ARMED FORCES: Man Behind the Power

• Share

(7 of 9)

In the far more complex crisis of Indo-China, where the great forces of Communism, colonialism and nationalism met, tangled and interacted in violence, Radford again advocated a stronger stand against the Communists than Eisenhower was ready to accept. Radford wanted the U.S. to launch carrier strikes to help the defenders of Dienbienphu; Eisenhower and Dulles believed that such a course would amount to too little and too late, and settled for the partition of IndoChina at the first Geneva Conference. When Radford and Democratic Senator Mike Mansfield argued that strong U.S. support for a little-known anti-Communist leader named Ngo Dinh Diem might save South Viet Nam and check the Reds in Southeast Asia, Ike and Dulles were with them. After a few forlorn weeks the U.S. got all the way behind Diem, and then and there checked the Communist advance. "The diabolical forces of Communism," Radford warned consistently, "are committed irrevocably . . ."

The Suez crisis was the first real test of the New Look and the whole theory of military diplomacy. When the Russians talked of sending "volunteers" into the Middle East, the Pentagon was ready. Eisenhower, talking softly, sent word to the Kremlin through Ambassador Charles E. Bohlen that the U.S. would oppose with force the movement of any Soviet volunteers. Radford and his Chiefs met daily, and a small task force of J.C.S. staff officers kept 24-hour vigil in the Pentagon's underground command post. Off the Levant, the U.S. Sixth Fleet was deployed to fight. So, with all leaves cancelled, was General Curtis LeMay's Strategic Air Command. The result: the Russians forgot about volunteers.

One long-standing Radford recommendation for the Middle East was for the U.S. to join the Baghdad Pact, pledging itself (along with Britain) to defend Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan from Russian attack. Ike and Dulles demurred, for diplomatic reasons, and set out to achieve the same effect with the Eisenhower Doctrine.

State of the Forces. How good are the armed forces? The capabilities:

AIR FORCE. The most resourceful deterrent and retaliatory outfit in the history of war. Strategic Air Command's intercontinental Boeing B-52s (possible future replacement: Convair B-58s) and medium Boeing B-47s are instantly ready to strike against hundreds of Communist airpower targets within two hours of crossing early-warning line. (1,000 B-47s were flown 8,000 miles apiece in one of General LeMay's recent, incessant readiness tests.) "Nobody's going to get lost," said one SACman. "Our crews have been living with targets for so long they know them like their own home towns."

Tactical Air Command is developing a whole new concept—Air Task Forces—in which supersonic North American F-100 day fighters, F-84F fighter-bombers, twin-jet Douglas B66 bombers, air tankers and transports can move in consort anywhere in the world to drop tactical atom bombs or conventional. Continental Air Defense Command still appears to be weak against Russia's growing strategic air power. Other Air Force weaknesses: shortage and slow delivery of the Boeing KC-135 jet tankers needed to refuel B-52s and B-47s at economical altitudes; too many big vulnerable bases at home and overseas.