Recent proposals advocating further reorganization of the Defense Department will inevitably bring back recollections of the bitter controversy of 1949, which erupted in the newly created defense establishment during the summer and fall of that year. With the passage of a decade, we can now look back at that controversy in a more objective light. What were the underlying causes of those great debates which saw senior officers of the Armed Forces pitted in recriminating argument against one another in a glare of publicity that must have amazed both friends and enemies of the nation?
Was it simply a doctrinal argument between the Navy and the Air Force—carrier versus B-36 bomber? On the face of it, the debates seemed to address themselves almost entirely to the future of the aircraft carrier and to the intercontinental strategic bomber.
To gain a perspective, one first must seek to recapture the tone of the times. The importance to the nation’s over-all military posture of both the Navy’s aircraft carrier weapons system and of the Air Force’s strategic air forces would tend to cause wonder that such a debate could have occurred at all.
The 1949 controversy had its roots in the final military developments of World War II, particularly the dramatic role played by the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the traumatic effect which these events had on war-strained Japan.
Within months after VJ-day, a conviction grew among a sizeable number of people in the United States that the era of big navies and powerful armies was over. To some, the end of that era was established at the moment when a blinding flash engulfed Hiroshima in August 1945 and we entered the atomic age.
Proceeding from this premise, the Government of the United States, executive and legislative branches alike, concluded that the great armed forces created to win World War II could be reduced quickly without weakening the future security of the United States or the Free World. As a corollary to this conclusion, reduction of the armed forces came to be looked upon as a logical and attractive starting point at which to commence cutting back what was thought of as a massive peacetime federal budget.
The first true postwar budget of the United States, that for Fiscal Year 1947 (1 July 1946 to 1 July 1947) totaled 31.5 billion dollars of which the Armed Forces were allocated 16.0 billion dollars. In time of peace, military expenditures at this level seemed preposterous to many. The interest in quickly cutting back the Armed Forces was powerfully accentuated by the deep appeal of the “Let’s bring the boys home” campaign. The war was over. The world wanted peace for an indefinite period. And who could possibly oppose us, now that we had sole possession of the key to unlocking the genie of the atomic explosion?
It was in this atmosphere that the Congress, led in the matter of appropriations in 1947 by Congressman John Taber of New York, determined to cut deeply into the military budget. Mr. Taber happened to be a Republican. In view of the existing feeling among the public of the nation, there is little doubt that a Democratic-led Congress would have done much the same. On the diplomatic political front, it was adjudged by men close to the President that the rumblings in Czechoslovakia and in China could be quieted without loss to the West and without resort to armed force. Great military expenditures were “obviously outright extravagancies.” Military expenditures for Fiscal Year 1948 were 10.9 billion dollars and for the following year 11.9 billion dollars. Following his election in the fall of 1958, President Truman, realist though he had proven himself to be, bent to the ground swell of determination to hold our armed forces at a reduced level. He directed his newly appointed Secretary of Defense, Louis Johnson, to seek ways further to reduce the military budget. In his budget message for Fiscal Year 1950, which he delivered in January 1949, President Truman requested new obligational authority in the amount of 14.2 billion dollars for the armed forces. The following January the military budget request totaled 13.5 billion dollars for the Fiscal Year 1951.
The only clouds on the horizon of this otherwise happy prospect to reducing the heavy military tax burden of the nation were created by certain hard-headed men in uniform and their civilian superiors, schooled in the tempests of World War II. Their worries began to find vocal expression among an attentive national press in 1948.
Secretary of the Navy John Sullivan and Chief of Naval Operations Louis Denfeld, quickly joined by Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall, and Chief of Staff of the Army J. Lawton Collins, pointed out the danger to the nation’s future to precipitate reduction of the Armed Forces before the shape of events of the opening peace years was determined. Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington and Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt S. Vandenburg added their voice to the warnings. But the pleas of those people who were interested in maintaining the military posture of the United States, already recognized as the bastion of the Free World, fell on rather deaf ears. A feeling had taken hold about the country expressed by the slogan, “Let us return to normalcy.” Let us renew the great economic resiliency and strength of the United States. Thereafter, if we should need a modernized military force, we could recreate it when that time came.
