ARMED FORCES: Command Decision

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For months the Pentagon has been wrestling with the problem of what to do about an Air Force chief of staff when General Hoyt Vandenberg's four-year term expires on April 30. There is a strong peacetime tradition against keeping a man in one of the top jobs of the armed forces for more than one term, but in Vandenberg's case there were strong reasons to justify an exception.

He has done a good job in trying circumstances. For one thing, he managed to compose the Air Force's most troublesome internal issue—the struggle for dominance between the champions of strategic v. tactical air power—though Van himself is a veteran tactical air officer. Contrary to the fears of the Air Force that he was not going to be forceful enough for the job, he has been a forthright and effective advocate of the case for air power—e.g., having warned the nation last fall of mounting Russian strength, he got the Joint Chiefs of Staff (of which he is a member) to approve an increase in Air Force strength from 95 to 143 wings. Yet he has generally been enough of a diplomat to avoid serious open wrangling with the Army and Navy.

There was no obvious choice to succeed Vandenberg. Air Force Secretary Thomas K. Finletter vigorously recommended General Curtis E. LeMay, chief of the Strategic Air Command. Hard-boiled Curt LeMay is one of the nation's ablest fighting men, one of the Air Force's best commanders, but he is also a single-minded and conspicuously undiplomatic champion of strategic bombing. The Army and Navy mortally fear that he would set himself against big plans for short-range air support for ground troops and carrier-borne aviation. Defense Secretary Robert Lovett, well aware of the argument in the Air Force, kept aloof from the row until it had reached a head, i.e., Finletter's formal recommendation of LeMay.

Last week the dilemma was solved, at least temporarily. The White House announced that "Vandenberg would continue as chief of staff for 14 months until June 30, 1953, when he will be eligible to retire with 30 years' service. At the same time General Nathan Twining was sent to Omaha to take over LeMay's strategic air command, and LeMay was ordered to Washington to take Twining's job as vice chief of air staff, the No. 2 job in the Air Force chain of command. That not only saved Finletter's face, but it meant that LeMay still had an excellent chance for the top job, especially if he uses the interim to prove that he won't pulverize all the crockery in the Pentagon china shop.