THE U RMY BETWEENK VIETNAM

A.]. BACEVICH

/

'rhe Davy Crockett weapon system (Heavy], XM-29, de-picted on the cover, employed a 150-pound rocket-propelled nuclear warhead designed to provide abattlefield nuclear capability for the Army tactical com-bat battalion commander. Fielded in 1961, when theArmy's nuclear enthusiasm was still high, Davy Crockettlooked like a large recoilless rifle and could loft a minia-tire atomic warhead to a range of 1.25 miles. It isthought by some observers to be typical, even symbolic,of the Army's Pentomic Era,

Cover artwork by Laszlo L, Bodrogi, based on a'US Armyphoto

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The US Army BetweenKorea and Vietnam

A. J. BacevIch

*National Defense Universty Prow! Washington, DC

National Defense Unive" ity PIas PublicationsTo increase general knowledge and inform discussion, NDLI Press publishesbooks on subjects relating to US national security.Each year, in this effort, The National Defense University, thrnoigh the Institutefor National Strategtc Studies, supports about two dozen Senior Fellows who en-gage in original reaearth on national security issues, NDU Iresm publishes the bestof this research,

In addition, the Press publishes espeLidlly timely or distinguished writing on na-tional security from authors outside the University, new editions of nut-of-printdefense lessmics, and h•oks based on conferences conternirig national seWCurityaffairs.

Unless otherwise noted, NDU Press publi:utions art, not c~opyrighted andmaty he quoted or reprinted without permissian, Ploastj give full pubhircu-tion c;redit,

Opinions, conuluhsions, and recontnenftaiatione expitessmd or Implied within aresolely those of the author, and do not nucessarily represent the views of the Na-tional Defense University, the Departmetnt ot D)efensco, or any other (overnnrtet

engwi, (Cleared for publti: release, dib ributian unlintited,

N VU Pie hiiuatio re a, ci by the1, U1 rninet nitin Offic o or-Ine for ataia call 1202 7831-~2 o wr et.: trit), phit 11 of ) uu-

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Banevi:h, A. 1.The pentoir it rir.

Itbliigraphy: 1),Ianludes index,1, United States, Army-History-20th tentury.

r.itia.O.A25.,Bt 87 1986 355•'.00473 ,86-8636

dulitorial Rrsonre:h Assoc:iautes, Washinglon, IM, indoixed thiN hook under urnntrac:tI )A11t]3-tfi-iA-UO0tt,

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Casey Brower Bruce Korda

Rob Goff Monty MeigsBob rvany Scott Wheeler

comrades in arms, irreplaceable friends

Contents

Illustrations xForeword xlii

Introduction 31. The Legacy of Korea 72. The "New Look": Impact and Counterattack 193. Design for a New Army 494. Re-Equipping 715. Reorganizing: The Pentomic Concept 1036. Reaction and Rejection 129

Endnotes 159

Selected Bibliography 179

The Author 185

Index 187

ix

Illustrations

Figures1, Comparative Service budgets in theEisenhower era 172. The Pentomic Division 107

PhotographsThe Army spruced up its image by replacing theolive drab uniform 23US Army recruiters advertise their Service'scommitment to high technology 25Secretary of Defense Charles E, Wilson at hisweekly press conference in 1953 35General Matthew B. Ridgway, Army Chiefof Staff, 1953-55 37General Maxwell D. Taylor, Army Chiefof Staff, 1955-59 45A NIKE missila guards America in 1957 79A NIKE missile knocks down a B-17 drone 81The Army shows off its new NIKE Ajax missile dur-ing an Armed Forces Day program in 1954 83The 280-amm atomic cannon inaction in May 1953 85

lllusrations xl

The 280-mm atomic cannon preparedfor movement 87An Army Corporal missile being readiedfor firing in 1954 89Launch crews train with a Redstone missile inGermany in 1956 91Wilbur M. Brucker, Secretary of the Army duringmost of the Eisenhower era 93Rotarians from Lawton, Oklahoma, learn about theArmy's Honest John rocket in 1957 95An Army H-34 Choctaw helicopter carries an ArmyLittle John rocket in 1960 97Artist's conception of the Army's planned"flying jeep" 99A US Army sergeant prepares DavyCrockett for firing 101US Army soldiers from a composite armored force,Task Force Razor, take part in Operation DesertRock VI at Yucca Flat, Nevada, In 1955 111Davy Crockett (Light), XM-28, at AberdeenProving Ground In March 1961 127A recruiting poster for an ultra-modern,relevant Army 149Lieutenant General James M. Gavin, Chief of ArmyResearch and Development, with a model of theRedstone missile in 1956 155

Foreword

A lthough atomic weapons helped win WorldWar Two in the Pacific, they raised the ques-

tion of whether these weapons altered the nature ofwarfare, or simply warfare's destructive dimen-sions. Responsibility for nuclear weapons develop-ment became a central Issue in US service politics,particularly between the Army and Air Force dur-ing the early years of the Eisenhoweradministration.

In his history of the Army in the years betweenthe Korean and Vietnam wars, Lieutenant ColonelA. J. Bacevich, US Army, accents the Army's mind-fulness of the implications of nuclear warfare. TheArmy's concern, reflecting a complex mixing ofinstitutional, strategic, and operational consid-erations, led to major changes In Army organiza-tion, doctrine, and weapons. The author argues thatduring these years, the Army not only survived aninstitutional identity crisis-grappling to compre-hend and define its national security role in a

xili

xiv The Pentomic Era

nuclear age--but grew to meet new challenges bypioneering the development of rockets and missiles.

Colonel Bacevich's analysis of the Army's post-Korea, pre-Vietnam era contributes valuable In-sights to the study of recent US military history. Es-pecially important is Colonel Bacevich's cautionthat military professionals temper their enthusiasmfor technological progress with an eye to those ele-ments of warfare that remain changeless.

Richard D. LawrenceLieutenant General, US

ArmyPresident, National Defense

University

Introduction

T he essay that follows is a brief history of the USArmy during the years immediately following

the Korean War, For many in our own time thatperiod-corresponding to the two terms of theEisenhower presidency-has acquired an aura ofcongenial simplicity. Americans who survivedVietnam, Watergate, and painful economic difficul-ties wistfully recall the 1950s as a time when thenation possessed a clearly-charted course and hadthe will and the power to follow it.

However comforting such views may be, the re-ality was far different. Many segments of Americaexperienced the 1950s as anything but a GoldenAge. Prominent among this group was the Army. In-stead of the "good old days," the Army found theEisenhower era to be one of continuing crisis. Newtechnology, changing views of the nature of war,and the fiscal principles of the Eisenhower adminis-tration produced widespread doubts about the util-ity of traditional land forces. As Army officers sawit, these factors threatened the well-being of theirService and by implication endangered the securityof the United States.

3

4 The Pentomic Era

This essay explores the nature of those threatsand of the Army's response to them. By design, thisessay is selective and interpretive. It does not pro-vide a complete narrative of events affecting theArmy after Korea. It excludes important develop-ments such as foreign military assistance, thegrowth of Army aviation, and the Impact of allianceconsiderations on American military policy. As aresult, the history that follows is neither compre-hensive nor definitive, What value it may possessderives instead from its explication of themes thatretain some resonance for an Army in later decadesconfronted with its own challenges.

A great institution like the Army always is intransition. And though the character of reform isseldom as profound as the claims of senior leadersor the Army Times may suggest, in the 1950schange often matched the hyperbole of its advo-cates. The Army found itself grappling for the firsttime with the perplexing implications of nuclearwarfare, seeking ways of adapting its organizationand doctrine to accommodate rapid technologicaladvance; and attempting to square apparently revo-lutionary change with traditional habits and practi-cal constraints of the military art, In retrospect, wemay find fault with the Army's response to thesechallenges. If so, we have all the more reason toconcern ourselves with how the Service derived theanswers that it did. To a striking extent, challengessimilar to those of the 1950s have returned to preoc-cupy the Army today.

Introduction 5

When the Army reorganized to fight on theatomic battlefield, it used units of "five"throughout-five platoons per company, fivecompanies per battle group, up to the newly chris-tened "Pentomic" division. The term Pentornic be-came associated with the post-Korea era, and thusseemed a fitting title for my study. While this essaymakes some use of archival sources, most notably indepicting the Army's perspective on sensitive ques-tions of nuclear strategy, I have relied on such rec-ords only to a limited extent. In large part I haveused contemporary statements by senior military of-ficials and articles appearing in military journals.The emphasis on Service journals does not reflect abelief that the written musings of relatively juniorofficers influence American military policy to anysignificant degree. They do not. While the institu-tional organs of other professions presage and ofteninspire new developments, American military jour-nals tend instead to reflect ideas that already enjoyofficial sanction. They mirror American militarythought rather than determine its direction. Al-though the placid character of American militaryjournals minimizes their utility as a forum for de-bating new ideas, this character makes them idealfor the historian attempting to understand themind-set of the officer corps at a particular time.

In preparing this study, I benefited greatly fromthe generosity of the US Army Center of MilitaryHistory, where I worked as a Research Associateduring the summer of 1984. The staffs of the Na-tional Archives and the US Army Military HistoryInstitute provided important assistance. In the latter

6 The Pentomic Era

case, Mr. Richard Sommers was especially cordialin helping me explore the Ridgway Papers and per.tinent parts of the Institute's oral history collection,At the National Defense University, Ms. JoanneScott made my search through the papers of LymanL. Lemnitzer and Maxwell D. Taylor efficient andproductive, I thank General Lemnitzer and GeneralTaylor for their permission to consult their personalpapers. At the Eisenhower Library, Mr. Rod Soubersprovided sound advice and responsive assistancethat helped me make the most of the short time Ispent in Abilene. My friends James L. Abrahamson,Casey Brower, John Mason, and Scott Wheeler eachresponded to my calls for help by providing a criti-cal reading of the manuscript at an early stage,Though they cannot be held responsible for the re-suit, each in his own way made a valuable contribu-tion to clarifying my thinking on this subject. I amespecially grateful to the Council on Foreign Rela-tions In New York. Without the time and financialassistance I received as an International Affairs Fel-low with the Council, this study would never havebeen completed. As always, of course, my greatestdebt is to my wife Nancy and our children for theirpatience, oupport, and love,

1. The Legacyof Korea

F or Americans who died fighting in Korea, thereis still no memorial, Although lamentable, the

oversight also is appropriate, Monuments signifyacceptance of an event and some understanding ofits meaning. But more than 30 years after the armis-tice at Panmunjom, the Korean War has yet to findits place in American history. In the popular mind,the war's significance remains obscure, the war it-self largely forgotten.

The war's bewildering character and the bizarrecourse that it followed account in some degree forthe haste with which Americans shoved aside itsmemory, Korea confronted Americans with intensecombat meretriciously classified not as war but as a"police action," It was a major conflict fought out-side the announced perimeter of vital US interests;a war in which field commanders were denied theuse of weapons that some believed could havedetermined Its outcome; a bloody three-year contestpursued without the benefit of a consistent

a The Pentomic Era

statement of purpose capable of rallying bipartisansupport in Washington or of satisfying the soldierswho did the fighting. The war's conclusion only re-inforced American uneasiness, Less than a decadebefore, the United States had triumphantly van-quished the forces of evil. In Korea we again con-fronted evil, said to be no less odious than theNazis, But this, time we struck a bargain with thedevil. Such a distasteful and embarrassing compro-mise seemed un-American.

Yet despite Its perplexing character, Korea de-mands our attention as a pivotal event In Americanmilitary history. Though shoved into the recesses ofpopular memory, the Korean War profoundly af-fected the political climate of the 1950s, It contrib-uted to major changes in basic American nationalsecurity policy and military strategy. Of particularinterest, the "lessons" of Korea redefined the rolesassigned to the armed services, with a major impacton the influence and resources that each couldclaim. As a result, the war had a lasting though notalways beneficial impact on the structure of Ameri-can defense forces.

This essay examines the Army's attempts toconfront the legacy of Korea during the years1953-61. This period corresponds to the two termsof the Eisenhower Presidency. It also was a timethat marked what many contemporary observers be-lieved to be a "revolution" in warfare. For the Armyit was a time of isolation and prolonged adversity:of shrinking manpower ceilings, reduced budgets,and widespread doubts about its utility in future

The Legacy of Korea 9

wars, General Maxwell D, Taylor called it theArmy's "Babylonian Captivity."'

Paradoxically, the period also was one of op-portunity. Adversity provided an antidote to com-placency. It forced the Army to grapple withquestions about the nature of American security In-terests, the character of the next war, and the doc-trine, weapons, and organization needed to face itschallenges, As we will see, many of the Army's an-swers to these questions appear flawed in retro-spect. Still, they deserve attention today, From thehistorian's perspective they provide insight Into theenduring character of the Army. And of greater im-mediate Interest the debates, decisions, and policiesof the 1950s imparted a shape to the Army that per-sisted long after that decade had passed into his.tory, For better or worse we still feel its effectstoday.

The Korean War's immediate effects on Na-tional politics are well known, First of all, the warcompleted the destruction of the Truman Presi-dency, Notwithstanding his recent rehabilitation,Harry S, Truman was the least popular man to oc-cupy the White House since Andrew Johnson. Ac-cusations of corruption among his political croniesand of being "soft" on communism already had casta shadow over his administration, making a suc-cessful bid for reelection in 1952 unlikely. Koreasealed Truman's fate, Held accountable for provok-ing Red Chinese intervention in the war, criticizedfor relieving General Douglas MacArthur from

10 The Pentomic Era

command in the Far East, blamed for the bloodystalemate that existed on the battlefield while nego-tiations dragged on at Panmunjom, Truman lost hislast shreds of credibility.

In addition to discrediting Truman personally,the war also caused profound changes in popularviews regarding US foreign and defense policies,Paying a bitter price for implementing the TrumanDoctrine in no way diminished the hothouse anti.communism that so marked American opinion atthat time. If anything, this confrontation with NorthKorea and the People's Republic of China-bothwidely viewed by Americans as pawns of the SovietUnlon-only reinforced anxiety about the Red Men-ace, But Truman's inability to bring the war to a sat-isfactory conclusion-the continuing sacrifice ofAmerican soldiers for no clear purpose-convincedmany people that relying on conventional militarymeans to stop communist expansion was folly, Thevicious character of the fighting-with outnum-bered American infantrymen battling "Asianhordes" at close quarters-seemed to play to theiradvantages, Many Americans considered it absurdthat this situation stemmed from our refusal to useprecisely those weapons that advanced technologyhad provided us. Americans wanted policies thatwould check communism more effectively than hadTruman (who in addition to his troubles over Koreaalso was blamed for "losing" China). But theywanted to achieve that end by capitalizing onAmerican strengths, particularly technology, ratherthan by squandering American manpower, Aboveall, they wanted no more Koreas.

