U. S. Security and the Rockefeller Report
HECKSCHER, AUGUST
Private study group urges changes in defense setup U.S. Security and the Rockefeller Report By August Heckscher One of the characteristics and hopeful aspects of the United States is the way...
...Security and the Rockefeller Report By August Heckscher One of the characteristics and hopeful aspects of the United States is the way private citizens come together in times of crisis to take the lead in the formation of policy...
...The Rockefeller panel did not hesitate to look at the dollar sign...
...missiles fit into none of the old categories...
...It finds, finally, that it faces a diversity of possible aggressions, making the choice of defensive measures extremely difficult and hazardous...
...It is hoped that such arrangements would make possible a kind of strategic planning which simply cannot emerge from the rivalries and antagonisms of the services, now carried into the highest councils of the Government...
...The Rockefeller report attacks the problem in a radical way: It would make the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the principal military adviser to the Secretary of Defense and to the President...
...The Rockefeller panel concludes that "the basic problem of American strategy is the ability to make effective choices...
...How onerous these missions are becomes apparent when one realizes that the passive defense required for effective all-out war is at present almost entirely lacking, as are many of the elements— mobile forces capable of being transported by sealift and airlift—which are necessary to a successful limited war or major police action...
...is rapidly losing its lead over the USSR in the military race...
...our naval supremacy, as has already been suggested, looks somewhat shaky in the light of Russia's concentration on submarines...
...strength cited by the panel are almost all two-edged...
...It is argued that a division of power is salutary in peacetime, and that in war unity and decisiveness are achieved in any case...
...The names of the people who had served on the panel, led by Nelson A. Rockefeller, were such as to stimulate the broadest confidence...
...Even in the best of circumstances, the strategic position of the United States is not an easy one...
...The Rockefeller suggestion of $3 billion a year seems as good as any that could be devised by outsiders...
...The postwar unification act took into account the need for closer cooperation between the services...
...It is encouraging that the signers of the first report express their conviction that as a people we can achieve the necessary military power while preserving and expanding the other, more constructive elements of our strength...
...It must he ready to wage all-out war, to wage limited war, and to deal with insidious aggressions...
...Action committees played significant roles in determining the country's attitude immediately before and immediately after the Second World War...
...This sense of revolutionary change brings its dangers...
...It is difficult to make exact calculations in this area, and there are plainly limits to what money by itself will do...
...The proposals may seem technical to the general public, but they arise from conditions which are as striking as they are urgent...
...It finds that it cannot wait to gather its strength, as it did in the past, while other nations take the first brunt of an attack...
...our operational experience in long-range airplanes is challenged by missiles...
...Yet it finds the machinery for making choices seriously defective...
...The U.S...
...One cannot but feel that a neglect of national policy, of education, of social programs, of economic growth will weigh heavily against us in the long run— and it is the long run for which the nation must now prepare...
...These later developments were taken into account, but the general conclusion that the balance of power, recently so overwhelmingly favorable to the United States, had shifted adversely was formed while public opinion as a whole was still lulled by a sense of false security...
...The people as a whole showed no disposition to believe anything unpleasant...
...At least they didn't until the launching of the first sputnik, and then they alternated between passivity and a high state of alarm...
...That a group of representative men and women, sitting around a table through the last year, have been able to feel this sense of change and to erect some guideposts for those who must travel through it is itself encouraging...
...The Secretary of Defense would then become, under the President, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief...
...Of these 50 largest cities, 43 are within 500 miles of our coasts, so that missile-launching submarines (the panel states) "are the Soviet equivalent of our overseas air bases...
...Yet to be alerted was perhaps the first necessity as the year 1958 dawned for America...
...What did the report actually say...
...The aggressor needs to prepare only for the war he prepares to fight...
...A maj or portion of its text, therefore, is devoted to proposals for reorganizing the Pentagon...
...In addition, there are mentioned such tactical shortcomings as are obvious in the missile field and are less obvious, but hardly less disturbing, in the field of naval combat, particularly in regard to anti-submarine devices...
...Much that was plain to informed laymen, to intelligent outsiders, had been denied or glossed over by officials in Washington...
...The study group was originally conceived as a means of assessing the possibilities which lie before the United States in the next quarter century, and many of the more creative conclusions (like much else that is creative in national life) may be lost sight of amid the grim calculations of security and survival...
...What we need is unity, even when there is no overriding crisis...
...alliances not kept in line with changing strategic requirements...
...He was previously the chief editorial writer for the New York Herald Tribune having an immediate and dramatic effect...
...and our greater number and variety of atomic weapons can hardly be decisive when a comparatively few of the deadly bombs can incapacitate a people...
...If we can actually defend ourselves, perhaps we shall be able to accomplish all sorts of other miracles as well...
...The deficiencies of the defense establishment are summed up by the panel as follows: an overall strategic concept that lags behind new technology and the changing world situation...
