Smoked Out

Apple-cheeked Senator Byrd leaned far back in his office chair and beamed with satisfaction.

With a ringing blast on the Senate floor and the most comprehensive figures yet released by anyone on rearmament progress, he had smoked the President out on defense, spoiled his day at Hyde Park, made him submit figures of his own, drawn from him a stinging reply that somebody had sold the Senator down the river by giving him a set of false statistics.

"If I've been sold down the river I haven't been sold down very far," Byrd answered, expropriating a quip from the Baltimore Sun. His information, some of it admittedly two months old, came from Big Bill Knudsen of OPM, from Admiral Jerry Land at the Maritime Commission, from the Chief of Staff and from the Secretary of the Navy.

The President, he said, "has sustained my statements in the Senate as to the production of combat planes." (He had charged that July output of bombers and fighters was only 700, up only 200 from January.) Furthermore, the President had not answered Byrd's low estimate of tank production; or his charge that only 105 merchant vessels, including tankers, will be completed this year--less than the Germans sank in June or July; or his statement that only 28 major naval vessels will be added to the fleet before Jan. 1, 1942.

Dialogue. The President picked out four statements from Byrd's speech, gave figures of his own, implied that they refuted the whole speech. On these four points the Senator was not quite right. But neither Byrd's figures nor the President's told the whole story. How they compared:

Byrd. Not a single tank has gone to Britain.

Roosevelt. Hundreds of modern tanks have been turned over to the British.

Actually, some 200 light tanks were sent to Africa for use by British Empire forces. But no tanks have gone to Britain.

Byrd. The defense program calls for delivery of only four 90-mm. anti-aircraft guns a month during the rest of 1941.

Roosevelt. The program calls for delivery of 61 such guns each month from now until January.

It would take some 300 long-range antiaircraft guns to protect New York City alone. Sixty-one big anti-aircraft guns might be enough to put up a spotty defense of a city the size of Buffalo, N.Y. To defend Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, the rest of the crowded industrial Atlantic seaboard, would take thousands and thousands of these guns.

Byrd. For the next few months, 37-mm. anti-tank guns will be produced at a rate of 15 a month.

Roosevelt. In July, 72 were turned out. By October they will be produced at a rate of 320 a month.

The U.S. Army has an estimated 1,620 of these guns on hand, wants at least 6,500. But the British say that 37-mm guns are no good anyhow against modern tanks. They are producing 57-mm. antitank guns.

Byrd. Only 15 big 81-mm. mortars a month can be produced at present.

Roosevelt. July's production was 221, September's will be over 340.

Of these the Army wants 2,500-plus, has only about 1,072 on hand.

Soliloquy. Said Senator Byrd of the President's reply: "Granting all the President's figures which are variations of what I said about tanks, anti-tank and antiaircraft guns, it wouldn't change the picture of the appalling state of the defense program."*

Charges in the Senator's original attack which went totally unanswered by the President include:

> As late as June 15, the U.S. had only 128 light tanks, one medium tank, no heavy tanks at all. Prospects for delivery of light tanks: 300 a month by October. Prospects for delivery of heavy tanks: none have even been ordered. (It takes 397 light and medium tanks to equip each of the five armored divisions the Army will have in service next month. But the Army wants three more armored divisions.)

> The U.S. now has approximately one dozen long-range, 90-mm. anti-aircraft guns. This is the only anti-aircraft gun with power enough to pierce the latest plane armor, and range enough to reach high-flying bombers.

"We Have Failed." Said cherubic Senator Byrd: "America has the capacity in labor and raw materials to outproduce any other nation. ... In that job ... we have failed, and miserably failed. . . We have not sent to England the aid we should have sent her, and our own preparations have dangerously lagged . . . We have spent for national defense nearly $10,000,000,000. What have we to show? . . . The colossal sum of $53,000,000,000 has been authorized and appropriated. This is twice as much as the cost of our participation in the last World War. . . .

"Appropriations are of no avail, neither does equipment on order win wars. What we must have and have quickly are the completed tanks, the guns, the combat planes, and the ships."

* A Gallup poll last week found that 39% of the people are satisfied with U.S. war production, 9% more than were pleased six months ago. Of the 43% who are actively dissatisfied, 48% blamed strikes and labor disputes, 18% objected to lack of coordination in the program.

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