The Legacy of Korea 11

The presidential campaign of 1952 occurredwhile the Korean armistice talks foundered andstalemate on the fighting front continued. TheWhite House would belong to the aspirant able topersuade the American people that he could bothend the war and carry on the fight against commu-nism while avoiding future debacles like Korea.Thus the war paved the way for the election of thecandidate able to persuade the electorate of his su-periority in handling military and diplomatic af-fairs. With the contest cast in those terms no onecould match the credentials of the great hero ofWorld War 11, Dwight D, Eisenhower, Once Ike haddeclared his interest, his triumph in the generalelections was all but inevitable,

President Eisenhower assumed office in Janu-ary 1953 pledging to bring the fightin~g in Korea to aswift conclusion and to avoid similar wars in thefuture. To deter attacks of the type that North Koreahad launched in June 1950-or failing that, to de.feat them-his administrat.on devised th%. strategyof "massive retaliation," At the heart of this strategywas greatly Increased reliance on nuclear weap-ons-on what Secretary of State John Foster Dullespublicly termed "a great c, .i acity to retaliate in-stantly by means and at places of our choosing."'

Yet that strategy's ominous shorthand namehardly suggests the full dimensions of Eisenhower'snational security policy, This policy had more to itthan a professed willingness to bomb aggressorsinto the Stone Age. A document known asNSC 162/2, drafted in the early months of his

12 The Pentomic Era

administration, spelled out the full implications ofEisenhower's strategy. Entitled "Basic National Se-curity Policy," this document was approved by theNational Security Council (NSC) on 29 October1953 and long remained a key directive.

As a major theme that would have importantimplications for the Army, NSC 162/2 posited anessential link between security and a healthyeconomy. Economic recession in the United States,it said, would "seriously preludice the security ofthe free world." Conversely, "a sound, strong, andgrowing US economy" would enable the nation "tosupport over the long pull a satisfactory posture ofdefense."" According to standard Republican think-ing of the day, the Federal Government best couldencourage growth and maintain a strong dollar byputting a clamp on its own spending, Since defenseoutlays formed the largest part of the Federalbudget, Republicans saw an inverse relationship be-tween defense spending and economic well-being.Spending too much on defense was self-defeating.By threatening to bankrupt the economy, it wouldpose a positive threat to American security. In otherwords, NSC 162/2 implied that frugality in defensespending was needed to sustain the cowenomy,thereby benefiting the country's overall strengthand security,

Not surprisingly, then, the administrationsought a military capability that would counter theexisting Soviet threat as cheaply as possible, AsEisenhower saw it, nuclear weapons far outper-formed the old conventional forms of militarypower in effectiveness and cost, This view explains

The Legacy of Korea 13

the prominence of nuclear weapons in NSC 162/2,Henceforth, that document stated, American mili-tary policy would rest on a "capability of inflictingmassive retaliatory damage by offensive strikingpower." Lest any confusion exist about the type ofweapons available for retaliation, NSC 162/2specified that the United States would "considernuclear weapons to be as available for use as othermunitions" in the event of war,

The administration believed that this statedwillingness to employ nuclear weapons would pre.dlude the requirement for their actual use, The merethreat of dropping a few atomic bombs, combinedwith the knowledge of their destructive potential,would intimidate would-be aggressors and maintainworld order, In this sense massive retaliation repre-sented a complete break from earlier strategic con-cepts. The United States henceforth would maintainmilitary forces not to fight wars but to preventthem, using the threat of nuclear response to guar-antee peace and prevent the further spread of com-munism and Soviet influence, Rather than a seriousattempt to describe how to employ force, massiveretaliation was, in Russell F. Weigley's phrase, "astrategy of deterrence."4

Yet despite the emphasis placed on deterrence,the authors of NSC 162/2 recognized the relation-ship between a growing Soviet nuclear arsenal andthe credibility of the American retaliatory force,They already foresaw a "state of nuclear plenty"when each side would possess the power to in-flict unacceptable damage on the other, Such

14 The Pentomic Era

circumstances would "create a stalemate, with bothsides reluctant to initiate general war."

Mutual deterrence of this type would not of it-self be inconsistent with American interests if it im-plied an absence of conflict and a guarantee of theinternational status quo, Undermining the premiseof massive retaliation, however, was the realizationthat growing Soviet nuclear strength could poten-tially "diminish the deterrent effect of US atomicpower against peripheral Soviet aggression." OnceSoviet nuclear forces threatened the United States,American promises to use nuclear weapons against"minor" instances of communist aggression wouldbecome less convincing. Once they recognized thisopportunity the Russians surely would exploit it.Therefore, the authors of NSC 162/2 believed thatthe United States could look forward to a Soviet-directed campaign of subversion against non-communist countries that would "continueindefinitely" and "grow in intensity,"

To address this problem, NSC 162/2 developeda third, strongly pro-active theme that was consist-ent with the aim of minimizing defense costs, yetwent far beyond the concept of nuclear deterrence.This theme outlined instruments that the UnitedStates would employ to defeat aggression in situa-tions where nuclear weapons were inappropriate.According to NSC 162/2, the United States woulduse "all feasible diplomatic, political, economic,and covert measures" to assist any country that ap-peared to be threatened by a communist takeover,More generally, the United States would "take overtaud covert measures to discredit Soviet prestige and

The Legacy of Korea is

ideology." Indeed, NSC 162/2 declared that US pol-icy would be to "take feasible political, economic,propaganda, and covert measures designed to createand exploit troublesome problems for the U.S.S,R.

The Importance attributed to covert action wasunmistakable, Its role at one end of the force spec-trum was as clear as the role of strategic nuclearweapons at the opposite extreme, But what role re.mained for traditional conventional forces such asthe Army?

The Defense Policy that Eisenhower pre-scribed to implement massive retaliation answeredthis question, though hardly in a way that pleasedthe Army. The "New Look," as it was called, re-flected above all the commonly held belief that nu-clear weapons had revolutionized warfare.Traditional concepts governing the use of forcewere outmoded. The "New Look" redefined the roleof each Service, aligning it with the requirements ofan atomic age, This reallocation of roles signifi-cantly changed the relative importance and influ-ence of each Service,

Eisenhower and his advisers believed that airpower was the key to deterrence, Thus, the AirForce, less than a decade after achieving independ-ent status, was exalted to primacy among the Serv.ice, The intercontinental bomber fleet of theStrategic Air Command (SAC) stood preeminent asthe instrument for delivering nuclear retaliatory

16 The Pentomic Era

blows. As a result, throughout the Eisenhoweryears, the Air Force had first claim on resources.

The significance of this claim showed mostclearly In the defense budget. (See figure 1.) In fis-cal year (FY) 1953, the last year of the Truman ad-ministration, Air Force spending had lagged slightlybehind Army's. Yet within two years the Air Forceshare of the budget had grown to nearly twice theArmy's and remained so throughout the decade, In-deed, Air Force expenditures nearly equalled thoseof the Army and Navy combined. In FY 1957, forexample, the Air Force spent $18.4 billion, $1 bil-lion less than the total outlays of the other twoServices,r'

As the Air Force's importance grew under the"New Look," that of the Army declined. In Ike'sview of defense in the atomic age the role of his oldService did not loom large, Some thought was givento the Army having to occupy an enemy's homelandonce it had been devastated by a hail of nuclearbombs. And perhaps the Army would need to helpmaintain order at home in the unfortunate event ofenemy bombers striking the United States," But thenotion of the Army performing major combat mis-sions along the lines of World War II or Korea wasthe very antithesis of Eisenhower's thinking, Givenits peripheral role, the Army became a lucrativw tar-get for budget-cutters looking for ways to reduceoverall defense expenditures, In these efforts theyenjoyed support at the highest levels, Eisenhowerhimself told the American people In May 1953 that"in making all the economies that are possible, it is

The Legacy of Korea 17

o to

Ut

ra

rm§/w~

18 The Pentomic Era

necessary that we concentrate on that which is vi-tally necessary and tend to put into second place,even to eliminate where we can, those things whichare merely desirable." 7 Throughout the Eisenhoweryears the Army remained very much mired in sec-ond place. More than a few officers would at timeswonder nervously if the President had quietly de-cided that the Army was "merely desirable."

2. The"New Look":

Impact andCounterattack

T he immediate effect of the "New Look," then,was to reduce the resources available to the

Army for fighting a land war. The Army ended theKorean War with a total force of 1.5 million soldiersand 20 combat divisions. Some reductions in theaftermath of the war were inevitable. In practice,however, the end of the war began a series of pro-gressive cuts that continued throughout the decade.By FY 1955 Army strength stood at 1.1 million. Atthe end of FY 1958 It reached 899,000. And in FY1961, the last year of the Eisenhower administra-tion, Army strength bottomed out at 859,000, Theforce structure suffered similar reductions through-out the decade so that by 1961 the Army had only14 divisions, Of that number, three were training di-visions, in no sense, deployable, combat-ready

10

20 The Pentomic Era

units.' By FY 1955 the Army's budget was barelyhalf of what it had been two years earlier. Its shareof the defense dollar had shrunk to the smallestamong the three Services and remained so through-out Eisenhower's two terms in office.'

The Army's impoverishment at the hands of the"New Look" extended beyond material aspects.Signs of demoralization appeared in the ranks. Re-enlistment rates plummeted. Few soldiers showedany desire to stay in the Army. Those who did toooften were of inferior quality." junior officers re-signed their commissions in unprecedentednumbers.4 Even senior officers were not immune. Indisgust, one general officer informed the ArmyChief of Staff, General Matthew B. Ridgway, that hewas retiring because "I am convinced that it presenttrends continue the Army will soon become a serv-ice support agency for the other armed services."'

Soldiers lamented a perceived loss of statusand esteem in the oyes of their countrymen. To ci-vilians, the Air Force represented modern technol-ogy, SAC, and Steve Canyon. The Army's imagewas hapless Beetle Bailey and television's SergeantBilko, who was described by an officer as "a four-flusher, a sharpie, a cad who exploits an oafishcolonel and an element of tramps, no-goods, andsemi-criminals doing nothing all day."" To thisthin-skinned officer, B1lko and his cronies repre-sented the popular view of himself and his fellowsoldiers. Public scorn made it painful to be a soldierand seemed to contribute to the Army's talent drain.

Another officer noted that the Army hed be-come "an auxiliary service," apparently rea.inod

The "New Look" 21

"for ceremonial purposes while the Air Force girdsits loins to fight our wars." He went on to suggestthat "if the Army is no longer needed, it should bowout gracefully, and not hang on for the sake of tradi-tion _. ," He recommended sarcastically that theArmy be absorbed Into the Air Force: such a movewould save money, reduce inter-Service rivalry,and help the average soldier's morale by puttinghim in a snazzy blue uniform.7

Such confusion about the Army's future-evendoubt that it retained a role in modern warfare-was widespread. Many people outside the Army be-lieved that "the Army is obsolescent and probablyobsolete,"" Increasingly, people inside the Servicehad begun to share that view. As Major John H.Cushman, an outstanding soldier who would rise tothree-star rank, wrote in 1954, "1 do not know whatthe Army's mission is or how it plans to fulfill itsmission. And this, I find, Is true of my fellow sol-diers, At a time when new weapons and new ma-chines herald a revolution in warfare, we soldiersdo not know where the Army is going and how it isgoing to get there."t'

Reduced budgets and manpower strengths,widespread questions about the Army's future, de-moralization within the ranks: little wonder thateven such a senior officer as General Lyman L.Lemnitzer could lament in 1955 that "today itseems to me that the very survival of the Army ... isat stake,""'

However plaintive, remarks such as Lem-nitzer's signified concern, not despair. With the

22 The Pentomic Era

well-being of their Service in jeopardy, Armyleaders did not give up. Indeed, many believed thatthe stakes Involved more than the health and pres-tige of the Army. They agreed with GeneralRidgway, Army Chief of Staff from 1953 to 1955,that the "New Look" also was a misguided policythat endangered the nation's security. Far frombowing to the "New look," Ridgway and his succes-sors challenged the very rationale of Eisenhower'sdefense policies, while reshaping the Army In theImage of their own vision of the "revolution" inwarfare. Ultimately, they sought to overturn mas-sive retaliation. They hoped to substitute policiesthat would restore the Army to prominence and rec-ognize that strategic weapons alone could not guar-antee national security.

The Army counterattacked on several fronts,but not all could claim equal importance. At onelevel, for example, the Army greatly expanded itspublic relations effort, hoping to shed its Beetle Ba1-ley image for something more upbeat, "It Is notenough to do a good job," Army Secretary WilburM. Brucker told students at the Command and Gen-eral Staff College in 1956. "The American peoplemust know their Army is doing it. The time hascome when no Army officer can sit in the bleachersand act as a mere spectator. Public relations is not ajob of the few but of the many." I

In addition to emptying the bleachers figura-tively, the Army's public relations offensive took onmore substantive form. Soldiers turned in the uni-forms of olive drab (OD shade 33) that the Armyhad worn for 50 years. The cut and c:olor of the new"Army Green" uniform would present a smarter and

The "New Look" 23

US Army PhotoThe Army spruced up its image by replacing the olivedrab (OD) uniform (right), which soldiers had worn for50 years, with a new uniform of "Army Green" (center).

more up-to-date appearance-or so it was hoped,Freshly outfitted, the soldier henceforth would "ap-pear beside the other Services without apology forhis appearance," an Army spokesman predicted,The soldier could even "proudly meet and minglewith his civilian contemporaries,"" 2 Along with

24 The Pentomic Era

new uniforms, the Army touted new equipment,The Army's contributions to aviation, missile re-search, and the still.infant space program becamemajor public relations themes.

The Army's PR efforts capitalized on the latestmedia techniques. In 1955 the Service released afeature-length color documentary-"This Is YourArmy"-for showing in theatres across the country,For television viewers who tuned In their sets onearly Saturday or Sunday mornings, "The Big Pic-ture" provided a contrast to Sergeant Biiko, de-picting the Army as a progressive, technologicallyadvanced organization with a vital worldwide mis-sion, In 1955 the Army claimed that 394 of the na-tion's 417 television stations carried "The BigPicture, 1113

Though not part of the Service per so, the Asso-ciation of the United States Army (AUSA) becamean Increasingly important public relations instru-ment. Founded in 1950, AUSA was a somewhatsomnolent organization during Its early years. Butthe "New Look" prodded AUSA and its journal,Army, into becoming aggressive advocates of theService's interests, Beginning In the fall of 1955,AUSA held yearly conventions that brought to-gether senior soldiers, politicians, Journalists, andindustrial leaders. This annual meeting served toshowcase the Army's latest hardware and permittedsome modest bragging about recent Service accom.plishments. It also helped the Army gain the ear ofinfluential opinionmakers and express its views ondefense issues,

The "New Look" 25

US Army PhotoUS Army recruiters advertise their Service's commit.ment to high technology by carrying replicas of theNIKE Ajax missile on top of their sedans in the early1050s.