The position stated was along the line that we could not regain our economic power if we expended a large portion of our financial strength on military things. To many—in fact one may hazard, to a majority—it seemed logical that we could rely on the bomb to inhibit antedated concepts of military aggression. Meanwhile we could return to a great prosperity, built on the desires of the American people for those things they had hoped for in 1940 and 1941 and had put aside for the war years. We would have plenty of time to build up modern forces later should some unforeseen development cause us to need them. A determination to cut the military budget drastically continued to harden in political circles throughout 1948 and 1949.
The military leaders of the nation were faced with the question of how to live within a budget of about one-half the amount they considered necessary to maintain forces required for the security of the nation. Questions arising from this dilemma quickly began to foreshadow the interservice budgetary crisis of 1949.
Prior to the time of this squeeze on the military budget, military spokesmen faced inter-departmental divergencies on issues which were understandable and manageable. The principal conceptual argument among the Services was one having to do with whether we should increase centralization of authority over our military forces or whether the Army and the Navy, with the Air Force also growing in autonomy should continue as separately controlled military services, each directed for the President by its own cabinet officer. The centralization concept originally was voiced by Secretary of War Elihu Root shortly after the turn of the century. The idea of creating some controlling body over all of the nation’s armed forces continued to be considered by many groups in Washington including the Navy’s General Board. Creation of an authority to co-ordinate the mutual efforts of the armed forces was generally agreed as a desirable goal. The argument had been on how it should be accomplished. Should we develop a general staff or should some other concept be developed to create a single controlling body? The consummation of these discussions was creation of the National Defense Establishment in 1947.
With the inception of the military budgetary crisis of 1948-1949, however, this philosophical argument commenced to gain a very practical and immediate political stature. The Services found themselves cast in an unfamiliar role, an open political debate among themselves before the American people, a role which, in the United States, military men had seldom been forced to play.
The Army in earlier years had assumed an activist role in the philosophical discussions favoring centralization. With the opening of the budget controversy of 1949, however, the Army was placed in the comfortable position of a star substitute with the Air Force and the Navy cast on opposite sides, and the Marine Corps also waiting on the side lines as a substitute equally able to participate.
The vital issue became one of determining which new weapons system should receive priority in allocation of the meager new monies which could be anticipated by the Armed Services in the drastically reduced military budget foreseen for the Fiscal Year commencing June 1950. The weapons systems which were most rapidly obsolescing were the Air Force’s strategic bombing system and the Navy’s carrier striking forces. If either was to play the combat role foreseen by their leaders in any war which might develop in the near future, a great deal of money needed to be spent rapidly to assure modernization of these systems. The Army could continue as a relatively effective fighting force with the men and material then available for at least a few years. Neither was the Marine Corps vitally concerned as regards its arsenal in 1949. The Corps, however, was not well oriented toward the future in the eyes of many of its own strategists, particularly in view of advances which they foresaw as necessary in amphibious warfare techniques in the nuclear age. On the other hand, both the Air Force and the Navy, viewing the future of warfare in light of the very rapid jet aircraft developments, were quite vitally concerned.
New aircraft born of the rapid scientific developments of World War II were much in the minds of the strategic planners of both the Air Force and the Navy.
The Navy saw that its aircraft carriers of World War II would, by 1955, be obsolete for the oncoming jet aircraft weapons systems. The Navy’s aircraft carrier strength consisted largely of the World War II Essex-type carriers designed in 1940 to handle the smaller, lighter aircraft of that era.
