Piece by Piece

President Truman sent up to Congress last week the itemized bill for the first installment of U.S. mobilization. He asked for $10.5 billion immediately, to add over 600,000 men to the nation's armed forces --240,000 for the Army, 268,000 for the Navy, 137,000 for the Air Force. Nearly half the total--$4.5 billion--was allotted to the Air Force to start it building from a 48-to a 69-group force.* Some $3.3 billion would go for new Air Force and Navy planes, $2.6 billion for tanks, guns and ordnance. Costs of ships, equipment, and maintaining troops would eat up the rest.

On top of that hefty sum, the President decided this week to ask for another $4 billion to arm the nation's North Atlantic allies--an appropriation that would expand the year-old arms-for-Europe program to nearly five times its original size.

With directives, sheaves of telegrams, confidential memos and hastily enacted laws, the nation accelerated its piece-by-piece mobilization.

The Air Force:

P: Ordered production of $4.4 billion worth of airplanes and parts from 200 manufacturers, telling them not to wait for contracts (see BUSINESS). CJ Began calling up units of its Organized Reserve, hinted that it ultimately would draw on the 45,000 Air National Guard.

The Army:

P: Decided to call up four of the 27 National Guard divisions, two regimental combat teams and several more Guard supporting units by Sept. 1.

P: Quintupled its original call for 20,000 Selective Service draftees this fall, announced that instead it will need 50,000 in September and another 50,000 in October.

P: Got power from Congress to freeze for another year all enlistments due to expire between now and next July.

P: Extended for at least six months the duty tours of soldiers now overseas.

The Navy:

P: Got approval from Congress for a $350 million naval construction program to include an experimental atomic-powered submarine.

P: Announced that the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions will be brought up to full strength (at least 15,000 men each), and two Marine Reserve air squadrons will be called into active duty.

The Defense Department:

P: Decided to expand its civilian staff by 237,000--about a third of them "white collar" workers and the rest of them "blue collar" employees, i.e., skilled and semiskilled workmen. In the past year, in Defense Secretary Johnson's economy drive, the Pentagon had earlier fired 171,000 civilian employees.

The Administration:

P: Requested $600 million (on top of $500 million already listed in 1951 budget requests) to build understocked government piles of strategic material (see below).

P: Ordered the RFC to step up production of synthetic rubber to at least 675,000 tons a year, a jump of 200,000 tons over current output.

The Coast Guard:

P: Got a congressional order to stiffen port security operations (in coordination with U.S. Customs officials), by searching and controlling movements of all foreign ships entering U.S. ports, and looking particularly for "Trojan ships" which might try to smuggle atomic bombs or bacteriological weapons into the country.

P: Got together with ship operators and with the anti-Communist maritime unions on a system for weeding Communists and other bad security risks out of U.S. merchant ships.

* Almost, but not quite up to the familiar 70-group figure made famous by the Finletter commission report in 1948. The other services balked at giving the Air Force such a big slice of the military budget, and the 70-group plan was finally kicked in the teeth by President Truman in October 1948, when he was running for re-election.

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