More important than those efforts to refurbishits image was the Army's attack on the very under-pinnings of the "New Look," As our review of NSC162/2 illustrated, massive retaliation constituted thebasic military strategy of the United States from theearly days of the Eisenhower administration, Senioradministration officials did not view massive retali-ation merely as a theoretical principle vaguely re-lated to US national security, Rather, the Presidenthimself had explicitly endorsed It. His closest

26 The Pentomic Era

associates had affirmed its central place in the ad-ministration's thinking. It was national policy. Assuch, one might have expected Army leaders tohave accepted massive retaliation and to have fo-cused their efforts on carrying out the President'swill. But this view proved to be far from the case,From 1953 on the Army's spokesmen attacked mas-sive retaliation relentlessly, criticizing it as ineffect-ive, unrealistic, and Immoral,

In approving the concept of massive retaliation,the administration had taken only a first step to-ward making it into effective policy. Full imple-mentation meant Incorporating the concept Intoexisting directives and plans that provided detailedguidance to the bureaucracy. This process gave op-ponents of massive retaliation opportunities to chal-lenge It as each of these directives was revised inlight of the new thinking.

The Army's leaders seized on these opportuni-ties. At first they confined their opposition to theclosed inner circles of the National Security Coun-cil (NSC) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Butfrustration soon Inspired more vocal and at timesdownright obstructionist tactics. Whether due tothe Army's doggedness or the cogency of Its argu-'ments, the Service's critique eventually earnedwidespread acceptance. To the Army's chagrin,however, the declining legitimacy of the concept ofmassive retaliation did not result In a redistributionof defense resources more favorable to the Army.That redistribution would await the coming topower of a new administration.

The "New Look" 27

In approving NSC 162/2 in October 1953, thePresident directed the National Security Council touse It as a basis for redefining US objectives in theevent of war with the Soviet Union. Given a strategyintended to deter war, defining objectives to be pur-sued during war had the look of a fairly gratuitousexercise. Nonetheless, this requirement, eventuallyresulting in a document known as NSC 5410/I, pro-vided one of the first chances to challenge massiveretaliation. The Army used this chance to point outsome Implications of the administration's willing-ness to countenance all-out nuclear war.

In a preliminary draft the NSC Planning Boarddefined the primary US wartime objective as the"destruction of both the military capability and mil-itary potential of the So% let bloc,""' Military capa-bility referred to the armed forces of the Soviets andtheir allies, Military potential meant industrial ca-pacity and, of necessity, cities. In subdued andunremarkable language the National Security Coun-cil was proposing that the United Staten reduceEastern Europe, the USSR, and China to a nuclearwasteland. Having achieved this aspect, the sole re-maining military task would be for occupationforces to take control of the defeated and largely de-stroyed enemy nations.

Asked by the JCS to comment, the Army WarPlans Branch prepared a stinging critique of theNSC draft, Obviously, the NSC envisioned only alimited role for the Army in such a nuclear war, Yetthe Army doubted whether conditions following amassive nuclear attack would permit it to carry outeven a simple occupation mission effectively, The

'4

28 The Pentomic Era

Army accused the NSC of overlooking "seriousproblems" of fallout that would enormously com-plicate the occupation of defeated countries,

More fundamentally, the Army questioned thesense of laying waste'to the Soviet bloc in the firstplace. What possible political purpose could suchan act serve? According to the Army, the NationalSecurity Council had "failed properly to considerthe implications of unlimited nuclear destruction ofmilitary potential" as an objective. in the Army'sview, the political and economic implications ofsuch an act were resoundingly negative. For exam-ple, the United States had expressed a longstandingdetermination to free Eastern Europe from Sovietdomination, A war that made them nuclear targets,said the Army, would be unlikely to encourageEastern Europeans to defect from the Soviet orbit.Even victory would create now problems on a scalematching the war's devastation, Not least amongthem, the United States would face stupendous dif-ficulties in struggling to reintegrate its defeatedadversaries into the world economy. The Army crit-icized the Council for ignoring the mind bogglingproblem of establishing "economically viablepostwar successor states" out of the ashes of the de-feated. And lastly, the Army speculated that even invictory, the United States would find its relationswith allies and neutral powers poisoned. As perpe-trators of a nuclear holocaust Americans would facegrave impediments to the establishment of a"postwar world environment friendly toward theUnited States,"

IN

The "New Look" 20

The Army forwarded Its critique to the JointChiefs on 21 December 1953, When the PlanningBoard's revised draft of 28 December failed to incor-porate any of the Army's points, the Service imme-diately waded in with another paper. Thisdocument offered an alternative definition of USwartime objectives, In it the Army outlined a set of"clearcut guidelines" for a military strategy that un-like massive retaliation, would be politically pur-poseful. The Army, in this paper, came close torejecting nuclear weapons altogether, a proposalthat must have seemed quixotic to administrationofficials who viewed nuclear arms as a panacea,Specifically, the Army argued for the following:

0 The prohibition, or minimum use, of weap-ons of mass destruction,

* The restriction of attacks by weapons of massdestruction, if used, to selected tactical targetswhich would cause minimum human loss and ma-terial loss and promote the achievenient of militaryobjectives by conventional forces.

This effort succeeded only in preventing a consen-sus on the draft NSC document. Irreversibly dead-locked, the Joint Chiefs elevated their dispute to theNSC Itself at a Council meeting convened on 25March. Although General Ridgway was in attend-ance, the President directed Admiral ArthurRadford, the ICS Chairman, to summarize objec-tions to NSC 5410 for the Council, Radford, nofriend of the Army, reiterated the Service's viewthat an all-out nuclear attack on the Soviets would"inflict such chaos and destruction and suffering"

30 The Pentomic Era

as had not been seen since the Thirty Years War. Hementioned the Army's contention that it was "im-possible to visualize" the United States coping withthe aftermath of a "victory" won through the indis-criminate use of nuclear weapons. Mindful of thisprdspect, he concluded, the Army was recom-mending that the NSC reconsider its intention touse nuclear weapons on a large scale in the event ofwar with the Soviets.

Eisenhower allowed Radford to complete hispresentation, but then responded with "considera-ble vehemence and conviction," He remarked withevident displeasure that the issues raised "camepretty close" to questioning "the prerogatives of theCommander in Chief." He than expressed his "abso-lute conviction" that the availability of nuclearweapons to both sides meant that "everything inany future war with the Soviet bloc would have tobe subordinated to winning that war," Winningmeant waging war to the utmost, using all assetsavailable. The President conceded that "ten yearsago [he] might very well have subscribed to ... limi-tations and restrictions" on the use of force. He alsoadmitted that "we can't tell what we will do afterwe achieve a victory in what will be total and not inany sense limited warfare," Although acknowl-edging that his "point of view might seem brutal,"the President concluded by Insisting that he "sim-ply could not conceive of any other course of actionthan [one] which would hit the Russians where andhow it would hurt most.""'

Eisenhower suffered no illusions about theprobable effects of all-out nuclear war. 'The results

The "New Look" 31

of such a conflict would be horrifying beyondbelief. Yet in his view If the horror inherent in all-out nuclear war made it impossible to conceive of ameaningful strategy for such a conflict, that samehorror also invested the concept of nuclear deter-rence with its value. Fully expecting that he neverwould order the use of nuclear weapons, Eisen-hower was baffled that the Army insisted on takingthe rhetoric of massive retaliation seriously,analyzing it as if it were a warfighting strategy."That's the trouble with Ridgway," remarked thePresident some months later in a similar context,"He's talking theory-I'm trying to talk sense.""' Inbrooding over the realities of conducting all-out nu-clear war, the Army was concerning itself with acontingency that Eisenhower viewed as too remoteto merit serious consideration.

The Army took just the opposite perspective.Ridgway believed that the administration had be-come enamored with theory-the unproven hypoth-esis that the threat of nuclear retaliation wouldprevent aggression. Furthermore, he was convincedthat the theory was defective, Sense in his view re-quired that the administration weigh the implica-tions of a lapse in deterrence. Required by such alapse to consider the use of force to protect its inter-ests, a nation too reliant on strategic nuclear weap-ons would confront a choice between paralysis andcatastrophe.

In retrospect, Eisenhower and Ridgway rieariywere talking around each other-much to the frus-tration of each. Still, the President's outburst of25 March had accomplished this much: it had

32 The Pentomic Era

demonstrated once and for all the futility of theArmy's efforts to discredit massive retaliation bydepicting all-out nuclear war as devoid of rationalpurpose. To the President such an argument was ir-relevant. As a result, although not altogether aban-doning its earlier theme, the Army began to shift thefocus of its attack on massive retaliation. Ratherthan emphasizing the senselessness of general war,Service spokesmen instead pointed to the decliningeffectiveness of nuclear deterrent. The rapid growthof the Soviet nuclear arsenal publicly was acknowl-edged as fact. Well before 1960 the USSR wouldpossess the capability to wreak unacceptable de-struction, the United States. When this point was

reached, the Army argued, the two nuclear arsenalseffectively would cancel each other out. A condi-tion of mutual deterrence would exist-but one thatInhibited nuclear attacks only. Under the cover ofthis nucledr shield, Soviet subversion and local ag-gression would continue on an expanded scale-asNSC 162/2 conceded. The strength of Soviet con-ventional forces would provide ample resources forsuch efforts, To defend its Interests and itq allies,the United States required comparable forces. The"New Look," the Army pointed out, was elim-inating precisely such forces."t

By the fall of 1954 the joint Chiefs collectivelybegan to appreciate the significance of the USSR's,growing nuclear strength. But the Army remainedalone in insisting that this situation called for anabandonment of massive retaliation and the "NewLook," Certainly, the administration showed nosigns of recanting, For Ridgway, American

The "New Look" 33

inflexibility in the face of changing circumstancesthreatened to create a situation that would temptthe United States to consider "preventive war."Once nuclear parity seemed imminent, the conse-quences of Soviet' conventional superiority wouldbecome inescapable. Ridgway feared that the logicof a preemptive strike to forestall such a radicalchange in the balance of forces would becomecompelling.

Ridgway's concerns were not without founda-tion. American officials did consider preemptive at.tack as an option at least theoretically available. In1955, for example, the Air Force proposed to theJCS that the United States launch a strategic attack"whenever it becomes clear that the intentions ofthe communist bloc are to control military alliednations and destroy the United States."'" The Presi-dent himself was not immune to such thinking. Ikeworried that the cost of an Indefinite arms race withthe Soviets would drive the United States "intosome form of dictatorial government." Faced withsuch prospects, he continued, "we would be forcedto consider whether or not our duty to future gener-ations did not require us to initiate war at the mostpropitious moment that we could designate.""'

By the end of 1954 frustration within the Armyhad reached a dangerous level. The Army's viewsno longer seemed to receive serious consideration,Organizational factors and personalities combinedto rob the Army's voice of Its previous authority,The creation of the Department of Defense largelyhad excluded the Army from the center of power,Although Secretary Bruckor was an enthusiastic

34 The Pentomlc Era

advocate of the Army's viewpoint, the reduction ofthe Army Secretary to sub-Cabinet rank in 1949 lim-ited his effectiveness as the Army's principal civil-ian spokesman. In defense matters, the Secretary ofDefense had the dominant voice within the Cabinet.Charles E. Wilson, Secretary of Defense from Janu.ary 1953 to October 1957, was a businessman withlittle regard for uniformed officers. Wilson andRidgway disliked each other intensely, to the pointthat Ridgway scarcely could bring himself to speakto the Secretary of Defense."' Differences over is-sues became indistinguishable from the personalityconflict separating the two men. General BarksdaleHamlett, then a brigadier assigned to the Pentagon,pungently captured the Army's view of this con-flict: "Wilson was out to get Ridgway; there is nodoubt about it, and we knew it down on the staff."'"

On the uniformed side, the formalization of thejoint Chiefs of Staff further reduced the Army's ac-cess to senior decisionmakers. Serving as ArmyChief of Staff less than a decade earlier, General C.Marshall had enjoyed unlimited access to the WhiteHouse. The President had consulted Marshall onvirtually all major decisions relating to national se-curity and had attached great weight to Marshall'sopinions. By the time Ridgway assumed the ArmyChief of Staff's mantle in 1953 he found his accessto the President much reduced, For the most part,he had to rely on the JCS Chairman to represent theArmy's views in the White House. Neither AdmiralRadford nor General Nathan Twining, the airmanwho succeeded Radford as JCS Chairman, sympa-thized with the Army's perspective on securityissues.

The "New Look" 35

Secretary of DefenseCharles E. Wilson athis weekly press con-ference in 1953. Hewas a businessmanwho had little regardfor uniformed officers,

US Army Photo VA

General Ridgway felt keenly the problems re-suiting from the diminished status of the Army'stwo senior representatives, In April 1954 Ridgwayurged Brucker as a matter cf the "greatest iinpor-tance" to obtain Army representation at all NSCmeetings,"' A year later, on the eve of his retire-ment, Ridgway returned to this theme. Again heurged Brucker to "seek Service Secretary member.ship on the National Security Council," On this oc-casion Ridgway specified the additional need foreither the Army Secretary or Chief of Staff to be"consulted by the President ... on all major matters... in which the Armly has a majlor interest,"'.

Ridgwdy's coinmentt summarize nicely theArmy's unhappiness with the state of civil-militaryrelations in the mid-1950's. At the time, however,they proved totally ineffective as a blueprint for re-form, Outside of the Army support for changes thatwould increase the voice of the individual Services

36 The Pentomic Era

did not exist, Service views were considered "paro-chial" and "biased," Sound military thinking thatconsidered the interests of the country as a wholetranscended Service lines. No one believed thismore strongly than Eisenhower, whose experiencewith Joint and combined operations during WorldWar II and as NATO Commander during the KoreanWar had convinced him of the evils of Serviceparochialism,

Eisenhower valued the military advice of theJoint Chiefs, but fully expected that it would cometo him undiluted by Service considerations. He toldthe Chiefs at one point that he personally involvedhimself in their selection only to assure himself thathe was getting a JCS that would concern itself with"where we are going in overall security terms" and"how we should solve our overall problems," Hetold the Chiefs that they "should not spend a lot oftheir time on their internal Services," Rather thanacting as advocates of their Services, they shouldaddress "military doctrine In Its overall terms, Itsentirety, not In minute details ,,," Above all theyshould "think and act as a body,""' Eisenhower'shopes for inter-Service collegiality continually werefrustrated, Nonetheless, the fact that he maintainedsuch expectations doomed Ridgway's hopes for astronger voice for his Service and also suggests thePresident's lack of receptivity to the Army's contin-uing dissent on basic issues,

Even so, at the very end of 1954 Ridgway madeone last effort within the Government to argue theArmy's case, He requested through SecretaryWilson to have the chance to register formally the

The "New Look" 37

General Matthew B. 4ýRidgway, Army Chiefof Staff, 1953.55, Hetried to argue theArmy's case within theGovernment, by chal.lenging the view thatmassive retaliationcould be the major de-terrent to aggression.

