A Few More Billions

The House Appropriations Committee last week considered a modest request from the White House for seven billion more dollars for the Army and Navy--mostly for the Army. Committee members calculated that when (not if) the sum is appropriated the U.S. will have undertaken to spend more than 67 1/2 billion dollars for national defense since June 1940.

> For the Navy the President's request was relatively picayune: $380,050,000 (including $120,000,000 for arming merchant vessels).

> The Army's whopping $6,687,369,046 provoked dope stories that the Army was getting ready for an A.E.F., a guess that General George Marshall promptly denied.

> Biggest Army item was a request for Ordnance: $3,719,882,246. What items this covered, George Marshall told the Committee in secret hearing. One big item leaked out: overwhelming tank production to beat Nazi Germany. Out of Ordnance's share would come 32,000 tanks (half lights, half mediums), enough to outfit 70 U.S. divisions (without reserves).

But they are not to outfit U.S. divisions. They are to go to Adolf Hitler's fighting foes: Russia, China, Britain, which last week in Libya won its first victories with U.S. tanks.

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