The Right of Might

He intended to "get the truth with the bark off," barked Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson before he gaveled his Senate Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee to order last week. For days Johnson and such other leading Democrats as Mississippi's John Stennis, Georgia's Dick Russell, Missouri's Stuart Symington, Illinois' Paul Douglas had worried their way into headlines over the Administration's refusal to restore a 55,000 manpower cut already under way in the Army and Marines, and its decision not to get going on a $750 million-a-year air alert for the Strategic Air Command.

Lead-off witness before the Johnson committee was the Army's General Maxwell Taylor, who ticked off the Army's current complaints--insufficient troop airlift; overreliance upon Foreign Service personnel. The Army's reduced 870,000-man strength, he said, "won't cover all the jobs the Army has to do." But when he was questioned on the U.S.'s overall strength, Taylor testified that 1) the Joint Chiefs had plans to meet any eventuality at Berlin; 2) the U.S. had adequate overall land-sea-air strength, "either in Europe or in the U.S., in combination." to hold Berlin; 3) U.S. troops could certainly handle any European "limited war'' situation that the Russians might provoke by deploying Communist-satellite troops.

Air Force Chief of Staff Thomas Dresser White testified that the Air Force could, "by a number of devices,'' step up alerts all over the world, expounded once again the Air Force doctrine of keeping the peace by thermonuclear deterrence. Said White: "In general, the Air Force is, to all intents and purposes, mobilized to within a matter of hours." Then came the Navy's two-term Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke.* Admiral Burke also ticked off his service's complaints--inadequate funds for antisubmarine warfare, for Polaris-missile-firing nuclear submarines, etc. But then Burke put on his Joint Chief's hat to sketch the Administration's overall concept of balanced forces more clearly, as one Senator put it later, than Congress had heard it before.

SAC had many times the strength of Russia's air force, said Burke, and the U.S. Navy carriers ringed the Communist land mass unmatched. The U.S. ringed the U.S.S.R. with bases and with listening posts--many of them still undetected. Burke's thesis: "There is no point trying to equate our requirements and capabilities with the enemy's. Our capabilities must be developed around our own needs. We do not need to engage in an endless arms race with the Soviets in ballistic missiles, any more than we have attempted to race them in numbers of submarines or army divisions."

The upshot: the Johnson committee, impressed by Taylor, was even more impressed by Burke. Johnson noted that Burke had performed magnificently, was the best witness he had heard in years. A ranking Republican observed privately that Burke had "cooled Lyndon down." And at week's end Johnson himself put out a statement that summed up the week of military definitions: 1) "All witnesses are in agreement that we have adequate plans and adequate strength to supply and execute the foreign policy of the U.S. in the immediate situation." but that 2) "now and down the road are two different things."

* Who, when his term expires in August, is due to be retained by Commander in Chief Eisenhower for an unprecedented third term as C.N.O.

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