Facts & Fears

With varying degrees of exasperation and bitterness, the Navy's angry men pounded away last week at an astonishing variety of targets--the atomic bomb, the Air Force, strategic bombing, the National Defense Department, the basic U.S. war plan. In the klieg-lighted clamor of the House Armed Services Committee room, officer after officer took the stand. Some fired off a few wild shots.

"It May Be Fatal." One of the wildest came from young (41) Commander Eugene Tatom. Trying to show that the expensive atomic bomb had to be dropped accurately to be effective, Commander Tatom told the astonished committeemen: "You could stand in the open at one end of the north-south runway at the Washington National Airport, with no more protection than the clothes you now have on, and have an atom bomb explode at the other end of the runway without serious injury to you."

Challenged, he explained next day that his conclusion was drawn from the official report on the 1945 Hiroshima bomb, which scientists now consider a model-T bomb. The report said that "flash burns were protected by clothing and buildings within less than 3,250 ft. from the blast." The north-south runway, Tatom declared, is 6,840 ft. long. Rejoined Georgia's Congressman Carl Vinson laconically: "I, personally, would rather be in Georgia."

Siege Operations. Committee Chairman Vinson presided benevolently over the amphitheater formed by the double bank of committee tables, peering at witnesses over his spectacles. "Come on up here," he told "Bull" Halsey, who is growing a little deaf and had trouble hearing the questions. Stubby, emphatic Bull Halsey drew cheers from his Navy audience when he attacked the long-range bomber, declaring roundly: "I do not favor the concept that the principal weapon in our national arsenal should be a weapon designed to conduct siege operations."

Strong-minded men stated strong-minded opinions, and for the most part they differed only in detail and in intensity. Rear Admiral Ralph Ofstie, in his younger days one of the Navy's hottest pilots, a wartime carrier commander, Navy member of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey of Japan and of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Evaluation Group at Bikini, declared that atomic area bombing would be little more than "random mass slaughter" and militarily unsound. Strategic bombing, he said, did not have a decisive effect in World War II. Cried Ofstie, "It is time that strategic bombing ... be examined in relation to the decent opinions of mankind."

Admiral W. H. P. Blandy, commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet, was more temperate. No airman, Blandy is the Navy's top ordnance officer, ran the Bikini tests.

"Spike" Blandy, unlike Ofstie, thought that strategic bombing had had "a marked effect" on Germany's production and mo rale, and conceded that "some" of the Air Force's 6-363 would probably get through and hit their targets. But, he added, "the probable results do not appear to me to be sufficiently promising to justify eliminating any essential forces from other services."

Navy v. Navy? Ghosts of the Navy's former glory brooded in the room as the hearing went on. Frosty, remote Fleet Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations of the mighty wartime Navy, sent a frosty statement from his sickbed in the U.S. Naval Hospital at Bethesda. The Navy, he declared, is no longer built to fight other navies. Wrote King: "The term.'air power' [should not] be confused with that department of our government that bears a somewhat similar name, 'Air Force' . . . Japan had no fleet [at Okinawa] ... It was not a navy versus a navy there. It was a navy versus an island, it was a navy versus land-based aircraft. And you well know who won!"

What united the Navy's men was not a present situation: as General Omar Bradley pointed out last week, the Navy in 1949 gets 32.4% of each defense dollar, compared to 33.6% for the Army, 34% for the Air Force. It was a fear, a fear that the Navy was being "nibbled to death," as Captain John Crommelin had first charged. The Navy's airmen meant that naval air power was being nibbled. The 1951 budget called for cutting their big carriers from eight to six, their air groups from 14 to nine, Marine air squadrons from 23 to twelve. Worse, the $350 million cut in the current Navy budget ordered by Louis Johnson would reduce the rate of procurement of new planes to 48 a month--only 16% of the pre-Pearl Harbor rate.

"I Fully Support." But only Admiral Louis Denfeld, Chief of Naval Operations, could speak officially for the Navy--and he owed his job to Louis Johnson. All week long the rebels nervously waited to hear what meek "Uncle Louie" Denfeld would say. So did Secretary Johnson, who narrowed his eyes as he told a friend: "Denfeld hasn't been disloyal--yet." Late that night, with his wife's help, Louis Denfeld made his decision. Next day, he read his statement in a firm, clear voice: "As the senior military spokesman for the Navy, I want to state . . . that I fully support the conclusions presented to this committee by the naval and marine officers who have preceded me."

The Word. Said Denfeld: "We endorse the spirit of unification as Congress conceived it and the public demands it. We maintain that those principles and objectives are not being realized and will not be achieved unless the Navy is admitted to full partnership."

Denfeld listed his grievances. "Limitations are imposed without consultation . . . and the first word the fleets get is orders to deactivate units." The decision to cancel the supercarrier was made by Secretary Johnson, Denfeld clearly implied, even before he received the approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Furthermore, he said, there were persistent attempts at restricting the functions of the Navy's aviation, including the carrier task force.

Concluded Denfeld: "Unification contemplates basically a coordination of effort. It ... should not mean that two services can control a third . . . Although there have been public utterances from our sister services that there shall be naval aviation and a Marine Corps, in the councils of the Department of Defense the opposite view is often evident."

Changes Coming. The listening officers broke into applause, and many a naval eye was awash. They rushed forward to wring his hand. "Admiral Denfeld," said Missouri's Navy-minded Dewey Short admiringly, "I don't know what you had for lunch, but brother, it was a correct diet. There will be a lot of starch added to the shirts of the Navy." Chairman Vinson added gravely: "You have rendered a distinct service by putting the chips on the table."

Denfeld's outburst startled a few people. Navy Secretary Francis Matthews hurried from the room, speechless. General Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tore up his prepared statement and started over again. The Army hastily summoned Chief of Staff General Joe Lawton Collins back from Japan to testify in rebuttal. This week, too, the Air Force would at last have its say.

One thing seemed already clear at the end of Denfeld's testimony: either he or Louis Johnson would have to step aside; after Denfeld's testimony they could no longer work together. Said one high-ranking general: "Personal relationships have gone to hell. I don't see how they can ever be repaired within the Joint Chiefs of Staff." Whatever else was decided, changes would have to be made in the U.S. defense command.

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