Navy Compromise

The Navy believed that it was fighting for its life. The President was all ready to recommend unification of command. Congressmen had grown bored with the arguments. When earnest Assistant Secretary of the Navy H. Struve Hensel appeared before the Senate Military Affairs Committee last week, only two committeemen were on hand. One of them explained without apology: "We heard Mr. Hensel for two hours before."

In this crisis, while Navy Secretary Forrestal and Chief of Naval Operations Chester Nimitz prayed to the great Mahan, prophet of the doctrine of sea power, Navymen clutched at straws. To the microphone they led strange allies--Miner John L. Lewis, who rumbled that merger would "make for a greater concentration of military power than we have ever had before . . . I am reluctant. . . ." And Catholic Educator (Catholic University of America) Maurice Sheehy, naval chaplain for five years, who cried: "I . . . regard as an evil thing any movement which challenges radically the conditions of life for half a million men."

But the Navy was afraid it was licked. In its extremity, this week, it prepared a compromise. Jim Forrestal and topnotch Naval Aviator Rear Admiral Arthur Radford will go before the Senate committee with something new--the Navy's own plan for merger, based on the elaborate report made for the Navy some time ago by Investment Banker Ferd Eberstadt. The compromise lay in the possible creation of a Secretary of Air, which Eberstadt had proposed but which Forrestal has hitherto rejected. Main features of the plan:

P: A permanent National Security Council composed of the President as chairman and, as members, the chairman of a National Security Resources Board and the Secretaries of State, War, Navy--and Air, if Congress (said the Navy) really believes such a post should be created. The Council would control the machinery of national defense, maintain coordination between the agencies responsible for foreign and military policies, and be all-powerful in making decisions.

P: The Joint Chiefs of Staff, composed of the Chief of Staff to the President, the Army Chief of Staff, the Air Chief of Staff (if Congress insists), the Chief of Naval Operations and a Navy Air admiral.

P: A National Security Resources Board, composed of civilians, which would decide policies dealing with mobilization of material and manpower resources.

P: A central intelligence agency and research agency to assist the council. The great need of such agencies was one matter on which Army & Navy vehemently agreed

Every aspect of the plan, Navymen will argue, emphasizes civilian control over government policies--foreign, military and domestic--and relegates military authority to a subordinate, executive role.

The Old Family Car. Will the plan save the Navy from what it most dreads and fears--a merger which would eventually swallow it up, air arm and all? The Army's proposal called for a single Secretary of National Defense. Under that kind of setup the Navy foresees "derogation of sea power as a part of the national forces." The fear is well founded. According to such men as General of the Army George C. Marshall, the Air Forces will relegate Navy & Army to a secondary position in any future war.

Airmen--but not Navy airmen--contend that the Navy is blind to the writing on the wall, that what the Navy still wants is the old family car with some minor changes in design.

The Right Answer. Could the argument ever be settled by words, or even by compromise? This week it was sputtering on into its seventh week. The antagonists have tried to drive the same mule in opposite directions, often trying to prove their contrary views by citing the same examples, the same figures. Most arguments boiled down to opinion. There was such angry name-calling that Forrestal had felt obliged to say: "I am merely seeking the answer which is the right one for the country."

Perhaps the right answer could only be found by a meeting of reasonable men (naval and military leaders) who would thrash out their differences in private, draw up a single plan and present it to the nation.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.