Cops on the Hill

Most U.S. Sunday drivers are familiar with psychological warfare, whether they realize it or not. The psychological warrior supreme is the highway cop who ostentatiously parks his big white car marked POLICE on the brow of a hill, for all drivers to see and worry about. He is no bluff. And he has a tremendous effect on the stream of traffic, and seldom has to get out in hot pursuit.

Similarly, last week the Eisenhower Administration went forward with its psychological offensive against the Communist enemy of the Far East, letting enough news of U.S. military potentialities leak out to make its threat a real one. Latest warrior to park his POLICE car ostentatiously was Admiral Arthur W. Radford, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. As soon as Radford landed in Washington (from headquarters in Pearl Harbor) last week, he was summoned to a White House conference with President Eisenhower. Radford came & went publicly, but gave not a hint of the reason for the visit. Nonetheless, the word got around that he was giving his opinions on the possibilities of a naval blockade of the Chinese Communist coast.

Finally, Missouri's Representative Dewey Short, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, dispelled any mystery. Radford had talked blockade to the committee, said Short, and without recommending a course of action had given the opinion that blockade of China's coastline was feasible. "Like all military people in the Far East," said Short, "he didn't think a blockade would result in any grave danger of enlarging the war." Short said that Eisenhower was "listening" to Radford's reports, added that Congress would support a blockade order.

Meanwhile, reports spread that the U.S. might also:

P: Advocate in the United Nations a total embargo on all shipments to Communist China, and urge all U.N. members who have recognized Peking (notably Britain) to withdraw their recognition.

P: Permit Nationalist commando units to train on the tightly sealed-off Pacific islands of Saipan and Tinian.

P: Equip the Chinese Nationalist air force with jet fighter-bombers, probably F-84 Thunderjets.

Whether the leaks were psychological or not, none of these courses would be sheer bluff. All are entirely in the realm of the possible. By letting the potentialities be known, the Administration's policy planners--like the cops on the hill--run the best chance of slowing up the enemy without having to use the weapons.

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