US Army Photo

Army's objections to existing national security poh-ties. He received that chance on 3 December 1954at a National Security Council meeting convenedspecifically for that purpose.

Ridgway's presentation contained little that theArmy had not already said at one time or another.He challenged the thesis that "massive retaliatorypower" could be "the major deterrent to aggres-sion," He suggested that the use of nuclear weaponsin future wars was not Inevitable; that if used theireffect might not prove decisive: that if used Indis-criminately their effect would prove so destructiveas to call into question the very contemplation ofsuch a course. He called on the NSC "to reject em-phatically any policy of preventive war" as "devoidof moral principle." In lieu of relying on nuclearweapons Ridgway advocated the creation of forces

3R The Pentomic Era

that were "procprly beianced and of adequate readi -ness," contooiding that their availability would be"the most effr:tlve deterrent to general war." Fur-thermore, bi insisted that such forces were entirelyaffordable and would receive popular support ifproperly justified to the American people,"'

Having listened politely to Ridgway's presenta-tion, the President dismissed him at its conclusion,The National Security Council then proceeded toconsider what it had heard, Secretary Wilson sawnothing in Ridgway's remarks except an attempted"Justification for a much larger Army." Secretary ofthe Treasury George T. Humphrey said that theUnited States simply could not afford to maintain"all kinds of forces designed to fight all kinds ofwars at all times." Ridgway erred in "beginningwith the one-sided premise that the whole [nationalsecurity] effort should be directed to maintainingthe US military posture, with little or no regard offor the maintenance 9f the US economy." HaroldStassen, the Mutual Sw, urity Director, questionedRldgway's "thesis that we would draw down uponourselves the hatred of most of mankind if we re-sorted to atomic warfare." Eisenhower himself re-jected Ridgway's suggestion that the Soviets mightwage war without using nuclear weapons, More tothe point, he agreed with Humphrey that "theUnited States could not afford to prepare to fight allkinds of wars and still preserve its free economyand its basic institutions." "Since we cannot keepthe United States an armed camp or a garrisonstate," he added, "we must make plans to useatomic bombs if we become involved in a war,"211

The "New Look" 39

From Eisenhower's perspective, Ridgway's ap-pearance before the NSC had given the Army a fairchance to air its views. Having provided thatchance and haying been unpersuaded by theArmy's presentation, the President now expected toimplement his policies without further obstruction,On 22 December he summoned Secretary Wilsonand the Joint Chiefs back to his office. He restatedhis commitment to massive retaliation, indicatinghis "firm intention to launch Ithej Strategic AirForce immediately in case of actual attack." Hestressed that "a major war will be an atomic war,"and that the Army's role in such a war would be to"maintain order" in the aftermath of a nuclear ex-change. Given his view of war, the President statedthat he "wanted to make it clear that a priority ap-proach is required" to reorient US forces. That re-orientation entailed "holding back on the ActiveArmy" and emphasizing retaliatory forces, defenseagainst Soviet nuclear attack, and such Reserves aswould be needed for civil defense In the event thatdeterrence failed, The President emphasized thatthis decision was his final personal one. He con-cluded with the remark that "as Commander inChief (he) is entitled to the loyal support of [hisisubordinates of the official position Ihel hasadopted, and (he) expects to have It,"117

Much to the President's chagrin his end-of-year session with the Joint Chiefs did not silenceopponents of his defense policies, On the contrary,opposition from the Army in particular becamemore open and more virulent as the new year

40 The Pentomic Era

began. As if to signal the change in tactics, The NewYork Times on 4 January provided a front page "re-view" of a newly revised edition of FM 100.5,"Field Service Regulations, Operations," the Army'sbasic doctrinal publication. The Times reportod thatthe Army was using the manual to assert its pri.macy over the other Services and to criticize thepolicy of massive retaliation.2" Indeed, the manuelseemed to draw a moral distinction between theArmy and advocates of massive retaliation. An In-troductory paragraph stated that "indiscriminate de-struction is unjustifiable in a military sense," Thatsame paragraph noted pointedly that "Army forcesdo not deliberately make or invite war upon civilianpopulations. ""'

Writing that same month in The Army CombatForces Journal, an Army officer blasted US policybecause it, accepted "civil destruction as an objectof war," The United States had "forgotten that waris still a political instrument which must have polit-ical objectives and methods." Defective Americanthinking was leading only to "the brutalization ofwar without purpose, to a preoccupation with massdestruction, [and] to the neglect of politicalrealities,'' "12

In an article published the next month, severalofficers bluntly characterized massive retaliation as"a massive bluff on our part," They asserted that"U,S, concentration on preparing for thermonuclearwar" had "weakened our power to resist creepingaggression." Insisting that the Army remained "thedecisive arm In war," the author3 called for new de-fense policy that would provide a larger Army

The "New Look" 41

prepared for any type of conflict: general or limited,conventional or thermonuclear. '"

Nor did General Ridgway shrink from statinghis continuing reservations about the administra-tion's policies, Asked in a closed session of the Sen-ate Armed Services Committee to give his ownviews on reductions mandated by the "New Look,"Ridgway stated that "the Army could not performits assigned missions if the cuts are imposed andthat they would endanger the security of the coun-try," The Committee's Democratic chairman Imme-diately announced Ridlway's views to the pressi

Since General Ridgway continued forthrightlyto place himself at the head of this upposition to the"New Look," he soon became persona non grata tothe administration, Not surprisingly, as the end ofhis first two-year term as Army Chief of Staff ap-proached, Ridgway was not asked to remain, So inJune 1955 Rldgway retired, frustrated but by nomeans giving up the fight, He did not go quietly,Prior to stepping down, he sent a distillation of hisviews on defense policy to Defense SecretaryWilson, arch advocate of the "New Look." ThoughWilson quickly directed Ridgway to classify the let-ter, it subsequently was "leaked" to The New YorkTimes, thereby gaining the widespread attention forwhich it undoubtably was intiended, Wilson dis-missed the letter as "not very important," but it wasa bombshell signalling not a last gasp but a furtherescalation of the Army's attack on administrationpolicy.3:

In his letter to Wilson, Ridgway reiterated hisview that the "mutual cancellation of nuclear

42 The Pentomic Era

advantage" was reducing the likelihood that stra-tegic nuclear weapons would be used for any pur-pose. Given these circumstances, he said, "no na-tion could regard nuclear capabilities alone assufficient, either to prevent or to win a war,"Ridgway did not doubt that the Soviets would con-tinue to behave aggressively, But he expected thatthe character of such aggression would be non-nuclear. Indeed, he went so far as to say that the"USSR, like every other nation, would prefer toavoid the use of nuclear weapons," The critical gapIn US defense capability lay In the shortage offorces able to defeat such non-nuclear aggression,Ridgway characterized American military forces as"inadequate In strength and Improperly propor-tioned," The nation's foremost need was for "an Im.mediately available mobile joint military force ofhard-hitting character, In which the versatility ofthe whole Is emphasized and the preponderance ofany one part Is do-emphasized,""'

If Secretary Wilson expected that Ridgway's de-parture would mean the end of criticism from theArmy, he miscalculated, General Maxwell D.Taylor, who succeeded Ridgway, took up the samecudgel, Taylor was ably supported by the Army'sbrilliant and outspoken Deputy Chief of Staff for Re-search and Development (R&D), lieutenant Generaljamus M. Gavin,

In November 1955 Gavin published an articlelamenting "the confused thinking and talking thathave obscured defense matters since World War 1I."For a period of time, the naive belief that nuclearweapons would end the "tough business of land

The "New Look" 43

fighting" had hold sway, Gavin's article said, Butnow the United States clearly "could not rely onany one weapon system or any single Service" forits security. "The wisdom of this judgment," hecontinued, "became quite apparent when the Com-munists acquired atomic weapons of their own." Asin the past, "no easy way to win wars" still did notexist. American forcos had to be ready "to win wars,large or small, atomic or non-atomic," This require-ment, argued Gavin, denanded an Army with "size-able forces in being, ready to move by land, sea, orair and fight any time, any place."1•"

Along with other senior Army leaders, Gavinbelieved that using strategic nuclear weapons couldserve no sane purpose, Ha was not above makingthis point in the most dramatic way, In secret testi-mony before a Senate Armed Services Subcommit-tee Gavin predicted that all-out nuclear war wouldcause several hundred million deaths, More fright-ening still, many of the dead would be in neutral orallied countries "depending upon which way thewind blow," When Gavin's testimony later was"leaked" to the Associated Press, an outcry ensued,Lewis L, Strauss, Chairman of the Atomic EnergyCommission, c:omplalned that the release of Gavin'stestimony had violated NSC directivos, GeneralAlfred Gruenther, the Suprmne Allied Commander,Europe, expressed concern that remarks such asGavin's would "foster dismay and disillusionmentIn the value of the NATO) alliance." But Gavin hadmade his point: that the prospect of such "in-credible destruction" would serve to decrease tholikelihood of all-out war, and thus increase the

44 The Pentomic Era

prospects for what Gavin called "localizedconflicts.'":"'

In a similar vein in early 1956, Taylor testifiedto the Congress that "as parity is approximated innumbers and types of atomic weapons between Eastand West, every effort will be made on both sides toavoid general atomic war," The United States couldanticipate "pressures on soft spots about the Sovietperiphery through subversion, guerrilla action andcoups d'etat, [andl small-scale wars." Responding toany of these situations implied "a land operationwith a very limited role, if any, for heavy weaponsof mass destruction." The country needled not morenuclear weapons but a "versatile Army" to defeatnon-nuclear aggression,:17

Such suggestions that strategic nuclear weep.ons would play no role in the "next war" contra-dicted the essential premise of massive retaliationand irritated the ICS. Rear Admiral Truman H.Hedding of the Joint Staff complained to AdmiralRadford that "despite previous agreement by theJoint Chiefs" on the use of nuclear weapons, "theArmy at every opportunity reopens the issue and at-tempts to restate Irevisel the pollcy." ''Two monthslater, Radford reminded the Servioe Chiefs that forplanning purposes they would assume the employ.ment of nuclear weapons at the beginning of hostili-ties, He emphasized, moreover, that such weaponswould be no less available in limited wars than ingeneral ones,:"'

Still, the Army refused to acquiesce In argu-ments that madie the use of strategic nuclear weap-ons an Inevitable part of American war policy, As If

The "New Look" 45

General Maxwell D.Taylor, Army Chief ofStaff, 1a35-59. Hecalled for a versatileArmy to defeat non-nuclear aggression.Taylor referred to thetwo terms of theEisenhower Presi-dency and the corre-sponding revolution inwarfare as the Army's"Babylonian Cap-tivity."

US Army Photo

in response to lfadtord, officer's on thr, Army Gen-era! Staff passed to a friendly news correspondent aseries of classified studies that detailed the Army'sdissatisfaction with US strategy. This so-called"Colonols' Revolt" immediately gaii,ed exposure forthe Army's views on the front page of The NewYork Times, Three years into the Eisenhower ad-ministration and in the midst of ani election year,one of these Army studies declared that "the UnitedStates is grossly unprepared to ineet the communistthreat." The administration had "violated the firstprinciple of strategy--indeed, of common sense-byfailing to shape our military strength to meet thelikely dangers." Worse, the Army study noted, "wecontlntzo to pour excessive manpower and money

46 The Pentomic Era

into an Air Force which haE" been substantially neu-tralized [by the Soviet Union's growing nuclearstrength] and which pleads ior more money, moremoney, more money," The Avmy study predictedthat If the United States failed to correct theimbalances in iis military structure, its positionwould "disintegrte to a point where we shall beforced into either lotal war or subjugation."'

One month Iiter, the drafting of the "ISOP(joint Strategic Objectivew Plan) Strategic Concept"provided another opportunity for the Army to makeits point. The Joint Staff's initial draft of this docu-ment asserted unequivocally that "in a general war,regardless of the manner of initiation, atomic weap-ons will be used from the outset." The Army re-fused to accept such language. In its place the Armysuggested a more complex view that would restrictthe use of strategic riuclear weapons to certain spe-(ific (and relatively improbable) scenarios, Within afew years, the Army's alternative began,

The reciprocal capability which each side will havefor destroying the other may be expected to makethe adversaries very reluctant to initiateunrestricted atomic war and to incline them to seeka limited use of atomic weapons . It is more likelythat general war may start by a series of actions andcounteractions between the Sino-Soviet bloc andthe U.S, and its allies than by a Soviet onslaught atthe outset. For planning purposes, it may be as-sumed that the U.S. will certainly use atomic weap-ons when USSR forces attack the United States orattack U.S. military forces overseas in a mannerwhich threatens their survival. In other cases, theuse of these weapons will depend on the deciision

The "New Look" 47

of the President in the light of U.S, nationalinteren;ts,41

The implication was clear-at least as the Armysaw it-that only in rare instances woul-I "U.S. na.tional interests" benefit from the use of strategicweapons,

The Army blocked the consensus needed to re-draft the JSOP and angered the JCS Chairman,Rodford turned to Defense Secretary Wilson forhelp, The trouble with the Army, according toRadford, was that its thinking was "still based onthe large-scale use of US ground forces in periph-eral areas"-as had been the case in Korea, Worsestill, the Army "visualizes peripheral wars of con-siderable magnitude in which we do not use atomicweapons." Again, Korea provided the model forsuch a non-nuclear war. But such notions were non-sense to a true believer in massive retaliation.Radford insisted to Wilson that the role of groundforces In future wars was not fighting but "themaintenance or restoration of law and order, and re-habilitation within the United States." The Armywould clean up the messy aftermath of nuclear war,combining the lunctiors of constabulary and civildoefise agencies, Such responsibilities would re-quire neither a !arge nor particularly well-equippedArmy, But they needed an Army that instead offighting the problem quietly accOe)tud its allottodrole.' 2

This struggle over military strategy and theArmy's role in it persisted to the very end of theFlisenhower administration, The Army's continued

