Goodbye to All That

Like a latter-day Mongol horde, the fighting men who serve the U.S. around the world are followed by their wives and children--484,000 of them in 1060. In a drastic effort to reduce the flow of dollars abroad, President Eisenhower ordered the number of U.S. military dependents overseas reduced to 200,000 within two years. This may cut the U.S. payments deficit as, much as $500 million a year, counting what the Pentagon"spends on dependents and the $1,000 a year each dependent is estimated to spend abroad. But last week, at one of the lushest dependent settlements overseas, the good life still reigned and the money was still pouring out.

The week's doings read like social notes from Newburyport, Mass, or La Jolla, Calif. Cub Scouts were meeting at the home of Den Mother Katherine Williams.

The Holy Name Society elected B. J. Lawler as its new president. Popcorn-munchers at the movie theater sat through Executive Suite and Brides of Dracula. Before cheering thousands, the high school eleven, sparked by Quarterback Ronnie Tapp, rolled to a 28-0 Homecoming-Day victory.

Wall to Wall. Though the scene was as American as deep-freeze apple pie, the setting was not. The tightly knit settlement of 15,000 U.S. citizens--mainly Air Force dependents with a sprinkling of Army folk--stands on a wooded hilltop above the baroque German city of Wiesbaden (pop. 250,000) at a bend of the Rhine River. In this slumless paradise, each officer's or noncom's family is assigned a completely furnished, one-to five-bedroom apartment in buildings erected for them by the West German government. Some 600 bachelor officers and civilians are housed downtown in the rambling American Arms Hotel. Nearly 400 single girls take their ease in the $2,760,000 Amelia Earhart Residence Hotel, seven stories of attractive rooms complete with wall-to-wall carpeting and picture windows overlooking the Rhine valley.

Food? A busy supermarket does a business of $300,000 a month selling milk at 15-c- a quart and turkey at 41-c- a Ib. Entertainment? There are five nightclubs with free floor shows, inexpensive dinners and 25-c- highballs. The Teen Club is dominated by a free-play jukebox loaded with 60 rock-'n'-roll records and no reject button. Motoring? U.S. cars come direct from the factory at prices far below Stateside and gasoline is pumped into the tank at 14-c- a gallon. Vacation? If bored with the local 18-hole golf course (family membership: $40 a year), try a pleasant few days skiing at Garmisch or Berchtesgaden, where a private room-and-bath is priced at $1.25 a night. Instruction and equipment for nearly any sport costs, as a military brochure puts it, "next to nothing." Sick? The 350-bed Wiesbaden U.S.A.F. hospital sends no bills to any patients--except for maternity care, which costs $1.75 a day.

Waiting for Jack. As in numerous other Utopian military settlements scattered from Germany to Okinawa, President Eisenhower's order was heard with shocked incredulity at Wiesbaden village. For the villagers themselves, the impact was somewhat cushioned by the discovery that the order does not involve any immediate separation of families already overseas--only their replacements. But Air Force and Army brass, defending their way of life, hurried to point out that an oasis like Wiesbaden is an inspiration to men stuck with unattractive assignments at a Turkish radar site or a missile battery on a remote German mountain--they feel a three-day pass to glorious Wiesbaden makes it all worthwhile.

Some officers contend that the result of the presidential order will be a net loss, both in gold and in national security. They warn of a flight from the service by married men unwilling to be parted from their families, and predict that the first to go will be the expert technicians already tempted by high salaries and plentiful Levittowns back in the States. The good old days, when Wiesbaden village so overflowed with togetherness that 40% of its servicemen voluntarily extended the normal three-year tour of duty to four, seem coming to an end. But some of Wiesbaden's inhabitants find cause for optimism in the future's uncertainties. During a coffee break last week, one Air Force officer said cheerfully, "You know, we still don't know where Kennedy stands on all this."

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