Reason for Change

In Britain, military and political leaders are openly discussing drastic readjustments in the armed forces based on the new weaponry, e.g., possible abolition of the Royal Air Force Fighter Command as the day of missiles draws closer (see FOREIGN NEWS). In the U.S. a whiff of a plan formulated by Chairman Arthur Radford of the Joint Chiefs to cut the U.S. armed forces by 800,000 men over the next four years caused a press uproar last fortnight (TIME, July 23). In the absence of open Pentagon discussion, U.S. moves in Britain's direction were best visible last week as straws in the wind. The straws:

P: The Defense Department announced that effective next July the U.S. Far East Command, in Tokyo since General Douglas MacArthur's day, will be absorbed by the Navy's Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Felix Stump, based in the Hawaiian Islands.

P: The United Nations Far East Command, under the Army's General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, will be moved from Tokyo to Seoul.

P: The U.S. Far East Air Force moved its headquarters from downtown Tokyo, where its presence has irritated Japanese, to an Air Force base in suburban Fuchu.

P: Effective Sept. 1, the U.S. Northeast Command in Newfoundland will be eliminated, with its responsibilities assigned to the U.S. Continental Air Command.

P: State Secretary John Foster Dulles expressed hope that U.S. manpower in Western Europe might ultimately be scaled down from previous estimates "as there develops a greater capacity to deliver weapons from a distance."

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