The Air Force had perfected as its major weapons system of World War II in a strategic sense, the B-29 bomber. Its strategists saw in the jet aircraft a threat in which a quantum development in defensive strength would make obsolete at an early date their major strategic bombing aircraft in being, the B-29 and their light bomber groups as well. The forays of the early jet fighters of the Luftwaffe in the closing days of the war in Europe foreshadowed the decline of the propeller-driven bomber. The Air Force had to proceed into a heavy jet bomber system of which the B 36, even though initially an all-propeller-driven aircraft, was to be the interim step. The B-36 had been under development since the latter part of World War II.
It was quite impossible for the Navy or the Air Force to consider production of either of these new weapons systems, which they foresaw, each in its own light, as necessary to the future security of the nation, under the budgetary ceilings which were being imposed by the Government. The best the Armed Forces could hope to do would be to maintain the forces then in being. It was quite out of the question for the Navy or the Air Force to make the major changeover into jet aircraft systems, the Navy through the creation of a larger aircraft carrier able to accommodate the more sizeable, heavier modern jet aircraft, the Air Force to obtain the money to develop a great new high altitude, high speed intercontinental jet bomber system, the initial step of which would be activation of the B-36 bomber concept. (Today the B-52 is the familiar workhorse of the Strategic Air Command.)
It is well to reiterate here that the American public could not in the existing world situation believe that such high capacity combat air systems were in actuality a great requirement. We should also recall that the missile series of weapons had not yet come to the fore. The consensus was that having proved we could use the atomic weapon with the aircraft in being, the B-29, it would not be necessary to hurry on with the job of creating the oncoming jet aircraft weapons systems. It was in this light that the decision was taken by the Government of the United States to live more or less with what we had in our arsenal. And here was the crux of the problem. Somehow a majority of influential people of the nation were sold on the idea that we could maintain our security with World War II weapons.
But those men who were militarily knowledgeable could not agree. The Air Force and the Navy found themselves in the uncomfortable situation of being placed politically in competition for that small increment of the military budget which might be made available for future developments when the overall military money available was cut by 50 per cent or more. The budget had in effect reached a point where the military services were simply trying to maintain some of what they had. We were eating our fences.
It was soon evident that the struggle between the Navy and the Air Force for the meager new development funds would be bitter. In their public statements seeking support for priority for appropriations to create the oncoming weapons systems, leaders and advocates of both of these services engaged in recriminating attacks upon the other that were a sad spectacle for the nation to witness.
Shortly after he took office, Secretary of Defense Johnson took the drastic step in April 1949, which kindled the controversy. He determined to make a choice between the two opposing weapons systems immediately and opted for the Air Force concept. He canceled outright the program for development of the Navy’s projected modern carrier, United States, the prototype of what in later years was to become known as the Forrestal-class of carriers.
Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan, who had been one of the early champions for building United States, resigned forthwith. Further political repercussions were inevitable.
It was clear to Navy-oriented thinkers that the lines had been drawn. Either the Navy would continue as a great combat service for maintaining supremacy on the seas or it would recede to a minor supporting role for the Air Force and the Army. Certain leadership elements in the Navy were not willing to accept this mandate, most particularly those people who understood that the aircraft carrier weapons system was the Navy’s principal offensive combat element for maintaining control of the seas. Public and private expressions during the spring and summer months of 1949 became increasingly heated from both sides.
In the ensuing statements on the matter, the Air Force made a great case of the obsolescence, in fact the uselessness, of the aircraft carrier weapons system. The Navy, not to be outdone, went all-out to prove to the nation that it was unnecessary to create an intercontinental strategic bombing force, particularly a high altitude bomber force which could not really aim at the small military targets which had been the pride of the naval air arm. One need not dwell on these arguments. Most observers are familiar with them.
The Air Force enjoyed a psychological advantage in the opening debates. It possessed the only force capable of dropping the atomic bomb, which the American public had been taught and wanted to believe would be the keeper of the peace. The question posed was why should we have aircraft carriers and other obsolete weapons systems? The B-36 weapons system advocates had little to do but sit by and listen to the outpourings of those writers who were busily expounding that we really didn’t need those other costly and useless arms, such as aircraft carriers, large standing armies, Marines, and so forth. A few large bombers could do the job. In the summer of 1949, the House Armed Forces Committee opened hearings on these questions, preliminary to its hearings on the Fiscal Year 1951 military appropriations bills. The first hearings were allotted to the Air Force to present the case for the B-36. These presentations were very well made and created a tremendous impact. The feeling was engendered that the nation should indeed proceed with the creation of this new weapons system despite the cost anticipated.
