Cuts & Consequences

What kind of defense will the U.S. be able to buy with the approximately $36.5 billion left by the Eisenhower budget cut? Deputy Secretary of Defense Roger Kyes. ex-General Motors vice president and production man (see below), had cut carefully in all directions to get the $5 billion saving. Some of the probable results of Kyes's budget cutting in terms of men and equipment:

P: Combined manpower strength of the armed services (now 3,650,000) will be reduced in fiscal 1954 by 7.5%, i.e., about 273,750 men.

P:The Army will keep the 20 combat divisions it now has and (because of an additional $1 billion appropriation for ammunition) may actually end up with more money than it expected to get under the Truman budget. Its training divisions, however, will be cut from ten to seven and its replacement training centers from 14 to 13.

P:The Navy's projected atomic aircraft carrier will have to use a cheaper power source than the $250 million breeder reactor called for in original plans. Two supercarriers now under construction will be finished, and funds to start a third will be available. Naval aviation funds will also be cut.

P: The Air Force goal of 143 wings by January 1956 will be reduced to 115 wings. Transport and tactical wings (which furnish support to the Army) will be skeletonized in order to keep Strategic Air Command and U.S. defense wings at present strength.

Obviously, the Air Force program will bear the brunt of the cuts, and it is in this area that the President has yet to fill in a few blanks. The Truman Administration's plan to build the Air Force to 143 wings was not--as Eisenhower implied--a program which was to be ready for one critical year and then done with. It was a program to equip the U.S. with air weapons for the jet age, to be ready by Jan. i, 1956.

Since, as far as the U.S. knows, the Soviet military threat is still unchanged, the Eisenhower Administration's next move must be to assure the U.S. either 1) that the Communist threat is not as great as before, or 2) that the Administration has found a more efficient way to meet it, or 3) that the projected 143-wing buildup was too big in the first place.

In this general area, the questions are sure to fly thick and fast when Roger Kyes takes his new budget to Congress next week.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.