Team, Team, Team!

Over Manhattan's towers floated a Navy blimp, its silvery sides bearing a message: "Navy Salutes Army Day." Higher up, Air Force and Navy fighters flashed down the blue spring sky in tribute. A task group from the Atlantic Fleet came in, spilled out its bluejackets to march chummily down Fifth Avenue with the doughs. In Army Day celebrations all over the U.S., the armed forces put on a spit-&-polish show of unity.

On the reviewing stand of Washington's Army Day parade, new Defense Secretary Louis Johnson and the Commander in Chief shared a secret that the marchers knew nothing about. When the parade was over, Johnson announced that, so far as he was concerned, that was the last Army Day. If Congress approved, the cherished Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force Days would be unified into a single "Armed Forces Day." Swallowing hard,

Admiral Louis Denfeld, Chief of Naval Operations, said "anything to further the team spirit." He thought a nice date would be Sept. 2--the day the Japanese surrendered aboard the battleship Missouri.

On Page One, at least, it looked as if Louis Johnson was making fast progress towards unifying the armed forces. But there were plenty of skeptics who asserted that unity was still only headline-deep. Last week as his No. 1 assistant, publicity-conscious Louis Johnson surprised everybody by picking a publicity man: Franklin D. Roosevelt's old press secretary, Stephen T. Early. Congress had newly created the job of Under Secretary of Defense to give Johnson a workhorse general manager. (World Bank President John J. McCloy was offered the job, but turned it down.) Whatever Steve Early might lack either as an administrator or as a military mind, he certainly made up in priceless savvy about the ways of Washington.

A Washington correspondent for 16 years before he went to the White House, Early sacrificed a $25,000 job as vice president of Pullman Inc. to take $12,000 as Johnson's top hand. Gruff and imperious, but well-liked, Steve Early could enforce Johnson's ban on competitive publicity stunts by the services, do much to win the boss a good press. Moreover, Early had once given his old friend Johnson the best advice of his life. When Roosevelt broke his promise to Johnson and appointed Republican Henry L. Stimson as Secretary of War in 1940, Johnson went off to California in a mighty dudgeon. Republicans tried to win him over. Early followed Johnson to California, coaxed him to stick in the Democratic camp, and try, try again.

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