...It suggested not only that an additional $3 billion is needed this year, but an equal amount for several years to come...
...But in the nature of things it was a compromise, with the Chiefs of Staff representing the three services, and a Secretary of Defense whose chief task was to mediate between conflicting claims...
...The report is saved from being a wholly pessimistic document by the sense of purpose and possibility which runs through it...
...it is orderly, long-range strategic planning, even when outright hostilities do not impose it as the obvious condition of survival...
...But it provides also the hope that men will outlive and transcend the differences dividing them fatefully in this epoch, and will move forward to a new chapter of human progress...
...It is doubtful, however, whether any private group has ever received as wide a hearing for its views as was given the first Rockefeller report...
...But the answer of those who think in the terms of the Rockefeller report is that the difference between war and peace has been blurred...
...It is disconcerting that the elements of U.S...
...a defense organization unrelated to critically important military missions...
...It speaks at the start of "enormous transformations—in human aspirations, in the structure of society, in economic development, in scientific knowledge— which are reshaping the pattern of existence at a speed without parallel in history...
...Some of the apparatus of war went on land, some over the sea, some through the air...
...So far as could be told from copious "leaks," the two reports had much in common, and the excitement caused by the first found some release in the second...
...The traditional division of the services, as the report points out, was based upon means of locomotion...
...These have aroused the degree of criticism which invariably accompanies threats to the vested positions of the separate services, as well as a disinterested difference of opinion which cuts across party lines...
...Yet money has been lacking at crucial points...
...The President had provided little in the way of leadership, either by his two nationwide addresses or by the one press conference he had held since the end of October...
...To say that all is not lost is hardly the same thing as saying that all is well, and the panel was careful (as Hagerty had not been) to preserve the distinction...
...Many were the same as had worked on the Gaither report or formed the study group of the Council on Foreign Relations, of which Henry A. Kissinger's Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy had been the notable result...
...Cries of opposition have gone up, the main burden of which is that undue power would be concentrated in the Pentagon, that military control would be unchecked by civilians, and that something close to the prewar system in Germany would emerge...
...Kissinger himself, moreover, was at the head of the staff which had laid out the Rockefeller group's discussions and prepared its findings...
...The conclusion is the more striking when one realizes that the work of the study group had been chiefly done in the winter and spring of 1957—before the Soviet announcement on guided missiles and before the sputniks...
...Whatever the ultimate effect of its recommendations, the group can already claim to have profoundly stirred public opinion and to have provided a focus for debate...
...But a nation for which aggression and preventive war are ruled out must gear its defenses to a multitude of threats, being ready to withstand a surprise attack by air as well as the undermining and infiltration of areas that are remote but still vitally connected with its security...
...Our system of alliances is vulnerable...
...The timing, moreover, at the opening of the new Congress, was perfect, and the conclusions had been framed with a shrewd eye to August Heckscher is Director of the Twentieth Century Fund...
...A number of factors, some of them fortuitous, contributed to the impact...
...More than half of its population and three-quarters of its industry could be brought under attack by a blow at 50 of its major cities, with an estimated 60-65 million persons dead or injured...
...With the Gaither report withheld by the Administration, the public could at least sink its teeth into this document...
...Thus ii is true that our democratic structure is "more stable and commands wider support" than the Soviet system, but it is also true that it is less capable of coming to decisions or of maintaining a stable course of action...
...The only thing more arrogant than to suppose we can match the Russians without spending money is to suppose we can match them by expenditures alone—without an underlying dedication, without the scientific and cultural revival which makes the greatest achievements possible...
...financial and budgetary systems out of gear with accelerating military developments...
...Press Secretary Hagerty's comments on the Gaither report, to the effect that it revealed nothing disturbing about our present position, was scarcely helpful...
...But modern developments make it impossible to distinguish weaponry or services in this way...
...There will be at least six other Rockefeller reports on non-military matters, and, from the point of view of the project as a whole, it is somewhat unfortunate that the first should have had to be on the defense issue...
...The chiefs of the several services would continue to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but only as advisers to the Chairman and with their responsibilities mainly in the field of logistics, training and procurement...
...Thus, a country whose territory had long been secure against enemy action finds itself suddenly exposed...
...This sobering judgment was tempered by the indication that for perhaps the next two years we would still possess a superiority in strategic striking power, and the hope was held out that decisions taken now could, if sufficiently bold, reverse the fatal decline of our power in relation to Russia's...
...In these circumstances, the Rockefeller report came as a clear assessment, an honest appraisal, with enough in the way of practical suggestions to convince the public that there were feasible actions to be taken...
...The Navy fights in all three elements...
...More money is needed without question, even apart from such areas as civilian defense...
...Our superior industrial base and production know-how, valuable though they are, will scarcely save us if we continue to devote so large a portion of its fruits to consumer gadgets...
...Some 100,000 copies of the report have been printed, and the air waves have been filled with the talk it caused...
Vol. 41 • January 1958 • No. 3
