The Cold War: Chief of Staff

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Faced with a conventional attack, says Taylor, the U.S. now has no alternative but to risk national suicide by starting an all-out war "or retreat in the face of the superiority of Soviet conventional forces. We have accepted as a deliberate decision continued inferiority on the ground in those areas where we may be challenged on the Communist periphery."

"Sense of Urgency." As Army Chief of Staff from 1955 to 1959, Taylor fought unsuccessfully for a bigger and better-equipped Army, finally quit in frustration, and poured his theories into an outspoken book he called The Uncertain Trumpet. As a sort of casual afterthought, Taylor admitted in his book that his program would call for a budget of from $50 billion to $55 billion a year, a sum that invoked scoffing laughter in Congress. But the book caught the eye of Senator Kennedy, who contributed a blurb for the publisher: "This volume is characterized by an unmistakable honesty, clarity of judgment, and a genuine sense of urgency."

Since then, President Kennedy seems to have bought Taylor's views on limited war. The Administration's $47.7 billion defense budget now before the Senate contains over $1 billion more than last year's to buy equipment for fighting a limited war. The nation's limited war forces will get another big boost this week when Kennedy announces that he will ask Congress for over $3 billion more for defense (see Foreign Relations).

The planning for Berlin, endorsed by both Taylor and Adviser Dean Acheson, calls for the U.S. to be prepared to fight a limited war, instead of devastating Russia with H-bombs as soon as a Soviet soldier fires the first rifle shot. The Administration's reasoning: a limited war against Russia would leave the situation flexible enough so that general war might be averted. Many U.S. officials argue that, by definition, it would be impossible for two great powers such as the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to fight a limited war. But Taylor has long claimed that a limited war in Europe was indeed possible. To take the other view, Taylor says in The Uncertain Trumpet, "means that any collision of patrols would automatically result in general atomic war."

Steely Glint. In his new job General Taylor wears sober civilian suits, but they do nothing to cloak the commanding air of a professional soldier. Though he is doing his best to fit in with the freewheeling White House staffers—as non-military a group as any college faculty—the first time one of the resident eggheads greeted Taylor with an airy "Good morning, Max," the glint of steel flashed in the general's eye. But Taylor managed to restrain his celebrated talent for chewing out an offender and smiled a casual hello.

For all his bone-hard military manner, Taylor has shown the Kennedys that he can handle himself agilely in any social situation—from humorously barbed, dinner-party small talk to the more energetic competition of the tennis court. Taylor frequently takes on Bobby Kennedy, has confided to a friend: "We're pretty even. But when they give me a good doubles partner, I usually win."