48 The Pentomic Era

attacks on strategic nuclear weapons persuadedneither Radford uor his successor, General NathanTwining. More importantly, the President never wa-vered in his commitment to massive retaliation,

Army leaders consequently found Eisenhower'ssecond term as frustrating as his first. Both Gavinand Taylor followed Ridgway into exasperated re-tirement. Like Ridgway, both published widely-readcritiques of Eisenhower's military policies andoutlined alternatives that provided a more promi-nent role for the Army.43

In the end, the cumuiative weight of criticismdirected against massive retaliation-coming notonly from inside the Army but from influential ci-vilians as well-succeeded in persuading everyoneexcept Eisenhower and the core of his administra-tion. By the time Ike left office his military policieswere in tatters, widely seen as too rigid, toounimaginative, too lacking in boldness, The stagewas set for a new strategy, one built around thecatch phrase, "Flexible Response," whose author,Maxwell Taylor, would enjoy a remarkable resur-rection. The Army's role in this strategy would beprofoundly different and much more central to itsimplementation. In that sense, the Army eventuallywon its long struggle to discredit massive retalia-tion. Whether or not the new strotegy woidd benefiteither the Army or the nation remained to be seen,

3. Design for aNew Army

H owever persuasivw, th. Army's critique of mas-sive retaliation alonts would not be '3hough to

prescribe the Service's role after Korea. If Eisen-howor's defense strategy was inadeq iuate, then whatshould take its place? If, as General Taylor re-marked in 1955, the Army "duclinelct1 to acceptcivil defense ... as a primary mission," then whatmission did the Service propose in its stead?' Ef-forts to answer those questions and recast the Armyinto an Instrument for implementing such an alter-native strategy absorbed the attention of the Serv-ice'v best tninds throughOUt the Eisenlhower years,

Lieutenant Gonoral Paul W. Caraway later re-called that the critical imperative during the yearsafter Korea was "to find some use for the Army."'2The Eisenhower administration's strategy of deter-rence created strong incentives for the Army to or-ganize itself to prevent wars rather than fight them,Ridgway resisted that inclination. His view of warretained strong traditionalist overtones, largely

49

50 The Pentomic Era

unaffected by the advent of nuclear weapons,"When a nation chooses war rather than one of itspolitical alternatives," he told the Council on For-eign Relations on early 1955, "it simply uses a de-vice for achieving national objectives by force: amilitary means to a political end," Viewed in thiscontext, the Army's priorities remained clear: "TheArmy exists for the single purpose of victory in bat.tle and success In war," although he allowed that"it may have the subsidiary purpose of being adeterrent,"" Ridgway thus rejected not only thestrategy of massive retaliation, but one of the opera-tive principles of deterrence: that the nation wouldmaintain military forces not to fight wars, but toprevent them. Whatever the objective merit ofRidgway's views, they were totally out of step withthe political climate existing in the United States af-ter Korea, The country was fed up with war andcounted on nuclear weapons to preclude fighting inthe future, The idea that nuclear weapons had madeall war obsolete was bocoming Increasingly fashion-able, Ridgway's insistence in the face of such expec.tations that the Army existed to fight made hisfailure inevitable,

Sensitive to Ridgway's failure yet no) less op-posed to massive retaliation, Taylor believed thatthe Army had erred in dismissing deterrence so cav-alierly. As long as deterrence remained the corner-stone of atomic age strategy, political realitiesrequired the Army to conform in some measures toits demands, In order to obtain its fair share of a de-fense budget shaped by requirements of deterrence,the Army needed to demonstrate that It too Could

Design for a New Army 51

play an important role in the prevention of war, Asa result, during Taylor's tenure as Army Chief ofStaff, the Army adopted the language of deterrencein establishing its claim on defense resources, "Likeall other elements of our national defense pro-grams," Taylor said in a speech in October 1955"the Army justifies its existence primarily as a de-terrent force to prevent war,"4 Taylor agreed withRidgway that non-nuclear aggrosslon would flour-ish under conditions of nuclear plenty, Even inexplaining the need for forces to counter such ag-gression, however, Taylor clung to the logic of de-terrence, The nation needed "balanced strength .In various forms appropriate to deter or to fightsmall wars," he remarked in a typical speech, sothat it could "put out brush fires promptly beforethey can spread into general war,"'

Did remarks such as Taylor's reflect a real shiftIn the Army's thinking? Probably not, A review ofwhat Taylor told closed Army audiences about theService's role suggests that the Chief of Staff shapedhis public remarks to correspolnd to the expecta-tions of his listeners. Speaking in private, Taylor,like Ridgway, believed that the Army existed for"achieving national objectives by force," Taylorsummarized his own view of the world situation ina speech at the Arriy War College shortly after be-coming Chief of Staff. The United States and its al-lies, he said, "represent In general the 'have' nationswhose Interest It Is to preserve the status quo." TheWest's relative prosperity made it "a fair target forthe aggressive designs of our enemies," Sustainingthat prosperity required the West to maintain access

52 Tho Pentomic Era

to the markets and resources of countries beyondthe Alliance, If threats developed against suchThird World countries, Taylor viewed it as in "ournational interest to prevent the absorption of theirresources by the communist bloc." In sum, the aimof American national policy was to maintain the ex-isting world order. Military force would supportthat aim by retaining Its historic function ofbringing about or preventing change to that order,What did this historic function mean for the Army?In Taylor's view, it had generated "a new awarenessof tan] obligation to prepare to meet local aggressionanytime, anywhare.""

Taylor acknowledged that such views were notwidely held outside the Army, He returned to theWar College a year later to report that the Army's ef-forts had been "somewhat hampered by what I call'the fixation on the big war'." He continiued asfollows:

Certainly when we get bofore Congress I'm alwaysimpressed with the fact that our civillan leaderswhen they think lofl war ... almost always equatethat to general atomic war, the war which startswith a surprise onslatught on D-Day, lAs a result]there is a blurred perception ... of the possibility ofother forms of warfare equally as important andwhich require proparation to an equal degreu,1

Unable to generate enthusiasm for their concept of awarfighting Army, senior officers thus bowed toprevailing fashion in adopting the language of de-terrence to explain Service needs, They hoped to or-ganize the Army, given adequate resources, for both

Deslgn for a New Army 53

a politically expedient role in deterrence and forfighting the wars that they fully expected to occurwhen deterrence failed.

The Army's rejection of massive retaliationand its skeptluiam about deterrence did not imply astatic view of how wars would be conducted. Onthe contrary, most officers believed that warfare hadentered a period of tremendous change. The pur-pose of warfare might remain constant, but Its con-duct was being altered by what Gavin described as"a technological revolution of the most profoundnature,"" As never before, the Army focused on asimple factor-technology.--as the principle deter-minant of how wars would be fought, Technologyundermined old assumptions, rendered traditionalpractices obsolete, and seemed to require a radicaloverhaul in the way that the Army equipped and or-ganized Itself, In the 1950s, according to two influ-ential soldier-scholars, "one of the few certainties isthe continual racing change in military technol-ogy,."" "The Army is burning Its military textbooks,"Taylor told a graduating class at the Command andGeneral Staff College, "to clear away the old andmake way for the new,""' A letter from LieutenantColonel William R. Kintner, an influential Armyplanner, to Henry Kissinger, then with ihe Councilon Foreign Relations, captures the spirit infectingthe Army as follows:

Thu new factor in evaluating the military equationis the dynamics Introduced by a rapidly shiftingweapons technology, In this sense, woapons are

54 The Pentomic Era

crucial since new weapons require constantrestructuring of forces and new strategy and tacticalconcepts, The upheaval this is causing in militarycircles is reflected in the fact that weapons ... aretending to become obsolescent before they even be-come operational, 1

Weapons technology meant, above all, nuclearweapons, Despite its rejection of massive retaliationthe Army was far from blind to the implications ofHiroshima. Although unwilling to rely on strategicnuclear weapons as the sole guarantor of Americannational security, most Army officers firmly be-lieved that nuclear weapons of a tactical varietywould decide the outcome of the next war, As anofficer wrote, in a rivalry between nuclear-equippedpowers "the one which best employs them, whichmolds superior organization and tactics around thenew tools of warfare, will possess an immense, per-haps decisive, advantage,'"" Moreover, few officersdoubted that nuclear weapons would make their ap-pearance on the battlefields of the next war. Mostagreed with a general officer who concluded that"as atomic weapons become relatively plentiful,they would also become 'conventional'."''" Anotherofficer noted with approval that "we are gettingover the trembles and are now going about the busi-nesa of working the atomic bomb into our weaponsystems.' 14 Indeed, once they had stopped trem-bling Army officers loosed a flood of discussionabout nuclear issues. The contents of Military Re-view, the Army's foremost professional journal, pro-vide an interesting Indicator, The index of theReview's Volume 33, covering the period April

D~esign for a New Army 55t

1Y53-March 1954, lists only two items under"atomic warfare," Neither was a full-length article.The number of "atomic" entries incree'sed with eachyear; Volume 38 (April 1858-March 1959), for ex-ample, contahnwd 36 entries, most of article length,

Yet coming to terms witth this atomic: revolu-tion did not require the Army to sever its ties to thepast. Indeed, in many respects American militaryhistory--as far back as the Civil War and as recentas Koreaa-had predisposed the Army to embracenuclear weapons. The American approach to warlong had favored the substitution of technology formanpower as a method of achieving military suc-cess withl fewer casualties. Adding nuclear weaponsto the Army's arsenal promised to reap such savingson an unprecedented scale, in thu words of one offi-cer, "the American tradition of lusingi machineryand technology to save manpower" had established" an unmistakable requirement for tactitcal nuclearweaponls."'

Consistent with this preference for machines-over-men was the Army's perennial position in thedebate on whether manuuver or firepower providedthe decisive Ingredient in land combat. in practice(though not always In published doctrine), theArmy traditionally had com• clown ini favor of fir'e-power. Lieutenant Colonel George 13. Pickett. later amajor general, called this emphasis on firepower" our military heritage *, initially tconceived byGeneral Ulysses S. Grant In front of Petersburg, in1864," The Americaii Army long had recognized ar-tillery as the "King of Battle." Pickett approvinglytraced this primacy of firepower as far forward as

586 The Pentomic Era

Korea, where the "'Van Fleet' day of fire" hadplaced a similar emphasis on "volume of fire tosmother the enemy defenders," Even withoutnuclear weapons, said Pickett, "Korea showed thatfirepower defeats manpower in almost every en-counter."'" To most officers in the Immediate after-math of Korea nuclear weapons seemed only tocarry this "ascendancy of firepower" to its logicaland ultimate conclusion,' 7 General Willard G,Wyman, commanding the Continental Army Com-mand (CONARC), pointed to the implications ofthis notion, Thanks to nuclear weapons, he de-Oared, "tactical firepower alone can now accom-plish the purpose of maneuver.""' Thus, in the viewof the officer responsible for developing Army dotu-trino, nuclear weapons had made maneuverobsolete,

For what purpose would the Army employsuch awesome weapons? Traditionally, Americansoldiers had defined the proper objective of militaryaction to be the destr'uctiln of the elminy force, E'x-porlence In Korea had both reinforced this view andexpanded the groundwork for adopting tactical nu-clear weapons,

In Korea, the Army had gained extensive expe.rIence fIghting first North Korean and then Red Chli-nese forces, After the war soldiers extrtpolattd fromtheir experiences to draw general conclusions aboutthe tactics that communist armies would employ infuture wars, Many concluded that communists didnot share the Western regard for human life, Poor inmost of the resources needed to conduct war, com.munist countries made good their material short-age through the prodigious expenditure oif the

Design for a New Army 57

manpower that they possessed in plenty, The "hu-man wave" or "human soa" attacks in Korea werethe result, Reflecting an assumption commonthroughouL much of the Army in the 1950s, one of-ficer concluded that the "disregard of human losses... by Chinese Communist forces in Korea" wouldbe "a standard tactic of any Soviet indoctrinatedforce,""'

Here again the apparent advantages of nuclearweapons meshed well with preconceived notionscommon in the officer corps, Communist tacticsseemed to demand the bigger bang that tactical nu-clear weapons would provide. As one militarywriter concluded, only nuclear weapons could helpthe United States "avoid the ruinous situation ofhaving to meet the hordes of communism malt forman, gun for gun _ ,"," And another book by a pairof well-known Army strategists extolled nuclearweapons as a "devastating rebuttal to 'human sea'tactics resorted to by aggressors utterly Indifferentto casualties., .21

Thus, a traditional bias toward technology, apenchant for firepower, and expoctatitns regardingcommunist tactics all predisposed the Army towardtactical nuclear weapons in tho1 A5{s even us thearmy was challenging the utility of strategic nuclearweapons. Yet countervailing factors, no less impor-tant, also were at play, These factors raised doubtsas to whether tactical nuclear weapons alone werethe panaceas that their advocates claimed. Thesefactors, as a result, complicated the business ofredefining landpower for the 1t05)s and beyond,

Faith in the primacy of firepower and fright-ening images of communist "human wave" tacticsdid not comprise the Koroan War's entire legacy to

58 The Pontomnic Era

American military thinking. The war also broughtabout indelible changes in the concept of readiness.Before June 1950, with few exceptions, Intensivetrain-up periods had preceded the commitment ofAmnericaii ground forces to combat operations. Afterthe declaration of hostilities, rather than immediatefighting, a crash training program Intending to bringUS forces up to an adequate standard of proficiencywas the norm, D)ependinig on the opponent, thetraining program may have been brief, as in 1898, ormuch longer, an In 1917-1918. In any case, the ex-pectation of conducting such training beforecommitting e~ven regulars to combat reflected andreinforced the Indifferent level of readiness main-tained In the peacetime Army.

