Tension in the Tank

During his six-year reign as Defense Secretary, Robert Strange McNamara has done more than enshrine the computer in government. More significantly, he has also cemented civilian control over the Pentagon, an achievement that notably eluded his seven predecessors. Though he is still the unchallenged master of his mighty domain, McNamara of late has found himself increasingly and unmistakably at odds with Earle Gilmore ("Bus") Wheeler, the urbanely outspoken Army general who, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since 1964, has brought that post to maturity.

Inevitably, in so long and contentious a tenure, the McNamara mystique has lost some of its luster. The heightening of the war has also increased Wheeler's authority on Capitol Hill: as Kipling noted, the man in uniform may be everyone's goat in peacetime, "But it's 'Savior of 'is country' when the guns begin to shoot." Wheeler has never indulged in the public griping or corridor grumping of previous JCS chairmen. On the contrary, as the nation's top advocate for the military viewpoint, he has sufficient courage, diplomacy and professional skill both to cooperate effectively with McNamara and argue opposing convictions dispassionately but persuasively within the Administration and before Congress.

Washington General. Tall and polished, Bus Wheeler, 59, is a Washingtonian by birth and a Washington general by training. Unlike his five predecessors and many other prominent alumni of the Joint Chiefs, Wheeler has always been the planner and strategist, never a war hero or even much of a combat vet eran. He had only five months of frontline infantry service during World War II, and even that was a staff assignment; during the Korean War, he was assigned to the Pentagon and Trieste. Though all too clearly no Patton type, he is known nonetheless as the most gifted tank officer that the JCS has ever had--based on his cool performance in the second-floor Pentagon "tank," where the Joint Chiefs meet thrice weekly by themselves and confer each Monday with McNamara and Deputy Secretary Cyrus Vance. Wheeler is also at ease on Capitol Hill, even when that involves directly contradicting his superior. In recent testimony before congressional committees, Wheeler and McNamara have differed on several touchy issues.

On the question of withdrawing U.S. troops from Europe, McNamara originally hoped to bring home two full Army divisions, which, with supporting units, would have amounted to some 75,000 men. Wheeler opposed any pullback, and not only for the conventional soldier's reasoning, which flatly opposes reductions of strength on principle. Conceding that the forces could be quickly sent back, the general argued that the U.S. might find it "politically undesirable to do so because to take action at a time of tension or time of crisis might trigger the very event you are seeking to avoid or deter." So far, the Administration has compromised on the figure of 35,000 men.

No Diddling Around. When McNamara repeated his well-known--and well-reasoned--opposition to deployment of an anti-ballistic missile system (ABM) this year, Wheeler pointed out that for two years the Joint Chiefs have unanimously urged deployment of this defensive network. Among other things, Wheeler argued, it would "demonstrate to the Soviets and our allies that the U.S. is not first-strike minded.

In other words, that we don't put all our eggs in the offensive basket." So far, the ABM project remains alive, but it will not go into full production unless Washington fails to get Moscow's agreement to a mutual freeze on the weapon.

The most immediate concern, of course, is Viet Nam. Wheeler is no jingoist, just as McNamara is no pacifist. But before Congress their differences have become clear. Wheeler believes in the efficacy of bombing North Viet Nam far more strongly than McNamara, who doubts the wisdom of intensifying the air war. Moreover, though his misgivings have never been publicly expressed, Wheeler has not been wholly in sympathy with McNamara's gradualist increase in military pressure on North Viet Nam. Wheeler agrees with the theory of flexible or graduated response to aggression, but believes that the restraints the U.S. has imposed on its war effort have unnecessarily blunted its potential impact. "You either fight a guerrilla war or a limited war or a tactical nuclear war or a full-scale nuclear war," says a member of the Joint Staff who reflects Wheeler's overall views.

"But within the chosen framework, you don't diddle around. The gradualism we are practicing in South Viet Nam is a perversion of flexible response." The remarkable thing about the McNamara-Wheeler relationship is that both men, despite differing views on so many fundamental questions, have managed to work so productively in partnership.

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