Down to Planning

With the hurly-burly and posturing of the public hearings over, legislators and brass hats got down to work together last week on a plan for the merger of the Army and Navy. After so many months of pull & haul, it was a relief even to Navymen, who still opposed the merger.

In hopes that the threatened reorganization would be made only on the topmost Government level, the Navy had offered the Eberstadt plan (for Army, Navy and Air Departments, all tied in at the top by a National Security Council). The Army had won President Truman's backing for outright merger with the Air Forces as a third and coequal branch. The Navy recognized that in any case there was virtue in getting together on the lowest level--down where procurement, recruiting, training and transport services overlapped.

The question was now before a three-man Senate subcommittee, aided by two of the smartest, fastest-stepping officers going: Major General Lauris Norstad and Vice Admiral Arthur W. Radford. The first sessions were passionless, devoted to broad principles and academic details. Utah's professorial Elbert Thomas took a phrase from the preamble to the Constitution to name the unified war machine the "Department of Common Defense." The dogfighting would come when Airman Radford and Airman Norstad tangled over the disposition of the Navy's land-based air forces. Even so, the bill should be ready in six weeks.

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