ARMED FORCES: Making an Enemy

Facing an air reserve officers’ seminar in Washington last fortnight, Air Force General Curtis LeMay, who means what he says and says what he means, tossed aside his staff-drafted notes and growled, “I don’t want to offer you platitudes.” Whereupon LeMay, longtime (1948-57) boss of the Strategic Air Command, now Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, proceeded into blunt analysis of the role of reserve and National Guard outfits in modern defense establishment. By last week, with the angry replies coming in. Curt LeMay may have wished he had stuck to platitudes.

“The Air Force is faced with certain budgetary limitations which will require drastic and perhaps unpalatable decisions,” LeMay told the air reservists. “These decisions must be made with one purpose in mind—to produce the greatest combat capability within the dollars and resources available. As weapons complexities continue to increase, the possibility of their being maintained and operated with a high degree of efficiency by other than members of the active establishment will decrease . . . Looking ahead, I can see the need for only one air reserve component. I personally do not believe we need both the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve.”

However much sense they made—and they made a great deal—LeMay’s remarks inevitably brought an outraged reaction from the hard-lobbying, politically potent National Guard Association, which sees a threat to the Guard’s existence behind every career general’s star. The militiamen, holding their national convention in San Antonio last week, cheered Texas Governor Price Daniel’s charge that LeMay is an enemy of states’ rights—”the typical Federal-minded bureaucrat that thinks the Federal Government has to run everything.” The association brushed aside Air Force Secretary James Douglas’ conciliatory telegram explaining that Le May had intended only to “stimulate dynamic thinking.”

“Excuses for such remarks are unacceptable since stimulation of thought does not require distortion of the truth,” said the National Guard Association in a resolution passed by roaring voice vote. “The National Guard is always receptive to honest, constructive criticism and is opposed to petty, unfounded, destructive criticism tending to mislead the American public.” Key clause in the resolution: a request that the Air Force investigate LeMay’s qualifications to hold general rank. While that was plainly preposterous, the fact remained that Curt LeMay, distinguished air officer, had made in the National Guard Association a powerful enemy that would certainly do its best to block him from ever becoming Air Force Chief of Staff.