Some of the Navy advocates became quite emotional over the issue of bringing the crisis the Navy foresaw into focus. Mr. Cedric R. Worth, a civilian administrative assistant in the Secretary of the Navy’s office, wrote an anonymous letter implying that certain high officials of the Air Force were furthering the proposition of building the B-36 system in order to enhance one of the large aircraft manufacturer’s stake in the military budget.
This anonymous letter created a tremendous furor. The result was that the opportunity for the Navy to present its case for the advanced aircraft carrier weapons system to the Congress became a tenuous possibility at best. A Navy presentation team headed by Admiral Arthur Radford was dissolved.
It was at this juncture that one of the Navy’s zealots, as one might fairly call him, for aircraft carrier weapons systems, decided to take the situation into his own hands. Captain John Crommelin had recently been commanding officer of one of the Navy’s aircraft carriers. Earlier he had been an outstanding combat pilot during World War II. In the summer of 1949 he had completed the course at the National War College.
Captain Crommelin’s first effort was to make a public statement in the Washington press on 11 September 1949, to the effect that the Navy’s combat strength was being whittled away to impotency by arbitrary decisions within the Pentagon and that morale in the Navy was thereby being exceedingly damaged. A little less than a month later, concerned that the still promised but now indefinitely adjourned hearings on the Navy’s position on naval aviation before the House Armed Forces Committee would be postponed to such an extent that the case for new development monies would not be heard at all that year in Congress, the Captain took a much bolder step.
He surreptitiously obtained copies of certain correspondence relating the matter of his concern for the Navy Department offices and on his own initiative distributed copies of the correspondence to representatives of the press in the Washington area on 3 October 1949.
This correspondence was labeled Confidential. The entire text may be found on page 3 of the New York Times for 4 October 1949. The documents distributed consisted of a letter from Vice Admiral Gerald F. Bogan, U. S. Navy, Commander of the First Fleet, to Secretary of the Navy Francis W. Matthews with the forwarding endorsements of the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, Admiral Arthur W. Radford and Chief of Naval Operations, Louis E. Denfeld.
In his letter, Vice Admiral Bogan expressed grave concern for the security of the nation if policies being followed in the Department of Defense were not drastically changed, implying that the deep cuts in naval aviation were a basic error in judgment. He further charged that the decision to restrict the Fleet’s future development in favor of early build-up of a long range strategic bomber force had heavily damaged morale of the Fleet. Both Admiral Radford and Admiral Denfeld in their forwarding endorsements conceded that a large number of naval officers shared Admiral Bogan’s views. Admiral Denfeld stated in his own endorsement that “naval officers have faith in the Navy and a knowledge of the aggressive role it plays in the defense of the country. They are concerned that a Navy stripped of its offensive power means a Nation stripped of its offensive power.”
The result of the unauthorized public release of these documents was dramatic. Captain Crommelin was suspended from duty forthwith by the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. The Congress reacted immediately. The aircraft carrier versus B-36 hearings were reopened on 5 October 1949.
Admiral Denfeld had sought to maintain a status of unbiased decorum in the conflict that swirled around his office that summer and early fall. He had tried to provide considered advice to the Secretary of the Navy. One can conclude, however, that Secretary Matthews saw his principal job as one of assisting the Secretary of Defense in his efforts to maintain reasonably effective armed forces within a shrunken budget rather than seeking to enhance the future combat capability of the Navy.