In some instances, the Army had paid dearlyfor it1 inability to shift quickly to it war-footing. Cer-tainly, the Initial Americon camnpaigns of WorldWar 11 painfully Illustrated the price of unpre-paredness. For the most part, however, the Armyavoided the implications of such failures. After' all,lIn the broad military sense, OpisocdeS such as Bittamior the Kasserine Pass* were Irrelevant, In the end

*Bataan Is it ponitimuin mid provinoo lit wostoril lkzoti, thuihh1 t1 titipitso, botwooll Maiiitit I111y andt thilt South Cihina SollEarly lto World War 11 (loconihor 11141-111oliiry 19342). thu 115-FIll~phio( ormy witlthdtw to hlitoutii, wlturo It (ntltttmiclthiodanfotughIt it holdinog tt1tioO thiu upstut tho Juploliosuý ti inutullo foriC~(OMjIOtN, '(hi Orowl tittully was ovtirwhtltintti oil It April 1tI42,Tho troops uuiphitrod t hurn woreobo thuc~tuu to tho iofu muiti"lDuith Mairch to tho primon uamp ituar 1:0twtutuuo; 111011401111pirishiud. Thui Kasserlne Pass is it two-millit-witdo guop hi uontrtt1,1II1iNIa, inill thG(rand Dorsal cuhain, alot xtionsloi of tilt) AtlasmlountadOns 'Thc pass was it koy point In thui ahliod offuosive InTwilsla li World War I1; tho pass was the woino of all ANIshmaookt hro ugi oil 203 huhruoary 14t43, hut was rot u koni withI votvyhoavy losses by LIS forces oil 25 Fobritary I 1041

Design for a New Army 59

we won anyway. So the Army found 11 easy afterWorld War 11, as it had after every other war, to re-vert to traditional habits: a peacetime routine morenotable for its easygoing pace than for its rigor.

fhe Korean War shattered such complacency"... and in this sense marked a decisive break with

the Army's past. The war began without warning,American occupation forces in Japan deployed di-rectly into combat within days of the North Koreaninvasion. The first units arriving in Korea, mostnotoriously Task Force Smith, were under strengthand short of equipment. The equipment that theyhad was in poor condition. Much of it was obsolete.Soldiers and leaders alike were ill-trained andlacked the stamina to withstand the ordeal of cw,;,bat. As an officei wrote in retrospect, they .h,played the "habitual, slapdash carelessness" that sooften had marked American forces going intocombat.- And as a direct result of the neglect thatthese units had suffered they endured humiliatingdefeat. Because of their failure the United Statescame within a hair's breadth of losing the war in itsfirst three months. 23

Although [lie United States managed to avertcomplete disaster in Korea, the Army could notdeny that it had been a near thing. If Korea were tobe a model for future Cold War confrontations-what a senior officer called "Limited WarOne"'-traditional standards of readiness no longerwould suffice.14 The prospects of no-notice inter-vention demanded units that were instantly avail-able for depioyment and prepared for combat. "Inthe past, we have always had time" to complete

60 The Pentomic Era

such preparations "after we had already declaredwar," declared General Williston B. Palmer. theArmy Vice Chief of Staff, in 1955. Henceforth, how-ever, "if there is one thing plain to every makn, it isthat we no longer have that kind of time at ourdisposal."",

Expectations for a no-notice war obliged thepost-Korea Army to maintain routinely an unprece-dented level of readiness, But where would thiscombat-ready Army be deploying? And what kindof war would It fight when it got there?

The Army could find rno simple answers tothese qiestions. The worldwide character of com.inunist aggression and the worldwide scale ofAmerican interests and military deploym',ents sug-gested that war could break out in any of a score oflocalities, In this regard, Korea served not to focusthe Army's attention oni Asia, but rather to relrinorcean awareness that the next war could well break outwhere least expected. Who, after all, would havepredicted before Junc 1950 that thn United Stateswould fight a major land war In Korea?

Nor was the Army at all certain what type ofwar It would fight. Surprisingly absent wereKorean-induced blinders that might have convincedArmy leaders that the next war would echo the onafought from 1950 to 1953. Instoad, the Army postu.lated a spectrum of contingencies that It might face.At tlh far end of th6 spectrum was all-out nuclearwarfare or a war featuring conventional forcci on ascale approaching World Wer II complemented bythe use of nuclear weapons. Of greater likelihoodwere lower-intensity conflicts, wars that

Design for a New Army 61

conventional forces fought with or wi'hout tacticalnuclear weaponr--guerrilla conflicts like theFrench fought In, lndochina, for example, or cam.paigns against the subversion at which communistsseenied so adept, And, of course, endless permuta-tions of these types of conflicts were seen, A warmight comoine conventional fighting on one frontwith guerrilla warfare on another, The war mightoccur in frozen wastes, or jungles, or desert; itmight begin with conventional weapons only andthen go nuclear. Dismissing all-out nuclear war asthe least likely of all contingencies, the Army sawits challenge as preparing itself to face all of theseother possibilities practically on a moment'snotice."' "In the uncertain world of tomorrow,"General Gavin wrote in 1955,

the United States faces the need for greater militarypreparedness than ever before., As the Free World'sleader, our nation seeks to prevent aggression Inany form, The military role in supporting this na-tional policy is to be able to win wars, large orsmall, atomic or non-atomic.This is a very big order. It establishes a new func-tion for the Army: that is, in addition to being ableto mobilize for a largo-scale war, the Army musthave sizable forces in being, ready to move by land,sea, or air and fight any time, any place,'7

It indeed was a hig order. While national leaders inthe thrall of the "big bang" foresaw an ever dimin-ishing utility of ground forces, the Army was claim-ing responsibilities of breathtaking scope anddifficulty,

02 The Pentomic Era

Reshaping the Army under such a multi-faceted mission-and doing so during a period ofconstrained budgets--.called for basic institutionalchanges. As a result, within the Service theEisenhower years sparked an outpouring of innova-tion, debate, and controversial reform.

The first problem to present itself was intimi.dating. The next war might assume any of a half-dozen forms and might occur in a variety ofenvironments. What, if anything, did each of thesehypothetical conflicts share in common? Would theArmy have to divide itself into distinct rompo-nents, each training for a specialized type of com-bat? Or would a universal methodology prepare theArmy as a whole for any war across the spectrum ofconflict?

These potentially troubling questions detainedthe Army only briefly. For the most part, the Serv-ice simply assumed away the issues these questionsraised. ro practical minded soldiers no question ex-isted about the necessity of maintaining an Armyconsisting of several armies-a nuclear army, a con-ventional army, and a counter-guerrilla army, onefor jungle warfare and another for mountains. Lim-ited resources ruled out such a course of action, ofcourse. Brigadier General William F. Train pointedout the consequences of these constraints in thesimplest terms as follows:

We cannot afford the luxury of one type unit tofight an atomic war and another to fight under non-atomic conditionG. Our tactics, organization, andequipment must be adaptable to either,•8

Deslp for a Now Army 63

General Taylor endorsed "this duality-the built-incapability to use atomic and non-atomic weapons inany combination" as a "basic necessity."10 Alongwith Taylor, most of the Army's leaders neverdoubted that such a dual capability could beachieved. They treated as dogma the propositionthat even in a nuclear age all wars remained alike intheir essentials, Certain common principles, de-scribed by General Lernintzer as "by their very na-ture ... immutable," governed the conduct of warand would continue to do so in the future,:" Onlyin the application of those principles did conflictchange from age to age.:"1 Little indication existsthat officers in the 1950s in practice made much useof the classic principles of war. Nonetheless, theunproven but widely accepted idea of their uni-fying relevance convinced many that finding a doc-trine applicable to war in all its varieties simplywas a matter of ingenuity and hard work,

If the challenge of organizing to do all thingsequally well still seemed daunting, the Army fur-ther reduced the scope of the problem with anotherkey assumption. Army leaders decided that conven-tional war simply was a lesser included case of nu-clear conflict, Nuclear war was the "worst case"-though not necessarily the most probable, If theArmy could develop techniques to fight a nuclearwar successfully, other less-demanding conflictswould be manageable. Consequently, even as it ar-gued with increasing vehemence against massive re-taliation, the Army bent its best efforts to developmethods that would make it an effective instrumentof nuclear warfare,

___ _ __ _ - ---- -=~ - -- .-

64 The Pentomri Era

Within remarkably short order, the Armyevolved a conceptual view of the course such a warwould follow and of the role that landpower wouldplay in it. Almost as quickly officers began tooutline a set of broad concepts-hardly more than avocabulary really-that prescribed the qualities theArmy would need to fight a nuclear war. Through-out the 1950s Army officers repeatedly referredback to the abstract generalities of this vocabulary.Much more slowly-and in the end without achiev-Ing real success-the Army struggled to convertthese concepts into concrete, practical methods forwarfighting,

In visualizing how the next war would occur,the Army drew a sharp distinction between stra-tegic and tactical nuclear weapons, As we haveseen, the Army had argued that the strategic arse-nals possessed by the United States and the SovietUnion offset each other, thereby creating a condi-tion of mutual deterrence, Army leaders also be-lieved that, even in the absence of such an offsettingbalance, the vast destructiveness of strategic nuclearweapons had made them militarily useless, Funda-mentally, the Army rejected strategic nuclear weap-ons because they made no sense In the context ofwar as a political act,

Such considerations did not diminish theArmy's enthusiasm for tactical nuclear weapons. Tomost soldiers small-yield nuclear weapons used insupport of battlefield operations were not a revolu-tionary development, Instead, they seemed a logicalculmination of the longstanding historical trend to-ward fielding more efficient sources of firepower.

Design for a New Army 65

Such weapons were noteworthy only as a singularexample of the technological genius that had be-come a hallmark of the American way of war, Theyseemed to provide the ultimate in technology, es-tablishing the qualitative edge that could compen-sate for American numerical inferiority.:'2

In the next war tactical nuclear weapons wouldprovide the great equalizer.:" The Army expectedwar to begin not with a big bang, .but with a smallbang. Rather than launching nuclea'i' attacks againstAmerican cities, communist forces would initiatehostilities with nibbling aggression "carefully ctal-culated in advance to be well below the high levelof mutual risk posed by the strategic nuclearthreat,"•' These attacks and initial American resist-ance would be conventional-perhaps resemblingthe fighting in Europe during World War 11, But todefend successfully-to defeat the aggressor-theArmy expected early in the war to resort to small-yield, limited-range, highly accurate nuclear weap-ons, delivered either by cannon or rocket, Theseweapons would provide the crucial differential, al-lowing outnumbered American fighters to win,

Yet-and this aspect was vitally important-Inachieving victory with these weapons the Armywould preserve the framework of traditional coni-bat, For the destructive power of these weaponsalone would not be sufficient to bring decision,Rather, their Importance would lie In their inatch-less ability to provide support to ground tactical op-erations. In this sense the Army viewed tacticalnuclear weapons not as small-scale strategic bombs,but as artillery of unprecedented effectiveness.

66 The Pentomic Era

Tactical nuclear weapons therefore would com-plement ground forces, not supplant them. Theywould help the ground arms break the enemy at-tack, and create conditions to allow our own armorand infantry to launch a counteroffensive, The re-quirement for sizable ground forces-to meet the at-tacker in close combat, eject him from friendly soil,and, if need be, occupy his territory.-remained in-tact, From this perspective, introducing tactical nu-clear weapons in no way jeopardized the historicrole of land power,""

Yet despite the survival of a traditional frame-work for combat, such a conflict would require newtechniques. To carry on with proven methods ofWorld War 1I and Korea would not do, especiallysince our adversary's ability and willingness to em-ploy nuclear weapons would trail only slightly be-hind our own, To win the next war the Armyneeded not only to master the techniques of fightingon a nuclear battlefield, but also to minimize the ef-fects of the other side's nuclear capability. With thisview in mind-still at a broad conceptual level-theArmy attempted to define the qualities that atomic-age forces needed to survive and to prevail,

Securing the force-preserving it from the ef-fects of nuclear attack-was a major concern. Pro-tection of trench and rampart no longer sufficud,The expense of constructing fortifications-as-suming that an Ai ny with a global mission knewwhere to construce them-promised to be astronom-ical: the Maginot Line seemed a trifle in compari-son. Worse, soldiers of the 1950s recalled vividlythe physiIal and moral debilitation of the French in

Design for a New Army 67

1940, beguiled by their line of concrete fortresses.That view--and the ultimate irrelevance of the Ma.ginot Line to the outcome of the Battle of France-hardly recommended static fortifications as the keyto security on a nuclear battlefield,

An alternative to burrowing into the earth wasto avoid presenting a target worthy of a nuclearweapon. Army planners assumed that even an eraof nuclear plenty would find combatants with onlya finite number of nuclear weapons. Prudent com-manders would reserve such weapons for the besttargets. Perhaps the best way to reduce the effects ofthe enemy's nuclear arsenal was to deprive him ofthose targets.

Rather than massing in expectation of an en-emy attack, American forces would disperse bothlaterally and in depth, "We see no lines of entrench-ment as we have known them in previous wars,"said General Wyman, adding the following:

No masses of men waiting in reserve, No roadsJammed with trucks moving to the front, In fact wesee no front, Only a battle area,

Within the battle area, to a depth of as much as 1O0miles or more, we see small mobile units deployedat intervals measured In miles instead of yards.37

Such scattered deployment would lessen theenemy's incentive to expend his tactical nuclear ar-senal, since he would have difficulty finding tar-gets worthy of such costly weapons. Even If he usedthem, spreading out US forces in what an officerdescribed as "dispersed and well-ventilated

08 The Pentomic Era

formations" would minimize the damage from anysingle weapon.3 8 Dispersion thus became the firstimperative in the Army's concept of nuclearwarfighting.

Of all the principles of war, security most lacksa positive aspect. Attention to the security of hisforce may keep a commander from losing a battle,but it cannot of itself bring victory, Army leaders inthe 1950s recognized that dispersion alone wouldnot enable them to prevail in the next war, Whetherattacking or defending, the successful commanderstill would have to concentrate his forces-howeverbriefly-to blunt the enemy's attack or to take ad-vantage of his vulnerabilities, Even on a nuclearbattlefield, mass did not entirely lose its impor-tance. The trick was to mass forces rapidly at thecritical time and place, to deliver the decisive blow,and then just as quickly to disperse again, therebyregaining the margin of safety against nuclear retali-ation. "Concentrate to fight-Disperse to live" wasone officer's succinct attempt to summarize a "for-mula for victory.""""

