Maas Attack

The florid, dumpy little Congressman from Minnesota could hold himself no longer. After he returned in October from four months' service in the Pacific as a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, Mel Maas had taken his observations on the Navy's "bungling" to Admiral King and Secretary Knox. Then he had gone to see President Roosevelt. He did not seem to get anywhere. Last week, in a radio speech that Navy officials tried to persuade him not to make, he told his story to the people.

It was not a pretty story. "The public has been misled all along on the status of our military and naval operations in the Pacific," said Melvin Joseph Maas. "Unjustified optimistic releases created the impression that all was proceeding well in our war with Japan. . . . Defeats and disasters have been . . . announced as successes and victories for our forces."

At the behest of Navy officers, Congressman Maas made at least one change in his prepared speech. "We are still losing the war in the Pacific" was revised to read: "We are still not winning the war in the Pacific."

Why Deception? The oft-stated reason for military secrecy is to withhold information that might benefit the enemy. Mel Maas thought he knew another reason, and it was the blackest charge in his book: "Possibly the motive for this policy of mishandling war facts is to keep from stirring up the people and Congress, in the fear that the people, through Congress, might force some reforms on the executive bureaus." In effect, Congressman Maas charged the military leaders with concealing the facts to cover their mistakes and the mistakes of their subordinates. How this is done, according to Congressman Maas:

"When our losses are admitted, it is long after they occur, and, whether by design or mere repeated coincidence, such losses are almost always made public coincident with the announcement of some current success, or at least optimistic prediction from Washington, thus softening the blow. . . . Such officials just don't understand Americans. We can take it!"

Again, Unity of Command. Blame for the costly Solomons campaign, which he said was "not well organized and was not followed up at all," Congressman Maas fixed on the whipping boy called lack-of-unity-of-command. His criticism of the separation of the Ghormley (now Halsey) and MacArthur commands came just twelve days after General Marshall said that unity of command had been achieved. But Congressman Maas and General Marshall meant two different things.

In Washington the Joint Chiefs of Staff put the final stamp on all sweeping decisions. It's members are the Army's Marshall, the Navy's Admiral Ernest King, President Roosevelt's Admiral William D. Leahy and the Air Forces' Lieut. General Henry H. Arnold. General Marshall's point is that this board, with its British counterpart, achieves unity of command.

But it does not achieve unity of tactical command, which is up to Admiral Halsey and General MacArthur, whose performance areas are divided by an imaginary line (the 158th meridian of east longitude). That is what Congressman Maas meant when he said: "There simply is not unity of command." General Arnold is the only member of the Joint Staff who has visited the far Pacific, even briefly since Dec. 7--and World War II has shown that Washington theories bring grim laughter in the blood and heat of far-flung battles.

No Chinese. Congressman Maas might have added that the Combined Chiefs of Staff do not include, do not even consult, the nation that knows most about fighting the Jap. There is no Chinese representative on the Combined Staff. Ostensible reason: the Russians stay off because they are still not fighting Japan, and the inclusion of a Chinese might somehow offend the U.S.S.R. Nonetheless, the Chinese Military Mission's head, Chiang Kai-shek's No. 2 general, Hsiung Shih-fei, has twiddled his thumbs so long in Washington that some observers predicted last week he would go back to China in disgust.

In Washington it is well known that Chiang Kai-shek and other Chinese strategists have long looked at U.S. Pacific strategy with dismay. Instead of costly naval attacks on island fingers, the Chinese have repeatedly suggested land and air attacks from the continent of Asia. But China has received few planes and little other equipment. The Chinese watch the U.S. expend men and equipment in the Solomons and grow unhappier.

Rebuttal. Admiral King declared last week that "complete unity of command" exists at the top and in the Pacific theaters. He also said: "Bad news has never been withheld from the American people just because it was bad." Many Navy men sincerely believed this to be true; they cited specific cases in which the prompt release of losses had given the Japs invaluable information. Said Admiral King: "In one case we announced bad news prematurely because we were told that if we insisted on withholding it until after the election, it would be charged that we had political reasons." The worst news announced just before the election was the loss of a fourth aircraft carrier (TIME, Nov. 9).

According to some reputable observers who have visited the Pacific, including the New York Times's Hanson W. Baldwin (TIME, Nov. 9), the division between MacArthur and the Navy does not necessarily create disunity in specific theaters. The reason: where, as in the Solomons, the Navy has top command, the Navy is willing to work closely and well with the Army.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.