Unfortunately this attitude led to an unusual break in the close relationship traditionally enjoyed between the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations. It was a situation almost unparalleled in the annals of the Navy Department. Therefore, the activities which were going on in the Department during the 1949 controversy found the Chief of Naval Operations in a spot midway between the staffs of the Navy and the Marine Corps in Washington and the Secretary of the Navy. As the situation unfolded and the testimony before the House Armed Forces Committee was given—a great deal of which was highly emotional—Admiral Denfeld concluded that he could no longer maintain a neutral position. The highly charged atmosphere existing during the last week or so of the hearings was dramatized by the final hard-hitting summation of the Navy position given personally by Admiral Denfeld. It emphasized the loss of naval combat power in which the current Defense Department policies would result. This statement was written between late evening of the preceding day and the early morning hours of the day on which Admiral Denfeld appeared. It appears that the Secretary of the Navy was relatively uninformed of the content until the testimony was given.
Admiral Denfeld’s statement was such that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Omar Bradley, U. S. Army, was infuriated. The night before his own appearance, he also engaged in a writing marathon, or so one is given to believe. At any rate, it was during his own appearance before the Committee that General Bradley made his famous statement that the Admirals were “a group of fancy dans,” inferring that they would not obey orders unless these were to their liking.
These unfortunate developments recounted here are not to be construed as recriminations of those able and dedicated officers, General Bradley and Admiral Denfeld. They are included only to highlight the awkward and unfair political position in which the senior military officers of the nation found themselves in this particular situation.
As a result of these unpleasant hearings, however, the Navy’s position on the development of a modern aircraft carrier as well as that of the Air Force with respect to the B-36 system was upheld in the report of the Committee on Armed Forces under the skillful chairmanship of Representative Carl Vinson.
Atrophy of the Nation’s Armed Forces was brought to an end by these hearings.
Unfortunately, the 1949 controversy has been looked upon, not as a clarification of future weapons system requirements, but as the basis of a continuing inter-Service rivalry. Therefore, it is well to reconsider the true cause of this so-called rivalry. The American public must always hope that the leaders of its Armed Services will strive for those forces required for the military security of the United States. The American people must expect its military leaders to be willing to make themselves unpopular in the eyes of the public in order to maintain the nation’s military readiness.
It so happened that simultaneously with these hearings on military matters in the fall of 1949, discussions and hearings were being conducted on the matter of aid and support to our allies. Among the controversial items was the Korean Aid Bill of 1949. It was rejected by a vote of 193 to 191 in the House of Representatives. This rejection was a matter of great concern to Secretary of State Dean Acheson. He formalized his concern in a letter to the President dated 20 January 1950, which was published in the State Department booklet, “Strengthening the Forces of Freedom” printed by the U. S. Government Printing Office under a forwarding letter signed by President Truman on 10 May 1950.
In his letter of 20 January Mr. Acheson stated inter alia:
“We are concerned not only about the consequences of this abrupt about-face in (our position on) Korea, whose Government and people have made valiant efforts to win their independence and establish free institutions under the most difficult circumstances, but we are also deeply concerned by the effect which would be created in other parts of the world where our encouragement is a major element in the struggle for freedom.”
Though the above cited letter was primarily addressed to the cessation of economic aid to South Korea, it was well known about Washington that the State Department was vitally concerned over the weakening of the U. S. military posture in South Korea. The U. S. Army of Occupation in Korea was withdrawn during 1948 and 1949. It was replaced with a military advisory and training group of moderate size. Its mission was to create effective South Korean armed forces; its mission was not that of defending the peninsula.
In his speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D. C., on 12 January 1950, Secretary of State Acheson alluded several times to his preoccupation with the danger to South Korea. At one point he stated . . in Korea, we have taken great steps which have ended our military occupation and in cooperation with the United Nations have established an independent and sovereign country recognized by nearly all the rest of the world. We have given that Nation great help in getting itself established. We are asking the Congress to continue that help until it is firmly established and that legislation is now pending before the Congress. The idea that we should scrap all of that, that we should stop half-way through the achievement of the establishment of this country, seems to me to be the most utter defeatism and utter madness in our interests in Asia. . .
