New Look

America's strongest ally made plain last week that its own rearmament program is taking on the same new look that air-atomic power and the need for long-range economy combined to produce in the U.S. Two weeks after the Eisenhower Administration spelled out the new U.S. emphasis on "massive retaliatory power" instead of on "balanced forces," Britain's Minister of Defense implied that, in the years ahead, Britain too will key its defensive strategy more and more to "the new weapons [atom-carrying aircraft and guided missiles] which our scientists are set to develop."

Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis was speaking before London's Constitutional Club, a blue-blood and blue-chip Tory audience which applauded him rousingly. Socialists complained that he had infringed "the rights of Her Majesty's Parliament" by airing "important policy" before a private group, but such constitutional niceties were soon submerged in debate over what his lordship had to say.

"The plan faces these facts," said Earl Alexander, "First, there never can be absolute military security.

"Secondly, no country can afford to expend more than a certain amount of its money, manpower, materials and manu facturing capacity on armaments without wrecking its economy . . .

"Thirdly, it is not possible to select a particular date on which we must be ready for hostilities down to the last button." Alexander, like Ike, apparently thought that the "crash buildup" policy under which the West geared its rearmament to a nicely calculated schedule of "years of maximum danger" had outlived its useful ness. "We have substituted, and I say 'we' with emphasis, for the uncontrolled rush to arms at any price, the long view and the steady, calculated buildup." One Alex ander ambition: to build up a mobile strategic reserve in the U.K. This dashed hopes that the two-year draft might be reduced. Alexander's biggest difficulty: so many of Britain's 860,000 soldiers are needed in Malaya, Kenya, Hong Kong, the Suez.

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