Charlie's Hurricane

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Diluted Zeal. The Army began heading full tilt toward a blowoff last winter. It was provoked when it learned that Air Force commanders (dressed in Bermuda shorts that the Air Force is introducing as its summer uniform) had staged a remarkable public-relations session in Puerto Rico. Among those on hand was Brigadier General Robert Lee (God Is My Co-Pilot) Scott, fired with zeal in his new job as information director for the Air Force. Scott had prepared a slambang, let-out-all-stops press campaign, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Strategic Air Command and aimed at proving to the U.S. public once and for all that, with its "spectacular mobility" and its "complete arsenal of destructive weapons," the U.S. Air Force "outmodes the most modern surface forces."

Scott's idea won enthusiastic applause from all the air generals but one: General Lauris Norstad, soon to be named to succeed retiring General Al Gruenther as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Norstad argued convincingly that the Air Force was already getting more than twice the appropriations of the other services and that it was no time to stir up trouble. Norstad won few Air Force converts with his appeal, but he did have a sobering effect on the conference. Bob Scott's campaign was drastically watered down.

The Army, unaware that there had been any dilution, somehow got its hand on a copy of Scott's original plan, set forth in detail in a paper called A Decade of Security Through Global Air Power. In the lower-ranking Pentagon "C" ring of offices, the bright young colonels began to worry—and to prepare for a real fight.

The Battle Planners. Girding for battle, the Army seized upon its "Policy Coordinating Group" as an equivalent to the Navy's famed Op-23, which masterminded the 1949 Revolt of the Admirals. Already moved directly under Chief of Staff Maxwell Taylor from its place as a semidetached study unit, the group was soon well staffed with young colonels under Brigadier General L. C. Metheny, 49, a cool, sharp planner. Metheny & Co. began setting up the Army line with a long series of staff studies, transmitted first to the Army general staff and later to the field commanders. Liaison was established with sympathetic Democratic Senators, e.g., Washington's Henry ("Scoop") Jackson. One of Metheny's planners answered General Scott's Air Force paper with A Decade of Insecurity Through Global Air Power. Not yet, however, could the . Army break into the open. Still ahead was another conference in Puerto Rico—this time a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had been ordered by Dwight Eisenhower to get away from the Pentagon for a full-scale review of U.S. military policy, with special reference to the question of whether the service roles assigned by Key West needed overall revision. The Army planners hoped desperately that Max Taylor could use the Puerto Rico sessions to gain new prestige and position for his service.

The conference began last March 3, continued for seven days, with Charlie Wilson sitting in on its final deliberations. In the eyes of the colonels, Taylor failed in his mission. The Joint Chiefs decided that Key West needed no sweeping revision, i.e., that technological developments could take their course. The Army did not gain an inch.