Defense: Caesar's Wars

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In his five years at the Pentagon, relations between Robert Strange Mc-Namara and the U.S. Congress have been edgy at best. Never before, however, has the Defense Secretary faced so withering or widespread a bombardment as that which Capitol Hill trained on him last week.

The criticism came from both House and Senate, from Republicans and Democrats—and from no fewer than seven different congressional panels. Mississippi Democrat John Stennis, still smarting from McNamara's curt brush-off last summer of a Stennis report on materiel shortages, announced that his Senate Preparedness Investigating subcommittee is undertaking "an overall assessment of the extent of our military commitments." Alaska Democrat Ernest Gruening, chairman of a Senate Government Operations subcommittee, will examine "unnecessary and wasteful disposals" of surplus military vehicles.

"Supine Acquiescence." The House Armed Services Committee and four subcommittees have been investigating the Pentagon as if it were the Kremlin. Areport on McNamara's overall management of the war in Viet Nam and another on his politically unpopular decision to merge the Army Reserve with the National Guard are still under preparation. Of the three reports that have been released, one criticized McNamara's December decision to close, consolidate or cut back 149 military bases and warned that any future decisions on closings "must show a greater awareness of possible contingent requirements" resulting from Viet Nam. A second report lambasted the Secretary for his postponement of $620 million in military construction as an anti-inflationary move, termed the delay "unwise," "unwarranted" and "arbitrary," and said it had resulted in "a severe effect on the morale and wellbeing of our military men."

The most hostile report of all concerned one of the oldest controversies of McNamara's Pentagon tenure: his 1961 cutback on funds for big bombers and his subsequent decision to replace them in the next ten years with the FB-111, a flashy (Mach 2.5) modified fighter.

The House Armed Services subcommittee's report last week accused Mc-Namara of "significantly misrepresenting" the case for the FB-111 in his own testimony, of applying "institutional constraints" on other Pentagon witnesses so they would hew to the Mc-Namara line, and of generally scorning Capitol Hill advice to such a point that the Congress has been forced into "a passive role of supine acquiesence" to U.S. defense policies.

"Shockingly Distorted." Headed by Louisiana Democrat F. Edward Hebert, a hard-knuckled investigative veteran, the subcommittee accused McNamara of being a Pentagon tyrant who uses the word "we" in his testimony only "to hide the essential singularity of the decision-making process in the Department of Defense." Said the report: "The subcommittee was shocked to dis cover that the proposal to phase out of the SAC inventory all B58 aircraft was, as best it could ascertain, an action solely recommended and supported by the office of the Secretary of Defense and one neither recommended nor truly supported by the Air Force or the Joint Chiefs of Staff."