This rhythm of concentrate-strike-dispersewould tax the abilities of commanders and staffs,The area encompassing such operations necessarilywould be much greater than equivalent forces hadoccupied in earlier wars. And the tempo of execu.tion would quicken. Greater distance and morefluid movements would combine to complicate theproblems of getting forces to the right time andplace in a coherent pc iture and of coordinatingtheir use once there. The challenge, as GeneralGavin saw it, lay in "learning how to control the

Design for a New Army 69

amorphous mass of men who must be dispersedover an entire zone, an entire tract of land,dispersed thinly enough not to invite bomb blast,yet strongly enough to tackle the enemy ., ,,4 Flexi-bility, particularly as measured by responsive com-mand and control, consequently emerged as thesecond imperative for modern war. But flexibilitycomprised only one of the essentials needed for thefluid battles of the next war. No less important wasmobility. Colonel Edward L. Rowny, who afterretiring as a lieutenant general would become theReagan administration's chief arms negotiator, ex-pected that the ability to move forces rapidly wouldassume "unprecedented significance" in futurewars. He predicted that "words like 'fast,' 'quick,'Ispeed,' and 'now' will inevitably dominate the lan-guage describing the techniques of conductingatomic warfare."4 1

Such sentiments appeared repeatedly in mili-tary writings of the 1950s, The atomic-age Armywould require unprecedented mobility both tactic-ally and strategically. improving the Army's abilityto move troops on the battlefield meant expandingmechanization and exploring the promise of thehelicopter,4" Gains in mobility would allow com.menders to capitalize on the advantages of atomicfire support, As General Taylor told the Congress,"the problem of the ground commander will be tofind the enemy, to determine his configuration, andthen to destroy him by directing atomic fire uponhim .. ." At that juncture, he emphasized, "the com-mander will need instant mobility to exploit the ef-fects of this destructive fire,"143

70 The Pentomic Era

But given the country's global interests and thepossibility of the next war breaking out in anycorner of the world, the Army needed to movequickly not just on the battlefield, but to it as well.Improving strategic mobility required two things: amajor investment in long-range airlift by the AirForce; and a redesign of the Army to make its organ.izations and equipment air-transportable. 44

Dispersion. Flexibility. Mobility. These threetorms became the Army's watchwords in the yearsfollowing Korea, Army spokesmen referred to themrepeatedly--in congressional testimony, official re-ports, speeches, and articles, The terms took on thesemblance of mantras, chanted again and again,cherished for their simplicity; but in the end theyobscured as much as they enlightened. For despitethe Army's apparent success in identifying militaryImperatives of the atomic age, moving from the ab-stract to the concrete would prove much moreelusive,

4. Re-Equipping

T he touchstone of the Army officer corps afterKorea was the belief that land warfare retained

relevance in the atomic age. Circumstances mightoblige the Army to play a role in deterrence, but itsprimary purpose remained to fight the land battle,Techniques for fighting that battle might change,but principles andured, And the Importance of landforces continued undiminished, The Army directedmost of Its energies after Korea to proving thishypothesis.

However zealous their defense of traditionalcombat, Army leaders were not so Imprudoint as tothink that the could rely henceforth on traditionalhardware, The tempo and expansiveness of anatomic battlefield would demand technologies pro.viding improvements in speed, flexibility, range,and precision, comparable to what the atomic bombhad done for explosive power, The Army needednew equipment that would enable other battlefieldfunctions to catch up with the leap forward thatweapons effects had experienced since 1945.

Apart from the prospect of greater combat effec-tiveness, pursuing new technologies promised other

71

72 The' Pentunuic: lra

advantages as well. No less than the Services them-selves, the country as a whole had embraced theidea that technology was transforming warfare, Con-gressional support for expenditures on "old-fashioned" equipment was limited. The Congress,the media, and apparently the public reacted moreenthusiastically to military equipment that couldclaim to be Innovative nr imaginative,

Astute officers were not slow to pick tip on thecountry's mood; they proposed to turn this mood tothe Army's advantage. In the early 1050s, for exam-ple, Major General John B, Medaris, longtime chiefof the Army's missile program, counselled his col-leagues who still thought in ternis of traditionalweapons that they were "fighting a losing game,"He continued as follows:

If you put all your energy and effort Into Justifyingthese conventional weapons and ammunition, - Ithink you are going to get very little money of anykind. It is far easier to Justify a budget with modernitems that are popular ... Why don't you accentuatethe positive and go with that which is popular,since you carnot got the other stuff anyway?'

Other Army leaders were more circumspect butthey essentially agreed with Medaris, Combinedwith their belief that land forces needed newtechnologies to "catch up" with nuclear weapons,this assessment of what the public would bear pro-duced an outburst of interest In new and experi.mental equipment.

In retrospect, some of the notions that the Armytoyed with appear outlandish: disposable uniforms

Re-Equipping 73

made from "non-woven film;" maintenance-froetrucks that would be driven 1,000 miles and thendiscarded, and the use of cargo rockets for battle-field resupply.' Other more realistic proposalsmade a lasting impact on the Army and helpillustrate the real implications of this rush to hightechnology.

In taany respects, rockets and guided missilesprovided the most exciting and dynamic field ofmilitary technology in the 1950s. They promisedradical improvements in range, accuracy, reliability,and, when combined with nuclear warheads, In de-structive potential. Their promise was not lost onany of the Services. As a result, developmr-nt andcontrol cf guided missiles became the focus of in-tense inter-Service rivalry throughout tha post-Korea period, with competition between the Armyand Air Force especially heated. A letter written byGeneral Lomnitzer to General Charles Bolte twodays after Eisenhower's inauguration provides asuccinct statement of how Army Ihadership viewedthis competition. According to Lemnitzer, then theArmy's Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Re-search, the Air Force was "becoming more andmore aware of the fact that guided missiles are go-ing to be the aircraft of the future." As a result, theAir Force was "more and more anxious to gain themaximum amount of control over the entire guidedmissile field." But whatever the Air Force's inten-tions, c:oncluded Lemnltzer, "l can assure you thatwe are not going to let therm accomplish their ends.ý'

In the early years of their development, guidedmissiles had a three-fold promise. Looking well Into

74 The Pentomic Era

the future, rocketry held the key to spaceexploration. Of greater immediate interest, how-ever, were two military applications. Missileswould provide an improved capability to strike tar-gets deep in an enemy's rear, a capability thatnothing--not darkness, nor weather, nor enemydefenses-could stop. Such long-range attack mis-siles would surpass the destructive power of heavybombers. Moreover, they would combine precisionaccuracy with the certainty that they always wouldget through. The second military application, andthird prong of the three-fold promise, was air de-fense. Long-range aircraft carrying nuclear bombsposed an unprecedented threat to civilian popula-tions. The devastation that even a handful of suchbombs could cause served to impose a new, muchhigher standard of effectiveness on antiaircraftweapons. World War 11 gun systems lacked bothrange and accuracy. Many observers believed thatmissiles alone possessed the potential to interceptenemy bombers before they reached their targets,and destroy them without fall.

For each of these uses-space exploration,long-range attack, and air defense-the missile'sprimary medium would be the upper atmosphereand beyond. Despite this fact, at no time did theArmy consider that it might concede primacy inmissiles to the Air Force, Rather, with persistenceand no small amount of brashness, the Army el-bowed its way into prominence in the expandingfield of missile development. It did so despitesustained opposition from elsewhere in the DefenseDepartment.

Re-Equipping 75

To secure its niche, the Army vigorously pur-sued each of these potential uses of missiles. As aresult, the Army really operated three missile pro-grams: space exploration, in particular the effort toorbit an artificial satellite; air defense, includingsurface-to-air missiles (SAMe), and tactical surface.to-surface missiles (SSMs). Despite the space explo-ration program's implications for national security,the Army's primary Interest was public relations,By demonstrating its leadership in space research toa fascinated public the Army could both garner sup-port for a role in military missile development, andgo far toward shedding its image as technically themost backward of the Services. During the Eisen-hower years the Army luxuriated in its ability tothrow missiles farther and more accurately thananyone else-as with the 3,0)0-mile Redstone shotof September 1956. The Service basked in the pub-licity that it gained from solving technical problemssuch as "nosecone reentry," however remote theymight be from tactical requirements. And ulti-mately, of course, the Army salvaged the country'spride when its Explorer I achieved orbit as the firstAmerican satellite in January 1958, four months af-ter Sputnik I. We may doubt whether suc h suc-ceses really affected the popular view of the Armyat an Institution, or whether the public insteadcredited them to the ex-German scientists who hap-pened to work for the military. Without question,however, such accomplishments demnmstrated thatthe competence of the Army's missile team waswithout equal in the United States.

70 The Pentomic Era

No less important than these initial steps to-ward outer space was the question of air defense.From its earliest days in office, the Eisenhower ad-ministration showed an acute sensitivity to the So-viet bomber threat. An assessment adopted by theNSC on 22 July 1953, for example, declared that ex-isting defenses were "not now adequate either toprevent, neutralize, or seriously deter" Sovietattacks against the continental United States. Thereport further declared that "this condition consti-tutes an unacceptable risk to our nation's sur-vival."5 The risk was double-edged: Soviet bombersjeopardized American cities, and threatened SACbases housing US nuclear retaliatory forces. Fearsthat Soviet bombers thus reduced the credibility ofmassive retaliation persuaded the administrationthat continental defenses were essential and gener-ated support even among budget cutters for theirimprovement,

The Army and the Air Force both recognizedthe opportunities inherent in this growing interestIn continental defense. While including passivesteps, such as building shelters, hardening indus-trial plants, and dispersing ,'..C bombers, continen-tal defense focused primarily on active measures-such as destroying an attacker before he could drophis bombs. Assured of widespread support in andout of government, the continental air defense mis-sion would involve a formidable investment of peo-ple and equipment, involving a sizable slice of thedefense budget. A role In air defense, moreover,could allow the Army to lay claim to its ownl dis-tinct and unassailable contribution to deterrence,

Re-Equipping 77

"proving" its relevance to skeptics who questionedits role in an era of massive retaliation. In thissense, air defense offered a hedge against theArmy's bet that it eventually would demonstrate itscontinued utility as a ground combat force,

To which Service did the mission rightfully be-long? Despite Army attempts to depict continentalair defense as a logical extension of its old role incoastal defense, the Key West agreement of 1948had answered that question, explicitly assigning themission to the Air Force, Yet the agreement alsostated that a "primary function" of the Army was toorganize, train, and equip air defense units," Thedistinction between one's Service mission and an-other's primary function was a fine one that theagreement did little to explain. Were Army air de-fense units to protect the continental United States?Or were they merely Intended to defend the army inthe field? The Key West agreement shed no light onthose questions, In the following years the Armyused this ambiguity to advance the thesis that whilethe Air Force might rightfully claim all interceptoraircraft, the Army was the proponent for all ground-based antiair systems.

This claim, combined with the Army's techno-logical lead in developing antiaircraft weapon sys-tems, provided the rationale for the Army's massivecontinental air defense program of the 1950s. Thisprogram envisioned the activation of 150 air de-fense battalions deployed to protect major Ameri-can cities from New York to San Francisco,Initially, these battalions featured automatic can-non, the most modern being the radar-directed

78 The Pentomic Era

Skysweeper, Reflecting the trend toward missiles,however, the Army launched an effort to convert allits high-altitude air defenses to surface-to-air mis-siles (SAMs),

By 1954 the first results of this effort appearedwith the fielding of NIKE Ajax, winner of a sharpcompetition with the Air Force's Bomarc, Althoughthe Army quickly purchased some 10,000 Ajax mis-siles, the limited 25-mile range and puny conven-tional warhead of the Ajax just as quickly made itobsolescent. 7 By 1956, the Army already hadplunged into developing a replacement, NIKE Her-cules, a missile that offered both longer range and anuclear warhead.

At this point, the Air Force attempted to dis-rupt the relatively smooth progress of the Army'sSAM program. To defend Its own bases across thecountry, the Air Force announced that It would ac-quire Talos-a Navy missile then only in the pre-liminary stages of development-and would bypassAjax completely, The Air Force explained this deci-sion in terms of Ajax's shortcomings, which It as-serted were great. "Air Force Calls Army Nike Unfitto Guard Nation," proclaimed one headline in TheNew York Times," The Air Force openly questionedthe adequacy of the test program used to evaluateAjax, It mocked the Army's attempts to demonstratethe missile's effectiveness by showing over and overagain film footage of Ajax knocking down a "war-weary" B-17.1 Soviet bombers would be a great dealmore elusive, the Air Force contended, and a mis-sile with the range and altitude limitations of Ajaxwould have difficulty hitting them before they

-A_________ __ ___________________________ ___ ___ __ _____

Re.Equipping 79

=•=• !,... , :'•,•'/ : . . ,' i!I. I

US Army PhotoA NIKE missile guards America in 1957. Chicago's Loopis in the background, Such air defense pro•lrams offereda hedge against the Army's bet that It eventually woulddemonstrate its continued utility as a sround combatforce.

reached their bomb release point, Nor did the AirForce believe that Hercules would be much of animprovement,

The real issue was not which SAM should pro-tect Air Force bases, Rather, it was which Serviceshould control SAMs, Air Force leaders resentedthe way that "the Army [hadj stuck a foot ,,, intothe door of the air defense mission and in a shorttime got in all the way," They were convinced thatthe Army's objective was to "take over all missiledefenses and thereby wind up with an honest-to-goodness air defense mission," In effect overturningthe Key West agreement,"• By calling into publicquestion the Army's ability to protect the country

80 The Pentomic Era

from nuclear attack, the Air Force hoped to break itsrival's monopoly on SAMs,

By 1956 the Nike-Talos competition had flaredinto vituperative controversy that was an embar-rassment to the Eisenhower administration. Endingthe dispute required the direct intervention of Sec-retary Wilson. In November 1956 Wilson attemptedto settle the Issue by amending the Key West agree-ment in a way distinctly favoring the Army, Wilsondirected that, henceforth, in air defense the Armywould have exclusive jurisdiction over all "pointdefense" weapons, This jurisdiction would includeall SAMe with ranges up to 100 miles, a categoryencompassing both Nike and Tales. By way ofconsolation,Wilson conceded to the Air Force anebulous "area defense" mission along with SAMsof greater than 100 mile range, none of which cur-rently existed."

Wilson's directive killed Air Force aspirationsto control its own SAMs. For the Army, the direc-tive meant a confirmation of its SAM monopoly.The Service energetically pushed ahead with plansto phase out Ajax. By 1960, out of 26 existing NIKEbatteries 92 had been re-equipped with Hercules,Development of yet two more missiles-the me-dium altitude Hawk and antiballistic missile NIKE-Zeus-was well underway. The Army's success inusurping a major portion of the air defense missionwas complete,

In the Army's three-pronged missileprogram, only the development of tactical

-~~* ,'.,.

Re-Equipping 81

A NIKE missile knocks down a 5-17 drone.US Army Photos

PI-ra

82 The Pentomic Era

surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs) contributed di-rectly to its effort to adapt land power to an atomicbattlefield. Even this apparently Justifiable effort be-came the subject of bitter inter-Service rivalry. Forin defining its SSM requirements, the Army usedsuch an expansive concept of the tactical battlefieldas to collide with cherished Air Force prerogatives.

The search for ways to apply nuclear weaponsto the land battle actually predated the Korean War.Development of atomic artillery had begun shortlyafter World War I with efforts concentrating onproducing a nuclear round for an existing 280-nimgun that the Army had developed on an experimen-tal basis. Though shrouding Its early etforts in se-crecy, the Army began publicizing the program asthe Eisenhower administration took office. The280-mm gun figured prominently in Ike's inauguralparade. And in May 1953 it became the first artil-lery piece to fire a nuclear round successfully,Within months the Army had deployed a half-dozen of these monster-cannon to Europe to pro-vide nuclear fire support for NATO.