He had said earlier in this address “. . . The first fact is the great difference between our responsibility and our opportunities in the northern part of the Pacific area and in the southern part of the Pacific area. In the north, we have direct responsibility in Japan and we have direct opportunity to act. The same thing to lesser degree is true in Korea. There we had direct responsibility and there we did act and there we have a greater opportunity to be effective than we have in the more southerly part. . .
In answer to a query concerning the future security of South Korea, Mr. Acheson remarked that he would prefer not to comment directly upon the matter because this was a responsibility of the Department of Defense.
Stalin and his advisors through their Washington sources had kept themselves current concerning the evolving U. S. policy as dictated by the actions being taken by the United States in reducing its military forces and its support of allies. They interpreted these actions as signs of vacillation and weakness on the part of the United States.
It was only through the recriminative, unpleasant debates of the fall of 1949, between the Navy and the Air Force that the unilateral voluntary disarmament of the United States was brought to a halt. This occurred too late to prevent the Korean War. The West had by that time lost Czechoslovakia to a Communist coup. Quick reaction had saved Turkey and Greece. The Berlin Blockade was successfully overcome. Fortunately, we had maintained a position of minimum strength in Japan. As the Communists saw it in the winter of 1949-1950, however, we were again reducing our external commitments, and specifically with regard to South Korea. Here we have an example of the temptation which peace loving powers can ill afford to place before a people such as our Communist rivals. We must expect leaders of a militantly revolutionary power to seize the advantage offered by such a situation. Nothing is neutral in the sense of self imposed or otherwise induced helplessness. Any Communist leader who is reasonably true to his doctrine must strive for possession or domination of an unprotected position in the middle.
The outcome of the 1949-Carrier vs. B-36 hearings was formalized in the report House Armed Forces Committee on Unification and Strategy dated 1 March 1950. The Committee in its report found inter alia:
“26. The Air Force holds the primary responsibility for conduction of strategic bombing. It has maintained that the B-36 bomber is its foremost weapon to carry out that mission and that the B-36 can do its job. The Committee holds that the Nation must rely upon the judgment of its professional leaders in their respective fields in matters of this nature—and that the Nation’s leaders in respect to weapons of the Air Force are the leaders for the United States Air Force.”
“27. The Committee deplores the manner of cancellation of the construction of the aircraft carrier USS United States, but, because of the pressure of other shipbuilding programs at the present time and the existing budgetary limitations on the Navy Department, will withhold further action—for the present—as regards the construction of this vessel. The Committee considers it sound policy, however, for the Nation to follow the advice of its professional leaders in regard to this subject in the same manner as has been heretofore done in respect to the B-36 bomber. In the Committee’s view, the Nation’s leaders in respect to naval weapons are the leaders of the United States Navy.”
Earlier in the report, the Committee found that:
“9. Difficulties between the Air Force and the naval air arm will continue because of fundamental professional disagreements on the art of warfare. Service prejudices, jealousies and thirst for power and recognition have a bare minimum of influence on this controversy.”
Immediately after the completion in late October 1949 of these hearings, a scapegoat was sought by the Defense Department leadership. Someone had to take the political penalty. Admiral Denfeld bore the brunt of retribution. He was summarily released from office and shortly thereafter was retired at his own request. This action seems unfortunate even today in view of combat events as they unfolded in the soon-to-be-opened Korean War, and as budgetary arguments assumed a proper perspective. Captain Crommelin was put on indefinite leave at half pay. The writer still believes that had that officer been willing to maintain his peace after his initiation of prompt resumption of the House hearings by the letter incident, he could have pursued a successful career as a naval officer.
He did not, however, maintain the silence in public which the Chief of Naval Operations requested of him. He retired voluntarily in 1950.
