The "Muzzled" Military

Capitol Hill's cavernous Senate caucus room was alive with a sense of impending drama. Newsmen swarmed, all 250 public seats were filled early, and standees wedged themselves along the sidelines. All had come to see what promised to be the most exciting congressional hearing since Robert Kennedy, as counsel of a Senate subcommittee investigating labor racketeering, matched acid insults with Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa.

Last week's hearing was the start of an inquiry by a Senate Armed Services subcommittee, chaired by Mississippi's calm, courtly John Stennis, into an issue that is both hotly topical and permanently challenging. The central question: How far should U.S. military leaders be allowed to go in public expressions of views that might run contrary to civilian-controlled national policy?

The issue is topical because U.S. right-wingers have rallied around the cry that the Kennedy Administration is trying to "muzzle" the military; they strongly imply that this means governmental softness against Communism. But in a deeper way, the Stennis hearings were aimed at trying to resolve a conflict that has existed throughout the life of the republic. Freedom of speech is a basic right of every U.S. citizen--and that right presumably extends even to military leaders. But civilian control over the military is another fundamental tenet of U.S. Government; to be effective, it must include restraint of generals and admirals in their public pronouncements.

Enter Walker. When the Kennedy Administration took over, it made evident that it was going to crack down on military talkers. The first victim was Chief of Naval Operations, Arleigh Burke. A routine anti-Communist Burke speech was heavily cut by Pentagon censors on grounds that it might roil negotiations for the release of two U.S. RB-47 flyers held prisoner in the Soviet Union. In the week that followed, lesser military leaders submitting speeches for clearance got them back heavily blue-penciled. Finally, last spring, the controversy blew wide open with the Walker case.

Major General Edwin A. Walker, commander of the Army's 24th Infantry Division in Germany, came under fire both for speeches and for his troop education program. He labeled Harry Truman, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and former Secretary of State Dean Acheson as "definitely pink." Walker's "pro-blue" educational program boosted conservative candidates for office back home and brought on charges that Walker was dabbling in partisan politics. After he was admonished and reassigned to another command in Hawaii, Walker resigned from the Army. He found a champion in South Carolina's Senator Strom Thurmond, himself a reserve major general (see box). Thurmond complained that Walker was being pilloried; the Senator pushed for a Senate investigation of "muzzling," brought on the hearings that opened last week.

Leading off the hearings, and shedding more light than any of last week's other experts, was former Defense Secretary Robert Lovett, who sent a statement at the subcommittee's invitation. Wrote Lovett: "I cannot escape the feeling that as a Government we tend to talk too much. To be sure, we are an open society, but we give the impression of being unbuttoned." As for military talk: "There are appropriate places for debating the merits of a course of action before a decision is reached. Differences in point of view can be vigorously pressed at several levels . . . But these debates customarily take place on a confidential basis . . ."

Words from Ike. Dwight Eisenhower also sent a curious, and less enlightening statement: "I incline to the view that when responsible and respected officials feel compelled to submit to censorship, we are smothering the concept of personal responsibility under a practice of heavy-handed and unjustified staff supervision." Ike admitted that this was a change of heart, and indeed it was. Only two months ago he had stated: "I believe the Army officer, Navy officer, Air officer, should not be talking about political matters, particularly domestically and never in the international field unless he's asked to do so . . ."

Appearing at last week's hearings, a battery of generals and admirals offered their opinions. Arleigh Burke, now retired from the Navy, agreed that civilian supervision must be imposed, but he complained that Pentagon and State Department censors had sometimes been "a little capricious." So did Lieut. General Arthur Trudeau, the Army's research and development chief. Trudeau cited 91 cuts made in 50 of his speeches. A Trudeau statement that "diplomatic dealing without powerful cards is always a bluff and at best cannot stand a showdown" was deleted; censors explained that diplomacy should not be compared to a card game.

But Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, among others, defended the Kennedy Administration's censorship policies. "A public speaker," said Lemnitzer, "must have a purpose. For me, that purpose can only be to support and help advance our national objectives with respect to the security interests of our country, to do so as objectively and as factually as I can ... I welcome assistance and consider the speech reviews--which are certainly not an innovation of this Administration--to be helpful." General Thomas White, who retired last June as Air Force Chief of Staff, agreed with Lemnitzer and showed no resentment at being blue-penciled by subordinates. "After all," he said genially, "the speeches are written for us by relatively low-level personnel in the first place." (He explained that he "personalized" his speeches after underlings prepared the basic text.)

With the hearings scheduled to continue for several weeks (and with General Edwin Walker likely to be a stormy witness), the Stennis subcommittee could reach no conclusions in its opening sessions. Almost everyone could agree that military leaders must be subject to some limitations in their speech. The question remained: What sort and how much?

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