Shell-Pocked

The long-range verbal combat between the President and the House Armed Services Committee over the Administration's defense reorganization plan rattled into a third, shell-pocked week. Into the legislative no man's land this time came the starred, earnest members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, each subordinate to the Commander in Chief, each a stout defender of his own military service, each urged to unburden himself to Georgia's cagey Democrat Carl Vinson and his 37-man battle group.

General Nathan Farragut Twining, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, sounded the battle cry right off, put himself down 100% for the new plan. "I think," said he, "that this legislation will improve the situation. I figure we will get a more effective defense."

Right Flank, Left Flank. Protecting Twining's flank came General Maxwell Taylor, Army Chief of Staff, who was ready to help fight the President's war despite the fact that the Army is suffering from budget and manpower cuts. "Our setup in the Pentagon," he said, "is defective in that we do not have this permanent command post [at the Joint Chiefs level] ready to conduct military operations at any hour of the day. The Secretary of Defense is a man who has been given great responsibility. I must say you can't discharge a responsibility without great authority. Consequentially, by nature, I am on the side of giving authority to the man that has responsibility."

On Twining's other flank was the Air Force's General Tommy White: "I completely agree with the President's concept that separate ground, sea and air warfare are gone forever and that peacetime preparation and organization must conform to this fact. It is essential that our combat forces be organized into truly unified commands and that our strategic and tactical planning be completely unified." But what of the "dangers" in the legislation? asked committee members.

Q. Could the Air Force be eliminated at the whim of a strengthened defense secretary?

A. No, sir.

Q. Could he wipe out any branch of the services?

A. No, sir.

Q. Could the legislation lead to a Prussian-style general staff?

A. Not at all, sir.

About Face. Then came the committee's ammunition. First, by letter (at Carl Vinson's invitation) arrived the anti-reorganization opinions of Washington Lawyer H. Struve Hensel, 56, onetime (1944) Navy Department general counsel, onetime (1945-46) Assistant Secretary of the Navy for material procurement, longtime Navy-oriented opponent of military unification. Hensel's point: the new proposals would veer U.S. military organization 180DEG, from a Joint Chiefs setup geared to planning to an area concerned wholly with command. "The chairman [of the Joint Chiefs would] be the only adequately informed top official; the civilian heads of the military services . . . greatly weakened."

Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, was polite--but his meaning was clear. Navyman Burke's key words: "misgivings," "apprehensions." The law, said he, could be interpreted at some future date "to mean things that the Secretary and the President did not mean." Could it permit the Secretary to eliminate a specific function of one of the services? "People do that, sir," said Burke pointedly. "People eliminate things." Arleigh Burke's statement was an unmistakable call to the committee for help: "This committee is a proper group to resolve these differences into a sound plan founded in carefully drawn legislation." It is reassuring to know, he added with emphasis, "that this committee is devoting its full attention to this important matter."

Flank Speed. Marine Commandant Randolph McCall Pate damned the presidential torpedoes, sailed flank speed ahead. Fearful that the traditional role of the Marines as a Johnny-on-the-spot expeditionary force might be curtailed--or just plain obliterated--four-star General Pate declared: "I don't see anything wrong with the way we're functioning now."

Q. Could you be "prioritied" out of business?

A. That's my feeling.

Q. Might the plan ruin the corps' fighting efficiency?

A. That's right.

Q. Could the Defense Secretary skeletonize the corps?

A. Yes.

In sum, Pate's big worry was that "present good intentions" to preserve the Marines "are no insurance against future damage to our usefulness; only in the law can we find such insurance."

And so the combatants laid down their barrage. But as they did so, the Commander in Chief let loose his cannonball of the week. Said Dwight Eisenhower at his press conference: "I repeat again what the meaning of this whole thing is, a nation's strategy is devised as an entity, as a unified thing. It cannot be ... the function of any separate forces of any kind ... It must be directed under unified control. The amount of supervisory control that is given to the Secretary of Defense ... is that amount which will make it possible for him to carry out a unified strategy effectively . . . and any retreat from that is, to my mind, retreat to a certain degree of defenselessness that is inexcusable."

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