Monday, Nov. 09, 1959

Budget Blues

Into the Pentagon last week drummed word from the White House that defense spending for fiscal 1961 must be held at or below the present $41 billion level. The services estimated that they would need $43 billion to $44 billion just to maintain present strength and cope with the rising costs of personnel and weapons. Obviously some serious cuts were coming. Best guesses:

Army. The 870,000-man Army could not take much of a cut if it was to keep any brush-fire or full-scale war capability. The Army will probably get $9.5 billion, about the same as last year, will make up for inflation by cutting back on already-lagging modernization, e.g., replacing the World War II M-1 rifle with the more up-to-date M-14.

Navy. Eight out of ten of the Navy's 800-odd ships are obsolete or obsolescent.

But the Navy will get less than this year's $11.5 billion, will cut down new ships, new aircraft. Safe: the submarine-launched Polaris ballistic-missile program.

Air Force. Down from this year's $19 billion to $18.2 billion, the Air Force is holding its B58 supersonic-bomber planning to a maximum of three wings, is phasing out purchases of its F-105 fighter-bomber and F106 interceptor. Last week the Air Force announced plans to shut down Ethan Allen Air Force Base in Vermont. NATO was warned that its tactical air strength in Europe might be cut back by three Air Force F-100 nuclear fighter-bomber wings, or 225 planes. The deployment in Europe of the Thor and Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic-missile squadrons would be cut back by one Thor squadron from eight to seven, leaving four IRBM squadrons in Britain, two to be installed in Italy and one in Turkey, and scratching plans for Greece.

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