Merger Can Wait

The long-awaited merger bill was finally completed by a Senate Military Affairs subcommittee. But it advanced the prospects of merger not one whit.

The bill was an impossible hodgepodge of contradictions and compromises. To please the Army, it started with the basic Army plan (TIME, Nov. 26). In deference to the President's suggestion, it added three more secretaries, one for each service. To soften the blow for the Navy, it piled on top of everything else the Eberstadt blueprint for a top coordinating council (TIME, Dec. 10).

The Army and the Air Forces had won their two main points: coequality of the air force, and outright merger of the three branches at the service level.

But the Navy was far from appeased. Boiling mad, Navymen lost no time in making their feelings known. In Dallas, Rear Admiral A. S. Merrill, commandant of the Eighth Naval District, came up swinging with a below-the-belt punch. Cried he: "It is my belief that when the next war comes we will need the finest Army and Air Forces in the world, because with a greatly weakened Navy, submerged under Army control, the fighting will be on our own shores."

In no mood for further debate, ex-Artilleryman Harry Truman, who had already announced his backing of the Army merger plans, hit out himself. Bluntly and tactlessly he told the admirals to stop their lobbying and shut up.

Angrier than ever, the Navymen obediently kept mum. Merger could wait until tempers cooled.

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