DEFENSE: Confirmation

• Share

On Capitol Hill one morning last week, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee sat sedately along one side of a big conference table, ready to pass judgment on the men whom Dwight Eisenhower had nominated to replace the present Joint Chiefs of Staff. Across the table, nervously awaiting their ordeal by interrogation, sat the four beribboned nominees (see cut)—prospective Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Arthur Radford, the Navy's schoolmasterish-looking Admiral Robert Carney, the Air Force's handsome, white-maned General Nathan Twining and the Army's General Matthew Ridgway, stiffly erect in paratroop boots.

Spectators and newsmen were counting on fireworks. As the hard-hitting leader of the 1949 "revolt of the admirals," Arthur Radford had opposed the building of the B-36 (as "a billion-dollar blunder") and had questioned the morality and military wisdom of "the atomic blitz." Now, across the table from him sat some of the Senate's strongest air-power advocates, among them Democrat Stuart Symington of Missouri, a Radford foe since his days as Truman's Secretary of the Air Force.

Pointed Question. From the start, Radford made it clear that he had changed his mind about a lot of things since 1949. New Hampshire's Senator Styles Bridges wanted to know whether Radford now considered the atom-bomb-carrying Strategic Air Command "a primary safeguard to the U.S."

Radford: I think it is most important.

Bridges: Do you believe in development of the hydrogen bomb?

Radford: Yes, sir.

Bridges: Do you believe the decision to go forward with the B-52 bomber was a correct one?

Radford: Yes, sir.

Finally, Stuart Symington braced Navy Spokesman Radford with a single pointed question. As chairman of the Joint Chiefs, would he work as hard for the Army and Air Force as for the Navy? Answered Radford: "I will work primarily for the U.S., and I will do my best not to favor any particular service."

"Mr. Chairman," said Symington, "I think that is a fine answer . . ."

Qualified Answers. From the scars left by the revolt of the admirals, the committee turned to the open wounds left by Defense Secretary Wilson's proposed cuts in Air Force appropriations.* Disturbed by outgoing Air Force Chief Hoyt Vandenberg's statement that he had not protested the cuts before the National Security Council, Maine's Margaret Chase Smith asked each of the four nominees whether he would "speak up" if he thought that the defense budget had been cut so much as to endanger the U.S. security. With varying degrees of qualification, each said he would.

Democrat Symington sailed in to defend Vandenberg, the man who wasn't there. By indirection, Symington accused Charlie Wilson of failure to consult Vandenberg, the Air Force chief of staff, on the Air Force budget cuts. It was his understanding, said Symington, that at the time of the crucial NSC meeting, General Vandenberg had not yet been told that the planned slash in the defense budget would come almost entirely out of Air Force funds.

Fulfilled Promise. Then Symington gave Nate Twining a chance to fulfill his promise to speak up.

Symington: Did Secretary Wilson ever discuss the cuts in the Air Force with you?

Twining: No, sir ...