The Busy Blacksmith

Brass glitters in a converted movie theater in the reservation near Paris which is called Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. Pips, crowns, eagles, laurel wreaths, stars sparkle on an international wardrobe of soldiers' tunics. A luminous map of Europe shines from the screen. The houselights dim, a spotlight focuses on a small, grey-mustached man in the uniform of a high British officer.

In a thin, nasal voice, Field Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein curtly sketches the problem. Suppose the Russians were to advance here. (A dark shadow darts westward across the map.) Then their tactical air force's striking power would extend to here. (A purple light slides across the map, out into the Atlantic, ominously embracing Britain.)

D Plus 7. The field marshal, his chest arrayed in a rainbow of 38 ribbons, employs certain special equipment to aid his performance: cough drops for generals so bold as to cough while Montgomery is talking, an officer's whistle to bring order out of the babel of English, French, Italian and Turkish, and a brass schoolbell to squelch extra-loud arguments. The men before him are top SHAPE officers, brought together for one of Monty's periodic "Command Post Exercises" for skull practice in the huge, hypothetical war which SHAPE wages in the mind, in the hope that such preparation will forestall real war. Problem tackled at the most recent: defense of Southern Europe.

With his map and microphone, Montgomery manipulates the make-believe war. "Now here it is. D Plus 7." He waves his hand at the map. "We've got a commander out on this flank who's calling for air power. He must have it, must have it right away. But he's just heard his area commander say he's going to use all the available air power somewhere else. He doesn't have any reserves, either. No reserves. All used up! D plus 7 and battle's lost already. What are we going to do?"

Someone ventures a suggestion. "Oh no, I don't agree," says Montgomery, even though the someone may be of exalted rank. "Not the case at all. That's not professional." His eye swings around the room. "Let's hear what Admiral Mountbatten has to say about that. Dickie! Dickie! Ah, there you are. Let's hear what you think."

Devastating Oaths. Technically, Monty is the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander under U.S. General Alfred M. Gruenther. His job, as Eisenhower once put it, is to "forge the weapon" with which the NATO allies hold off Russia in Europe. In practice, he is far more than SHAPE'S blacksmith. He is its schoolmaster, conscience, physical-education instructor, its gadfly and occasionally its terrible-tempered Mr. Bang.

At 66, Monty is still the terse, proud, positive figure -- "the intensely compacted hank of steel wire" --of a decade back. He still neither drinks nor smokes (though he now lets fellow officers smoke in his presence, serves whisky at his formal staff parties). When he waxes profane, the air is rent with such devastating oaths as "gracious," "goodness me," and "jolly well." He still strides impatiently past small details, reaching like an imperious giraffe for the high, green stuff of strategy.

Air power is Montgomery's password. Top U.S. Air Force men credit him with "writing the book" on modern use of air power as early as 1944. SHAPE'S top air man, U.S. General Lauds Norstad, considers the field marshal "the most elo quent and effective spokesman for air power in the world today." Says Montgomery himself: "I maintain the dominant factor in war is air power. It is the weapon which dictates everything you do, although the final conclusion is, of course, land war."

SHAPE'S strategic thinking, close to unanimous at the top, accepts the fact that the allies' defense problem is global, while NATO is commissioned to deal with only one sector of the globe. It recognizes that victory in case of Communist attack would come not by holding on to any given piece of real estate, but by striking at the enemy's centers of strength. "You won't win the war by the defense of Western Europe," says Monty.

But since NATO is a political commitment by 14 nations, and no politician is willing to have his nation considered expendable, NATO's generals have been as signed to protect that lush piece of real estate, Western Europe, as long and effectively as possible. Ideally, SHAPE thinks of defense as far east as possible. But until recently, at least, the plain fact has been that in event of attack, NATO's first line of defense would have to be the west bank of the Rhine. However, recent developments in superweapons have made the idea of "forward strategy" seem more feasible (assuming that some day German troops are added to NATO's strength). and have even encouraged the SHAPE generals to think of ways of waging "offensive defense" if war with Russia comes.

With the new firepower now being developed -- small atomic bombs, atomic cannon, ground-to-ground guided missiles capable of carrying atomic-war heads --SHAPE strategists now talk of forward and mobile "islands of resistance" or "centers of strength" as big as a division or even a corps. The islands, air-supplied, would be capable of holding against strong enemy forces, and of blasting their way through very strong enemy defenses. Thus NATO forces could transform their real-estate-guarding function into something more positive.

Arms Behind the Shield. The old Anglo-American rivalry which eddied about Montgomery during World War II is now all but forgotten. For three years the five-starred field marshal (he is senior officer in the British Army) has served under three U.S. SHAPE commanders--SACEURs, in the alphebetical language of NATO--whom he ranked, or as the British say, pipped. He has done it untiringly, devotedly, brilliantly. He relentlessly travels the circuit of NATO capitals, traveling lightly, laundering his own nylon shorts, inspecting troops, prodding generals, harassing politicians into improving and speeding the training of reserves. "I can say things the Supreme Commander can't," he once explained. A SHAPE officer says admiringly: "Two questions and he can spot whether a country's reserve program is a phony or not."

Troops that can be called up in five or six months, he insists, are next to worthless. "If we can't do better than that, well then, we're wasting our money. A small, tough shield in front, big reserves behind, which are organized--properly organized--and the war is won. Mind you, not by the active forces you keep up in peacetime, but by the nation in arms behind the shield. . ." Through caustic, he is also confident. "My view," he says, "is that the danger of premeditated--the word is important--war has been pushed back, largely due to American money and sacrifices made by the people of Europe. The job's been successfully done."

The Facts are These. The real Montgomery comes out in his crisp memos. "The amount of paper in circulation is simply terrific." Montgomery complains, "It is not possible for any sane man to read more than half of it. And the other half isn't worth reading." He himself peppers his people with brief machine-gun bursts of confident prose. One sentence makes a paragraph. the two favorite marks of punctuation are the colon and period. A typical beginning: "Let us look at the facts: the facts are these." He sent a memo to British officers at SHAPE:

I have come to the conclusion that most of the British officers and soldiers at SHAPE are not fit. This is bad. . . I wish you to start a system by which every officer and soldier under the age of 30 goes on an organized run, of five miles, once a week. . .If any officer or man says he cannot run five miles, he can walk ten. If any British personnel cannot walk ten miles they are not of any use to the Army.

"The course should be laid by a selected runner, like a paper chase.

"If anyone says he has not enough paper, he can apply to my office. . ." Monty's high standards and bulldogging tactics have paid off. The political leaders of NATO, gathering in Paris this week, found political shortcomings, economic headaches, military inadequacies. But they learned from their Military Committee that troops are markedly improved in quality. It was more than one man's doing. But, without slighting the others, allied representatives agreed that one man deserved most of the credit: Field Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.

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