The Cutting Edge

"Arms are merely the cutting edge" of a nation's power, said General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower. But the edge has to be kept sharp, and the U.S., he insisted last week, is not spending enough money for that purpose.

With the air of a man walking tiptoe among political eggs (he did it with the aplomb of a ballerina), he appeared before a Senate appropriations subcommittee to explain the headlines he made the week before when he had said that the Administration was reducing the country's military strength beyond the point of safety*

(TIME, April 3). He carefully avoided any appearance of being in collision with the President and Defense Secretary Louis Johnson. The President's budget was "fairly well on the line between economy and security," Ike said politely. Perhaps, he conceded, he had used "terms that were more emphatic than I intended." Nevertheless, there were several places where he thought the U.S. should be spending more money. He listed:

Alaska. It, he said, is "so important that it should be considered above the others." He recommended putting a radar screen around the U.S.'s highly vulnerable Arctic border with Russia. He recommended putting an infantry battalion in each of the three major Alaskan air bases. (The Joint Chiefs of Staff have long wanted more troops in Alaska but the Army and Air Force do not have enough housing for them.) "I don't cry wolf," said Ike. "I merely say that that looks like one inadequacy that we could cure with reasonable expenditure."

The Air Force. After he himself had worked on the budget, Ike said, he "felt we had probably lopped that item [air power] too heavily." He had discovered that the money allotted would provide, not the promised 48 first-line groups, but only 42 groups. Now he recommended spending an additional $150 million annually for aircraft procurement.

Antisubmarine Warfare. "I personally believe," said Ike, "we are taking chances in the submarine field." For further details, the committee should talk to the Navy's Admiral Forrest Sherman--a "real expert."

Ike was well aware, he said, of the danger of breaking the nation's economic back by spending too much for defense, thus "playing exactly into the hands of the enemy." But he did think the nation could boost its military budget $500 million in the interests of keeping the cutting edge fairly sharp.

*In Key West, Fla. Harry Truman flatly said that his $13 billion defense budget did not endanger the country in the slightest, and Johnson called the budget "sufficient to the moment."

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