Heavy-Caliber Cover-Up

When Dwight Eisenhower came home from Korea he said that "certain [military] problems of supply have reached rather serious proportions and require early correction." New and indirect light was thrown on this cryptic statement last week. Pentagon reporters were summoned to a special press conference by the Army's Major General William Oliver Reeder, deputy assistant chief of staff for logistics (G-4). Ostensibly, the conference was called to discuss a "1952 Procurement Report." But reporters soon detected the real reason for the conference. Army's G-4 knew that Ike had come upon a carefully protected secret: U.N. troops in Korea are suffering from a shortage of artillery ammunition.

Said General Reed.er, answering a reporter's pointed question: "I'm sure that [General Eisenhower] referred to ammunition. But [he] has been listening to the guys who would like to have all the ammunition we could possibly lay down. I would expect that." Reeder admitted that U.N. Commander Mark Clark had officially requested bigger deliveries of shells. Then Reeder volunteered a sleight-of-hand statement with few equals in the Pentagon's recent history: "We have plenty of ammunition to hold a line [in Korea]. But if you want to get going again it would obviously take a lot more ammunition. We don't have any unused capacity in stand-by."

G-4 was obviously willing to rattle any skeleton in the Truman closet to divert public attention from a snafu in supply. Sample Reeder rattles: 1) When Korea began, "we thought, and many responsible people said, that it was just a police action"; 2) ammunition stocks are low partly because of the "atmosphere of economy" enforced by onetime (1949-50) Defense Secretary Louis Johnson.

Under a correspondent's prodding, General Reeder acknowledged that U.N. troops are now being rationed on artillery ammunition. Censorship still hides the rest of the story, but when it can be told it will emerge as a major scandal in home-front procurement.

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