The Buildup

Why didn't the President ask for more troops than he did?

The answer was to be found at the Pentagon, where top military men were anxious not to have too much mobilization too fast. Their argument went thus: it would be chaotic to throw millions of men into uniform without enough weapons to fight with or enough men to train them; to do so would also disturb the production of war goods by robbing defense plants of men before the plants were in shape to replace them. One of General George Catlett Marshall's convictions is that all-out mobilization should be ordered only at the certain prospect of war, and he is not yet convinced that war is inevitable. He often speaks of the disastrous reaction that would set in among trained but idle troops if a great buildup is not followed by a shooting war. He worries about the Russians just sitting back, not fighting, but watching the U.S. bankrupt itself.

Despite these hesitancies, directed not against an increased rate of mobilization, but against all-out mobilization, the services were beginning to bolt together a stronger framework for defense. Last week the Pentagon:

P: Expanded draft quotas for the next two months from 90,000 to 160,000 men. By the end of February, the Army's strength would hit an estimated 1,250,000 men.

P: Drew up plans to tighten the lax draft laws. Enlistments have been lagging so far behind quotas that even the Marines will have to fill their ranks with draftees. The President's speech brought a rush of volunteers to Army, Navy and Air Force recruiting centers, but it was still not enough.

P: Called up two more National Guard Infantry divisions, the 31st from Alabama and Mississippi and the new 47th from Minnesota and North Dakota, making a total of six National Guard divisions brought to active service thus far.

P: Went full speed ahead on plans for a new flush-deck aircraft carrier, smaller than the 65,000-ton supercarrier United States, which was shelved during Economizer Louis Johnson's regime, but larger than anything now in service and capable of launching atomic bombers.

P: Announced that an overlapping network of radar-warned "fighter-interceptor wings" equipped with the latest F-86 and F94 jet fighters had been set up across the U.S. to guard against surprise attacks.

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