** Assuming that sooner or later multilateral mobilization will occur, the question arises as to the proper method of control from the point of view of our own best national interest. In World War II the Combined

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Boards, while ostensibly covering the mobilization of all the Allied Powers, were in fact controlled by the United States and the United Kingdom, with Canada a lesser copartner. It is argued that this is the only workable solution to Interallied Control--particularly as the number of allies continues to increase with the spread of defense pacts. Moreover, it is believed that major power control is all that would be negotiable at the present time in any event because of obvious diplomatic difficulties. Since the major powers put up the major resources for all allied requirements, and since the concept of sovereign jurisdictions still prevails, in matters of defense more than in any other area, no relinquishment of such sovereignty is thought to be politically feasible. And finally, as a matter of sheer efficiency, it is alleged that the merits of major power control are self-evident and coercive.

**Arguments for Majority Control in a Multilateral Organization.** Contrariwise, it is argued that the broader the base of the mobilization organization, the fuller will be the defense potential. This reasoning rests on the same moral grounds on which the philosophy of democratic procedure as such rests. Equality of sacrifice is at stake. The smaller nations of the world are gaining experience in multilateral government on an equal basis with the large powers in the various agencies of the United Nations. They expect this in all things, and it is urged that they should be encouraged in the philosophy and practice of majority rather than minority rule.

**Current Status of National and Interallied Cooperation in Mobilization Planning.** Given the terms of reference of the "Cold War," time considerations made imperative the unilateral approach rather than an early interallied approach to mobilization planning. The national balance sheet had to be drawn up in any event. However, security reasons for the unilateral approach seem less overriding as the defense pacts are implemented organizationally. It becomes more and more desirable to approach the interallied mobilization problem in an orderly overall manner, rather than in a piecemeal fashion. Therefore, while a two-power control approach would be too limited, and a dozen or more nation control might not be manageable, some middle ground is being sought. Actual formal agreements may not be necessary at this time. Estimates of combined requirements and combined resources within an informal framework can and will be made, subject to error and subject to later adjustment as the margin of error is reduced. Moreover, as special areas develop, as in ocean shipping, the interallied program can be, and indeed is being, developed in an informal way with official representatives of other nations. The problem is: how can the United States, while playing its full part under existing international agreements, at the same time retain a voice in mobilization planning which is commensurate with what its national contribution would be in the event of war; a voice, furthermore, which would be of sufficient authority to provide that vital leadership essential to a successful allied prosecution of the war.

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On April 12, 1949, a Joint United States-Canada Industrial Mobilization Planning Committee was established to exchange information and to coordinate the industrial views of the United States and Canada. This Committee will work with the United States-Canadian Permanent Joint Board on Defense. It represents an effort to salvage the understanding laboriously arrived at between the two nations in World War II. Its purpose is not to conduct the day-to-day diplomatic business of the two nations, properly the problem of the Department of State, but it is to create a know-how as to capabilities and requirements of both against a war emergency.

In the recent congressional hearings on the Military Aid Program General Bradley, for the Chiefs of Staff, emphasized a point which was reiterated by Secretary Acheson in his report on May 31st to both houses of Congress on the recent London Conference: Both emphasized the necessity for pooling the forces of the West; and General Bradley spoke of the necessity of some diminishing of absolute sovereignty on the part of each nation in order to organize a collective security system in which each nation would provide part of the common defense of the Atlantic Community. The arrangements for mobilizing the respective forces of the states who are parties to the Atlantic Pact indicate a considerable extension of the whole machinery gradually being developed under the Military Aid Program to something like joint planning.

### d. "Blueprint" Vs. "Problem and Methods Planning" Approach.

The two most controversial approaches to the actual methods and content of mobilization planning are the so-called "Blueprint" approach and the so-called "problem and methods planning" approach.

Those who take up the cudgels for the "Blueprint" idea usually refer to three things--a set of organizational signals for running a war administration; a handbook of draft legislation on which to operate a war economy; and a book of control orders and forms to be issued to industry and labor push-button style by the war production authorities. In other words, the "blueprint" attempts to indicate exactly who does what and where the morning after. This is generally associated with what we have called Assumption (B) in the introduction.

On the other hand, those who advocate the "Problem and Methods Planning" approach mean, in simple terms, an identification of problems and the analysis of alternative solutions to them prior to or in a war emergency. From these alternative solutions, reduced to a minimum of those estimated to be feasible of execution, the most appropriate could readily be selected to fit the need, the time, and the circumstance. Generally, this approach fits Assumption (C)--the present Administration position.

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**Arguments for the "Blueprint" Approach.** Arguments for the "blueprint" approach are most closely related to judgments about the imminence of a war. It is observed that with two major wars in one generation even the rapid march of technology could not render useless the knowledge and experience in war mobilization for a third engagement in that same lifetime. We know in particular, as well as in general, that we would have to allocate scarce materials and facilities for war production, maintain essential civilian consumption, stabilize wages, prices, profits, divide manpower resources between military and civilian pools, and the like. Those are things that have to be done. In a big sense, there are no alternatives about them. Alternatives in the smaller sense are intellectually engaging, but judgments made now about one alternative, given so much recent experience, could not be too different from judgments made several years from now--at least not different in basic direction, but only in unimportant details.

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Moreover, even a "blueprint" can be periodically overhauled if it
is not called into use, so that it would always be as current as the
necessity impelled. Furthermore, it is said a whole nation could be
guided more intelligently and more consistently over the years on the
basis of a known "blueprint" than on the basis of unknown "methods
alternatives."

The fact that such a "blueprint" approach was made between World
Wars I and II and was not used, does not mean that the "blueprint" idea
as such was wrong: it simply means that the temperament of the person
to whom it was committed for use was not receptive to this particular
print. Even though it was not used, it is believed by many that the
country could have mobilized for war quite effectively with it, and
although rejected, the "Plan" undoubtedly had definite influence in
shaping the substituted plans. In fact Appendix I on the history of
the previous war mobilizations of the economy (World Wars I and II)
shows that through the mobilization plan's effect on the War Resources
Board of 1939 the whole outline of the War Production Board development
was sketched out. An idea should not be discredited because it was
rejected at a particular time in history. Perhaps the other idea--
"the Methods Planning" idea--might also have been rejected at that time
had it been available for choice.

A War Plans blueprint ready for immediate use was prepared by the
British Committee of Imperial Defense as early as the outbreak of World
War I and has been revised to date ever since. This type of plan was
ready and used in both World Wars.

Arguments for the "Problem and Methods Planning" Approach. The
other approach in mobilization planning favored by the administration
rests on assumption (C). It plans the *identification* of alternate
policies, programs, and methods for meeting a war emergency on the
economic front. It is urged that this method is itself substantively
more important than the *actual selection of the alternative* to be used.
Furthermore, the *realistic testing* of the alternatives once they are
identified, constitute far more of a security protection than an un-
tested blueprint. All *decisions* do not need to be made in advance.
Indeed, to make them in advance creates unnecessary controversy, dis-
persion of energies, and may lead to the acceptance of basically un-
satisfactory compromises.

In the interest of flexibility in planning, it is argued that
actual decisions made in peace may well be discarded in war simply
because they were made in peace and are, therefore, suspect on
grounds of just not suiting political and unforeseeable personal
factors in the actual conditions under which a war might have to be
fought.