Admiral Forrest Sherman was directed to assume the duties of Chief of Naval Operations. Admiral Sherman saw the factors in a true perspective and, fortunately for the Navy, was able to articulate them to Secretary Matthews. Admiral Sherman’s first step upon taking office was to request retention in active service of a light cruiser and an aircraft carrier, both of which were being placed out of commission to meet the shrunken Navy budget. This request was granted. The Navy until this moment had been receding toward a surface combat force built around six aircraft carriers and two battleships. Admiral Sherman followed this advantage by keeping active a destroyer squadron which also was due for early decommissioning. This process at least stopped the unilateral disarmament in U. S. naval forces. Simultaneously the decrease in the Army, the Air Force and the Marine Corps was checked by executive and legislative action.
These actions were of importance to the future of the Free World. For on 25 June 1950, only nine months after the opening of the self induced interservice crisis of the budget, born of the idea of the American people that they could buy security “on the cheap,” the North Koreans, convinced that the United States would not move, followed the Communist dogma, and descended across the 38th parallel to “consolidate” their territory at this historically auspicious time. Unfortunately, from the standpoint of the North Koreans, the United States still had enough to come back. The Air Force from Japan made the first strikes with what it had left over in the Far East Theater following the cutbacks of the previous three years. The Army brought quickly into the picture what little there was of it in the area, and the Navy began to redeploy Marine and Army combat units on an urgent basis from Hawaii and Continental United States.
The history of the Korean War needs no repetition. We did revitalize our Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps under trying conditions to go on to accomplish successfully our objectives of the Korean War.
By the end of the summer of 1950, carrier- based squadrons of the Navy and Marine Corps, and the tactical aircraft of the Air Force operating from Japan and the few fields still operational in South Korea had reinstituted the art of close air support of ground forces as it had been practiced in World War II. U. S. Army troops from Japan, the R.O.K. Army, and U. S. Army and Marine Combat Units hastily transported from the West Coast saved the Pusan Perimeter. In the fall, General MacArthur’s quickly constituted joint amphibious force executed his brilliant landing at Inchon and the real danger of losing Korea became history.
American policy makers derived two important lessons from the Korean War. The idea that the security of the United States and the Free World could be maintained by threat to use atomic weapons alone was recognized to be a fallacy. The true place of conventional land, sea, and tactical air forces in the spectrum of warfare was cast in a clear light. A second lesson impressed upon all Americans was the fallacy of hoping our Communist rivals might follow a path of peace based on good will alone; that we might attain our objectives by rule of international law and agreement unsupported by the necessary flexible military power to guard our own security.
When similar budget squeezes occur in the future, it is hoped that the military leader of the country will remember the controversy of 1949. Perhaps they can avoid having themselves cast as political whipping boys, being made to lead a fight, Service against Service in a political sense, thus obscuring what may again be the underlying cause of such a difficulty. This cause in 1949 was—and could be again—our unwillingness as a people to make the sacrifices, in time of peace, necessary for the security of the Nation in times of sudden stress.
In the decade following 1949-1950, much has been done to prevent a repetition of such an interservice crisis. The American public is vastly more aware of the responsibilities of the United States for the future of the Free World. Likewise, it has become increasingly sophisticated in its knowledge of the role played by the several elements of our armed forces. On the organizational side, undramatic results though greatly important advances have been made to avoid development of gaps in knowledge and the making of ill conceived decisions such as those which led to the 1949 controversy. Perhaps the most important of these has been the series of steps to clarify the encompassing authority of the Secretary of Defense over the entire armed forces of the nation. It was a realization of the true meaning of this authority that led Secretary of Defense Thomas S. Gates, Jr., in mid-1960 to take the step which should do much to assure healthy development of the Armed Forces as a whole as the future unfolds. This step, of course, was establishing the precedent of himself sitting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in their meetings whenever controversial matters arise; in fact, as often as necessary to keep abreast of situations that might erupt into controversy. This development is one of the clearer examples of timely evolvement of the means of governmental control under the flexible democratic process.
We should provide in peace what we need in war.
Publilius Syrus—Circa 42 B.C.