ARMED FORCES: Forces on the Ground

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He is heir to one of the sternest military jobs the U.S. has to offer. If he is to "protect people on this earth." he must clear up the Army's own confusion on the earthy mission it alone can play in the land-sea-air defenses of the U.S. He must define the shape, size and equipment necessary for the West's ground defense in an age when military science is being shaken to its Clausewitz underpinnings by accelerating changes in weaponry and warfare. And. working with the quiet efficiency that is his habit, he must bring these forces into being at frontier points where Soviet-bloc adventurousness—encouraged by overwhelming numbers and presently superior ground weaponry—might set off the world's nuclear stockpiles.

Arms & Men. Lemnitzer will inherit what Max Taylor calls a "lean and mean" Army of 889,000 enlisted men and officers stationed around the world (40% overseas) in a bewildering variety of jobs and outfits. Among them: seven combat divisions in central Europe, two in Korea-overlooking the two ends of the Soviet empire; three Strategic Army Corps (STRAC) divisions U.S.-based for airlift to brushfire war anywhere (but dangerously ineffective, the Army feels, because the Air Force provides too few troop transports); 62 Nike missile battalions (15 nuclear-nosed Nike-Hercules batteries) around U.S. cities; 5,000 Army members of Military Assistance Advisory Groups (MAAG) in 45 nations from Britain to Viet Nam. Sharp in new Army Green ("A.G.s") uniforms that set them off from their O.D.-clad allies, they make up the best big Army the U.S. ever allowed itself when not at open war.

Lemnitzer will also inherit the problems caused by one of the strangest episodes in the Army's long history: the Army's ill-starred attempt to leap beyond its earthbound mission and become a guardian of strategic missile warfare. Long on ballistics, the artillery-conscious Army early realized the vast possibilities of the V-2 missiles developed by the Germans at the Peenemünde rocket base. At World War II's end, the Army hustled V-2 Developer Wernher von Braun (TIME Cover, Feb. 17, 1958) and 120 other key German scientists to the U.S., put them to work.

But when in 1955 the intercontinental missile was awarded to the Air Force as part of its strategic deterrent role, the Army poured far too much of its brightest energy and money into a bureaucratic war in defense of its strategic missile program. Brigadier General Lyal Metheny's "inner general staff" of roles-and-missions thinkers started a skirmish with the Air Force that became the headlined 1956 "Revolt of the Colonels." Nothing more plainly measured the intense concern inside the Army than the number of brilliant soldiers who left it and turned around for angry sniping at policies they had "lived with.'' Among them: former Eighth Army Commander James Van Fleet, former Chief of Staff Matthew B. Ridgway, former Research Chief Lieut. General James M. (War and Peace in the Space Age) Gavin. Next up: Maxwell Taylor, who is already working on the criticism he will publish of current defense policy.