One-Yard Line

The Navy's position in the merger battle finally became clear last week: merger per se is a secondary matter; primarily, what the Navy is fighting against is an independent air force.

Navy Secretary Forrestal has indicated that one way or another a compromise could be reached on unification of command. But on creation of an air department coequal with War and Navy--"I am not yet prepared to agree." Why not? Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz bluntly answered that question: the Navy "either gradually or at once [would] become a secondary service."

In spite of everything the war taught --the devastation of Germany and Japan by the Air Forces and the delivery of the atom bombs--the Navy's high brass still talks of air power as an inseparable adjunct of sea power--comparable, say, to the submarine force. Some admirals still think of tactical aircraft as a weapon something like a 16-in. naval gun. And on that stubborn basis they will fight to the end any threat to the old, traditional prestige of the surface ship. They were fighting desperately last week, somewhere near their one-yard line.

Army's Ball. The Army, all out for merger, had kept the ball. All week, before the Senate Military Affairs Committee, the Army's best backs plunged down the field. Tough, sardonic Air General Carl ("Tooey") Spaatz, soon to be Chief of Army Air Forces, stressed the importance of air power in the "airpower age." Said General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower: "Unless we have unity of direction in Washington through the years of peace that lie ahead we may enter another . . . Pearl Harbor."

For economy-minded Congressmen within earshot, Ike Eisenhower made a "flash guess" that a military establishment under a single command could be maintained with 25% fewer men than under divided command. "With integration we can buy more security for less money." When he was through, eager listeners in the Senate caucus room scrambled for transcripts of his statement.

These were ground-gaining plays; the Army had had firm footing right along. It had a plan for merger (see chart); moreover, it was willing to accept any other plan which embodied the principles of unified command, plus an independent air force, for which even ground generals enthusiastically fought. Its mind was open to changes in detail. But the Navy had no adequate plan to replace or revise the present system of divided administration and command -- aside from a report made by Financier Ferdinand Eberstadt over which Navymen themselves could not agree.

Cracked an irreverent airman: "What was good enough for Farragut is good enough for King."

The Quarterbacks. The Navy had coasted, apparently confident that Congress would fall for no hifalutin notions about air power and that in the end the whole unpleasantness would blow over. Tardily the Navy tried to stiffen its defense, called in two of its younger top-drawer air admirals (both aged 49) to quarterback its plays. One was lean, whip-smart Rear Admiral Arthur Radford, father of the Navy's wartime air training program and commander of a carrier task group in the Pacific War. The other was quiet, studious Rear Admiral Forrest P. Sherman, "brain" of Admiral Nimitz' Pacific Fleet staff. In Navy circles they were considered to be progressive thinkers. Assignment of men of their caliber indicated that the Navy might try a new tack. But there was no reason to believe that either Radford or Sherman, both naval aviators, would give an inch on the Navy's fixed opposition to a separate air force.

Reverse Play. It was also hard to see how they could do much now to turn the tide. At week's end Nimitz himself testified before the Senate Military Affairs Committee.

Hero of the Pacific War, he was nevertheless a little suspect in Senators' eyes. The reason: a special committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appointed to survey merger opinion among generals and admirals, had reported Nimitz as favoring the idea on Dec. 8, 1944. The committee quoted him as saying: "I favor a single civilian secretary of armed forces, with a complete elimination of civilian secretaries for the Army, for the Navy, and for the Air Forces, with the idea of reducing any tendency to separation." This was eye-to-eye with the way the Army sees today. Admiral Nimitz had also recommended increasing the authority of the proposed commander of the armed forces by eliminating the Joint Chiefs of Staff "between him and the forces that he is going to command," and had recommended the setup for peace as well as war. His testimony then had been as eloquent and convincing an argument for unification as any general or admiral has yet made.

No Gain. But last week Nimitz declared: "With the passage of time and with greater war experience ... I no longer favor the single department . . . the theoretical advantages of such a merger are unattainable."

What had changed his opinion since he returned from the isolation of Guam to the grim realities of Washington poli tics? He said that the integration of U.S. effort achieved in the closing days of the Pacific War had convinced him that everything would always be all right, even under the present divided setup.

But, as hard as he tried, Chester Nimitz never succeeded in explaining his reversal of position, or in making his arguments jibe with his new conclusions. Rather, they tended to justify his original promerger stand. Many of his suddenly real ized objections to merger were just as valid on Dec. 8, 1944. But now he said: "We should be certain that we do not destroy the strengths of our present sys tem in accepting a new and untried one."

Delay, apparently, would be the Navy's final tactic. Forrestal has asked that the whole thing be "elevated" to a presidential commission. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Struve Hensel pleaded: "We see no reason for frantic rush." The Navy will recommend that the whole matter be given for final adjudication to an umpire committee. Presumably the Navy would accept its decision. Presumably it will also accept the decision of Congress, if one is made without calling in a new umpire.

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