Charlie & the Whale

For two long days last week, while ashes from chain-smoked cigarettes dribbled down the front of his blue suit, Defense Secretary Charles Wilson faced up to a drumfire attack on defense policy directed at him by Democrats on the Senate's airpower subcommittee. Sometimes he answered questions with the weary patience of a father harassed by a child; sometimes he wandered unresponsively, while senatorial patience frayed. But always--with remarkable success for Engine Charlie Wilson--he fought to keep a curb on his shop-foreman's tongue.

Like Any Other Funds. Calmly Wilson told the committee he knew that such earlier witnesses as Air Force Chief of Staff Nathan F. Twining and SAC Boss Curtis LeMay had warned that the Soviet Union might overtake the U.S. in airpower. But frankly, he disagreed with them. Some of the disagreement he attributed to honest differences of opinion, some to congressional misinterpretation, some to "eager-beaver" speechwriters of the armed forces. But he was sure that the U.S. has and will keep an all-important qualitative lead over the Russians.

The U.S. will "buy more" B-52s when it needs them, Wilson said, but in the meantime, the $960 million Congress tacked to the Eisenhower Administration's defense-appropriation bill for stepped-up production of the intercontinental bombers will "be treated just like any other funds."

Not until Washington's needling Senator Henry M. ("Scoop") Jackson questioned him about his famous crack "phony" (TIME, July 2) did Engine Charlie's practiced patience wear thin. Wilson had said that he meant a reporter's question about congressional appropriations raised a "phony" issue, but Democratic Senators contended he had accused Congress of taking a "phony" stand.

JACKSON: Are you sorry that you used the word phony?

WILSON: I don't think I could say I am sorry about it. I am sorry about the interpretation ... I thought it was political and not personal.

JACKSON (sputtering): You mean you thought--what was political?

WILSON : What was said about me on the floor of the Senate.

JACKSON : Do you feel that you owe an apology to the Congress?

WILSON: I do not, and if you want to be technical, it would not be out of order for certain Senators to apologize to me.

JACKSON: About what?

WILSON: Well, you are one of them.

Later, as tempers flared still higher, North Carolina's salty Democratic Senator Sam Ervin cut smoothly between the two, reminded them that "Jonah made a very wise remark to the whale. He told the whale if he had kept his mouth shut, that thing wouldn't have happened." Both Jackson and Engine Charlie joined in the laughter and later shook hands.

Support for the Secretary. But for all that, Democrats still contended that Wilson's testimony was in conflict with that of some of the other witnesses. The committee would recall several, said Chairman Stuart Symington, to see if the contradictions could be explained. That suited Engine Charlie fine. Given time to study the matter, he said, he would be glad to return before the committee and clear up whatever was puzzling the Senators.

At week's end, after General Twining had reported on his visit to Russia, his views seemed to support what Charlie Wilson had been saying right along.

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