THE ADMINISTRATION: The Careful Talker

Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson was in the national limelight as he bustled through some of the busiest days of his 33 months in office. As a public figure, he had changed from a press-relations problem into one of the strongest assets of President Eisenhower’s Administration.

Just back from a NATO Defense Ministers meeting in Paris, Wilson flew off last week to Denver with Admiral Arthur W. Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to make their first report to the President since his heart attack. In 25 minutes, Wilson, who did most of the talking, outlined his plans for 1956 and 1957 Defense spending, secured approval of a new Marine Corps commandant (see Armed Forces), checked over other new appointees to the Defense Department and reported on the NATO meeting. Later, Wilson held a 25-minute news conference, where he answered searching questions on the matters he had taken up with the President, particularly the budget.

Reporters noted that Charlie Wilson spoke slowly and carefully as he explained that Defense spending in the new (1957) budget would probably run the same as this year’s $34.5 billion or a little higher, while force levels would remain at the June 1956 level of 2,850,000 men and women in uniform, but probably go no lower. He fielded questions on how the Geneva conference might affect U.S. defense policy: “No important change one way or the other . . . This is a policy of continuing military strength with the hope of avoiding war.”

At week’s end, after attending meetings of the Cabinet and the National Security Council and expounding his spending policies at a Washington press conference, Wilson flew off to Europe again to be a member of the U.S. delegation to the Geneva conference. As he left, Washington noted a remarkable fact: it has been a year since Charlie Wilson has put his foot in his mouth.

His “bird-dog” blooper* of Oct. 11, 1954 was his last and worst. For months after that, Administration people braced themselves for the worst whenever they heard that colorful Charlie Wilson was about to meet the press. But he reformed. He still talks freely to reporters (54 press conferences since taking office); the difference is that now he thinks first.

Wilson has made solid improvements in U.S. military defense. He put through a reorganization plan that scrapped cumbersome Pentagon boards and bureaus, and regrouped their functions under ten Assistant Secretaries of Defense. Then he revised defense policy, dropping the old idea of a defense buildup pointed at a specific target date, aiming instead at a level of military power that could be sustained for the long pull. He has cut estimated Defense spending by $11 billion in three years. In the last two budgets, Wilson has emphasized air power, and uniformed manpower, mostly in the Army, has been reduced. General Matthew Ridgway retired as Army Chief of Staff with a letter protesting the Army cut backs. Many Congressmen, on the other hand, questioned whether Wilson put enough emphasis on air power, especially after reports last spring of Russian strides in jet aircraft and nuclear weapons. Wilson said firmly: “I think the present program is about right, or I’d be advocating a different one.” He made it stick.

Wilson has not lost his weakness for production line humor. (Recent sample, commenting on a candidate for a Pentagon job: “His horsepower is too big for his flywheel.”) But top career officers at the Pentagon who have seen four other Defense Secretaries come and go respect Wilson as a better administrator, production and financial man than any of his predecessors. They respect, too, the motives that brought him, at 62, to take the arduous Pentagon job. Since he sold his General Motors stock to qualify as Defense Secretary, Wilson’s 39,470 shares, now in other hands, have gone up by $2,788,000.

*”I’ve always liked bird dogs better than kennel-fed dogs myself. You know, ones who’ll get out and hunt for food rather than sit on his fanny and yell.”