Cut in Air Power?

"We believe that [Soviet] atomic capability is rapidly improving," testified General of the Army Omar Bradley before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week. "... I know of no intelligence which reveals any change in attitude on the part of the Soviet Union or which would give us any reason to diminish or slow down or stretch out our preparedness effort." The same day President Eisenhower submitted to Congress a defense budget which, if approved, would sharply cut the programmed strength of the U.S. Air Force.

Delayed Effects. The Administration proposes to cut $2.3 billion off the amount of money (including unspent funds appropriated in the past) which the three armed forces can spend in the fiscal year starting July 1. It also proposes to slice $5.2 billion off the new 1954 appropriations proposed by the Truman Administration. The bulk of both cuts will come primarily out of funds for future aircraft procurement. Because it takes anywhere from one to eight years before a plane on order becomes a plane in the air, the effects of the first Eisenhower defense budget on the Air Force would not begin to show until 1956 and would not be fully apparent until 1960 or 1961.

Two years ago, the National Security Council decided that the U.S. should have an Air Force of 143 wings.* In 1956, under the new Eisenhower budget, the U.S. would have 120 wings.

To achieve even 120 wings, the Air Force would have to skeletonize transport and tactical units and cut its long-range assault outfit, the atom-bomb-carrying Strategic Air Command, from 57 to 52 wings. It would also have to supplement current funds with "holdover" money appropriated during the Truman Administration. After 1956. the holdover Truman money will be gone. Then, unless its budget has been increased again in the meantime, the Air Force will have to trim down to 79 wings, about three-quarters of its present strength (103 wings).

Grand Strategy. Since 1949, when the U.S.S.R. set off its first atomic explosion, U.S. grand strategy has been based on the proposition that the only way to prevent or to meet a Soviet atomic attack is to build up U.S. air power with particular emphasis on a strong retaliatory force, i.e., the Strategic Air Command. The Eisenhower defense budget, by striking sharply at plans for the Air Force buildup, seemed to imply either 1) some reservations about that strategic concept, or 2) a decision that, while the concept is right, its execution is unrealistic. The decision to cut back air power would be militarily justified, for instance, by solid evidence that the Soviet threat had never been great enough to warrant a 143-wing Air Force, or that it had diminished. The Administration offered no such explanation.

So far as Washington knew, the new defense budget stemmed not from military logic but from the point of view expounded by Treasury Secretary George Humphrey, who believes that continued vast expenditures for defense exposes the U.S. to economic collapse. The defense goals set by the Truman Administration, said Defense Secretary Wilson this week, "could not be attained within the time contemplated and within the concept of a reasonable balance between federal expenditures and revenue."

Indispensable Man. The form which the budget cuts took marked a triumph for Assistant Secretary of Defense Wilfred J. McNeil, a World War II admiral (Supply Corps) who is sometimes called "the Pentagon's indispensable man." Originally appointed by the late James Forrestal, McNeil has been kept on by every subsequent Defense Secretary because of his unparalleled grasp of the complexities of military budgeting. Like most Navymen, McNeil subscribes ardently to Forrestal's theory that defense appropriations should be divided evenly among the three services. When it became evident that Defense Secretary Wilson and Deputy Secretary Kyes were going to cut the defense budget, McNeil showed "Jolly Roger" Kyes the easy way to do it: aim toward a "balance" in U.S. armed forces by bringing Air Force appropriations into line with Army and Navy appropriations. The McNeil-programmed budget for fiscal 1954 compares (in billions) this way with Truman's:

Truman Eisenhower

Army 15.4 16.5

Navy 11.8 11

Air Force 17.5 15.1

The requests for new appropriations compare this way:

Truman Eisenhower

Army 12.1 13.7

Navy 11.4 9.7

Air Force 16.8 11.7

These figures leave the Army and Navy relatively content. Both services are confident that their new budgets will permit them to maintain what they consider the minimum necessary strength.

Airmen & Advocates. U.S. airmen, who regard the "balanced forces" theory as no strategy at all, do not intend to submit without a fight. Last week Pentagonians predicted that outgoing Chief of the Air Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg will tell Congress that under the new budget the Air Force will be held below the minimum strength necessary for the security of the U.S. Nor is the President likely to find positive support for his budget from General Nathan Twining (see below), the man he had appointed to succeed Vandenberg.

Eisenhower also faces the probability that his balanced-forces approach will run into real opposition in Congress, where the 143-wing Air Force has many advocates. In 1949, the 81st Congress overrode Harry Truman's demands for economy and upped his proposed Air Force budget by $615 million. The 83rd Congress, economy-minded though it is, has shown no signs of forgetting that the U.S. is both air-power-minded and atom-conscious.

* U.S. Air Force wings vary in size according to their mission. A full fighter wing has 75 operational aircraft, a heavy bomber wing 35, a light bomber wing 48.

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