ARMED FORCES: Charlie's Hurricane

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Ike soon had a chance to say for himself what he thought: the Pentagon split was topic A at the President's news conference. The U.S., said President Eisenhower, is going through a period of vast technological change, and "if there weren't in this time a good, strong argument among the services, I would be frightened indeed." But argument was no license for revolt, and, snapped General Eisenhower: "The day that discipline disappears from our forces, we will have no forces, and we would be foolish to put a nickel into them."

A few moments later Ike pronounced his revolutionary dictum on the future course of the U.S. armed forces: "The sole use of armed forces, so far as war between two great countries possessing atom and hydrogen bombs, today is this: their deterrent value."

Dedicated Specialists. The President is satisfied that in their sum total the U.S. armed forces today are strong enough to deter. Not only does the U.S. have the airplanes and pilots to deliver its atomic weapons, but it holds the external lines of communication as well. For the Russians to mount a successful blitz on the North American continent, they would have to strike first at all the widely arrayed offensive power—the SAC continental bases, the NATO tactical air bases in Western Europe (which have "atomic capability"), the B-47 bases in Britain and North Africa, and at the carriers afloat in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Pacific. In Ike's thinking, such a successful strike is theoretically out of the question—hence the U.S. has achieved adequate deterrence.

To the dedicated specialists who warn that the Soviet Union may well amass a greater number of airplanes than the U.S., Ike gives a reply that would once have been considered heretical: Does it really matter whether we have a second-best Air Force in quantity, so long as the second best is good enough in quality to devastate the enemy from around the compass within hours after he tries to attack? To Air Force men who argue that the Navy's carriers can easily be tracked and sunk, this doctrine replies: once carrier planes are in the air, they are as deadly to the enemy as any other aircraft. They are part of the deterrent force in being. If the objective is to retaliate—or threaten retaliation—it does not matter whether the planes ever return to the carriers, or whether the carriers are still afloat when the planes do get back.

Immaculate War. Army theorists, e.g., retired General Matthew B. Ridgway, have based their plea for more troops on atomic stalemate. Atomic war is too hor rible to contemplate, they say, so the U.S. must be prepared to fight "the immaculate war"—the gunpowder war. Ike ruled against this line three years ago, when he approved the "new look" and made the decision to use atomic bombs, as necessary, in little as well as big wars. He is convinced that any war means atomic war. The more clearly the point is made, the more likely—under the doctrine of deterrence—is peace.