This achievement was astonishing, Yet the280-mm atomic gun was absurdly obsolete as soonas it arrived In the field. It possessed none of thequalities that the Army deemed necessary for thenew battlefield of the 1950s, Its limited 17-milerange gave it precious little capability to reachworthwhile targets. Commanders would have toplace the cannon precariously near the line of con-tact for it to have any use at all. The further forwardthe cannon was deployed, the more vulnerable itwould become to an enemy who would surely spare

Re-Equipping 83

e ',

US Army PhotoThe Army shows off its new NIKE Ajax missile duringan Armed Forces Day program in 1954, Ajax was awinner in competition with the Air Force's Bomarc in1954, but its limited range and puny warhead quicklymade Ajax obsolete.

no effort to eliminate US nuclear artillery, The merepossession of such a weapon would impose heavysecurity requirements on the local ground com-mander, hampering his ability to deal freely withthe enemy. As for mobility, the weapon had severedaficiencies. Weighing 83 tons, it was not

... ..... .

84 The Pentomic Era

transportable by even the largest aircraft, On theground, two tractors were required to move the can-non on Its carriage, one pushing and the otherpulling. Even then, the cannon remained road-bound, cumbersome, and slow moving,

Although impressive as a technological break-through, the 280-mm cannon failed to meet theArmy's requirements for a tactical atomic deliverysystem. Commanders needed a weapon that wouldpack an atomic punch, but that would be light, mo-bile, and able to reach targets deep In the enemy'srear. To a degree, the Army could meet these re-quirements by making smaller artillery nuclear ca-pable, The 8-inch gun and 155-mm huwitzer at leastoffered the advantage of being able to move quickly.And so the Army began developing nuclear roundsfor these weapons. But all artillery retained rangelimitations, Their potential for greater range madeSSMs an appealing-and seemingly necessary-alternative,

In retrospect, the Army's SSM program of the1950s is striking both for the variety of systemsdeveloped-with one variant replacing anotherwith startling rapidity-and for the spectrum ofcapabilities they encompassed, Such a variety ofsystems accurately reflected the Army's views of itsSSM requirements, As the pertinent Army Regula-tion stated, "the ground commander must be capa-ble of delivering atomic weapons from missiles of awide variety of ranges and uses," The regulationspecified that the Army's family of missiles had toinclude "short-range," "medium-range," and "long-range" models."l

Re-Equipping 85

US Army PhotoThe 280-mm atomic cannon in action In May 1953. Itfigured prominently in President Efisenhower's inaugu.ral parade and warn the first artillery piece to fire a flu.clear round successfully. Yet it was obsolete as soon asIt arrived in the field.

86 The Pentomic Era

What did such generalizations actually mean?Was the 75-mile range Corporal (which in 1953 be-came the Army's first operational missile) amedium-range or long-range weapon? If the Armycategorized Corporal in the medium band, what didit mean by long-range? How the Army chose to an-swer these questions concerned the Air Force inparticular.

As the Air Force saw It, the Army SSM programthreatened to usurp missions that rightfully werethe Air Force's. Citing the 1948 Key West agree-ment, the Air Force claimed sole responsibility furall combat occurring more than 50 miles into theenemy's rear, Even assuming a launch from posi-tions a safe distance behind friendly lines, Corporalwould reach the outer margins of the battle area al-lowed to the Army Mt Key West,':'

Corporal was a portent of things to come-tothe Air Force a threat, to the Army a promise, Intrms of range alone, it marked a vast improvementover the 280-mm gun, But Corporal had offsettingshortcomings of its own: it was an unwieldly46-feet long and liquid-fueled; and it required anawkward repositioning from its carrier beforelaunch, Corporal also lacked the responsiveness toprovide truly effective support, Like the 280-aimgun, Corporal provided no more than an interimsolution,

From Corporal, Army SSM development pro-ceeded in two directions: on the one hand, towardsmaller, more flexible systems designed to provideresponsible atomic fire to the lowest possible

Re-Equipping 87

US Army PhotoThe 280-mm atomic cannon prepared for movement.

echelon- and, on the other hand, toward long-rangemissiles that reached far beyond the traditional areaof concern of even the most senior groundcommander.

Following its success with Corporal, the Armydeveloped Redstone, a liquid-fueled missile thatcarried an atomic warhead arid was capable ofranges up to 240 miles. The Army launched the firstRedstone prototype in May 1953 and by 1956 al-ready had formed the first operational unit-the40th Field Artillery Missile Group-at Redstone Ar-senal, Alabama. Simultaneously, the Army begancrash development crf an intermediate-range ballis-tic missile (IRBM), the Jupiter. The Army completed

88 The Pentomic Era

a successful 1,500-mile test shot with the Jupitermissile in May 1957, apparently putting it wellahead in its competition with the Air Force to fieldthe first IRBM.

Even conceding the Army's view that the bat-tles of the next war would involve fighting to fargreater depths, a weapon with a 1,500-mile rangeseemed to exceed even the broadest definition ofthe ground battle. Publicly, the Army justified itslong-range missiles in two ways, It argued thatground commanders needed immediately at handthe means to strike targets well in the enemy's rear.Moreover, the Army claimed that World War I andKorea had demonstrated that it could not rely onthe Air Force to hit such targets. The Air Force'spreoccupation with heavy bombers and supersonicfighters suggested that the future would be no bet-ter. As Taylor told i conference of senior Armycommanders in 1956:

We haven't had close effective tactical air support;we cannot expect to have It In the future, The high-performance Air Force planes are flying away fromus; they have left the battlefieldh4

Besides being ill designed for requirements of tac-tical air support, Air Force aircraft also were inca-pable of flying in all conditions. According to MajorGeneral Holger N. Toftoy, Redstone Arsenal's com-mander, experience showed that "tactical supportaircraft were too often hampered by adverseweather; they were not the answer," What the Armyneeded was all-weather fire support "which can be

Re-Equipping so

US Army PhotoAn Army Corporal missile being readied for firing in1954. Corporal was a portent of things to come: a prom-lise for the Army, a threat to the Air Force.

used effectively, day or night, and withoutairsuperlority, and against which there are noknown countermeasures." Such, concluded GeneralToftoy, was "the reasoning behind the Army's ex-panding guided missile program,"",

90 The Pentomic Era

In terms of missions and claims on the defensebudget, however, the Army's acquisition of long-range missiles would occur at Air Force expense.Despite the Air Force's comparative robustnessthroughout the post-Korea era, that Service had nointention of allowing the Army anything that evenresembled a strategic weapon. Successful Armymissile initiatives could undercut the rationale forAir Force bomber or missile programs. Thus, theAir Force was determined that if the United Statesneeded an IRBM, it would be its own candidate,Thor.

Occurring at the same time as the feuding overSAMs, the Thor-Jupiter controversy also came torest on Secretary Wilson's desk. Wilson's attempt inNovember 1956 to untangle the Nike-Talos disputealso contained guidance on IRBMs. in this instance,however, Wilson ruled against the Army, giving theAir Force sole jurlsdiction over IRBM employment.The Army could continue to develop Jupiter, butwhen fielded the missile would come under AirForce control, Wilson also directed the Armyhenceforth to restrict its SSMs to missiles withranges less than 20 miles. All SSMs with greaterranges would belong to the Air Force.1"

Observers interpreted the Wilson memorandumas a clear-cut victory for the Air Force. In deprivingthe Army of Jupiter, it was. But Army leaders re-acted to Wilson's ruling in the spirit of the folk wis-dom then current in the Pentagon: "Nothing iscomplete, neither victory nor defeat."17 From this

Re.Equipping 91

A

US Army PhotoLaunch crews train with a Redstone missile in Germanyin 1950. Redstone was liquid.fueled and could carry anatomic warhead to ranges up to 240 miles,

perspective, Wilson's order was only a temporarysetback. When Neil H. McElroy succeeded Wilsonin late 1957 the Army petitioned for a modest ex-emption to begin "limited feasibility studies" on anew missile In the 500-mile category, McElroygranted this request, Armed with this narrow char-ter, the Army raced from mere studies into full.srale development, building Irresistible momentum

92 The Pentomic Era

for the missile that would be fielded as thePershing. Indeed, the Army chose to interpretMcElroy's action as all but reversing Wilson's direc-tive. As Secretary Brucker subsequently toldCongress:

With that relaxation [by McElroy], I think we haveenough encouragement, or a beckoning on the partof the Secretary of Defense, to indicate our require-ments if we get other missiles or breakthroughs orthings that we want. I would feel, for one, perfectlyfree to go back to him and say, "Look, we have hadthis exception to that order, and although I wasagainst the order in the first place, I feel that nowanother exception should be made ... similar to thePershing."'

Nearly buried in Brucker's tangled syntax was botha reassertion of the Army's prerogative to developlong-range missiles and a promise to define thatprerogative however the Army wished, In decadesahead, that definition would be a broad one.

While bureaucratic "turf battles" raged overwhich Service would control intermediate-rangemissiles, the Army's fielding of short-range missilesprogressed with far less controversy. In some re-spects, the Army appeared to view smaller SSMsless as complementing longer-range missiles than asproviding an alternative to them. For the Army tosponsor a weapon with a range of more than 1,000miles was at best marginally relevant to its efforts topreserve a traditional land force, Such weaponscould make little immediate contribution to the

Re-Equipping 93

Willbur M. Bruckerwas Secretary of theArmy during most ofthe Eisenhower era. Hereasserted the Army'sprerogalive to developlong-range missiles,and promised to definethat prerogative how-ever the Army wished.

US Army Photo

land battle, Indeed, even to consider using them inthat role was folly. Army leaders such as GeneralTaylor concluded that such weapons were too de-structive and too inaccurate to be used in proximityto friendly forces or noncombatants. "The more onereflects upon the use of atomic weapons in limitedwar situations," he told students at the Army WarCollege,

94 The Pentomic Era

the more one is impressed with the limitationswhich we would want to impose upon their em-ployment. The so-called tactical weapons are smallonly by comparison to the megaton yields of the so-called strategic weapons, They are highly destruc-tive to friendly peoples and friendly countries."'

Exercises and war games suggested that the use oflarge-yield weapons would cause widespreadcasualties among friendly troops, The new Armythat leaders such as Taylor sought was not simply aconventional force with a few oversized nuclear-tipped missiles tacked on as an afterthought.Instead, these new leaders wanted an Army thathad integrated nuclear capabilities into all of its op-erations. Achieving this capability would requirevastly smaller and much more accurate weapons,

By the time Taylor spoke, efforts to developsuch weapons had been underway for some time.First came Honest John, initially fielded in 1954.Fueled by solid propellant and launched directlyfrom its truck carrier, Honest John achieved majoradvances in responsiveness. Its 22-mile range, al-though only a fraction of that of Corporal, was atleast greater than that of the 280-mm gun. But Hon-est John was a free rocket rather than a guided mis-sile, and thus its accuracy left much to be desired.Of greater concern, its launch weight exceededthree tons, Honest John was too heavy to airliftaround the battlefield as post-Korea concepts of mo.bility demanded. So in 195B the Army began devel-oping Little John, another solid propellant freerocket, with a range of only 10 miles, but launchedfrom a small trailer and light enough to be carriedby helicopter, Little John was a division command-er's weapon.

Re-Equipping 95

US Army PhotoRotarians from Lawton, Oklahoma, learn about theArmy's Honest John rocket In 1957, Honest John wasfielded in 1054 and its 22-mile range was greater thanthat of the 280.mm atomic gun. Honest John wab fueledby solid propellant and was launched directly from itstruck carrier.

The Army next went a step further to providenuclear capability to the battalion commander en-gaged in the direct-fire war. This next step wasDavy Crockett. Though not fielded until 1961, DavyCrockett began development when the Army's nu-clear enthusiasm was at its height. It was a150-pound rocket that looked like a large mortar

96 The Pentamic Era

and lofted a miniature atomic warhead to a range ofonly a mile and a quartur, The initial intent was toprovide a man-packed version of Davy Crockett toInfantry battalions, But the Army also sketched outplans to adapt the weapon to a variety of deliverysystems-tanks, light armored vehicles, drones, anda hybrid aircraft called a "flying jeep,""'' Such pro-liferation of nuclear weapons--their integration Intovirtually all echelons, and the emphasis given to therole they would play-would make it almost Inevi-table that in combat against a first-class opponent,the Army would resort to their use at an early hour,Only a few soldiers in the 1950s questioned thewisdom of thus mortgaging the Army's success toits use of nuclear weapons.

Viewed on its own terms, the army's missileeffort, even a quarter of a century later, remains aremarkable achievement, The Army made excitingcontributions to the fledgling American space pro-gram, The strides made with both SSMs and SAMsin a few short years were impressive. The Service'sleadership, even dominance, in this field provides auseful corrective to the image of a forlorn Armyshorn of prestige and clout in Eisenhower'sWashington,

From another perspective, however, the Armymissile program merits fewer plaudits. The Army Inthe 1950s was like an aging corporation challengedto modernize or face extinction, The missile pro-gram let the Army off the hook. Missiles meant di-versification: they helped preserve the firm. But Indoing so, they absorbed resources and talent thatmight otherwise have gone to solving nettlesome

Re-Equipping 97

US Army Photo

An Army H.34 Choctaw helicopter carries an Army Lit-tle John rocket in 1960. Little John was a mobile missile,a solid propellant free rocket, with a range of 10 miles;it was designed as a division commander's weapon.

questions more closely related to the Army's centradpurpose.

98 The Pentomic Era

That this view especially was true in the case ofmissiles for continental air defense occurred toService leaders even then, In 1954, when newspa-pers quoted two junior officers as saying that theArmy was interested only in air defense weaponsthat would accompany field armies into combat,General Lemnitzer fired off a letter to their com-mander, warning him that such statements were"seriously damaging the Army's prestige and inter-ests. Whether we Ulke it or not," he added, "theArmy has an important role to play in continentaldefense ., Two years later, Taylor admitted thathe was "not happy about how much money we'respending" on continental defense, a mission lie de-scribed as "fixed and ,. stagnant." Developing airdefense missiles, continued Taylor, "costs lots ofmoney and it's not good for the Army _'"`2

The suggestion would be unfair that, in lav-ishing such attention on the secondary mission ofair defense, the Army was abdicating responsibilityfor the land battle. Yet taken as a whole the Armymissile program reflects a preoccupation with anexcessively narrow concept of war-despite theService's theoretical appreciation for a broaderspectrum of conflict. This enornaous investment inmissile development shows that in practice theArmy assumed that atomic weapons would be usedIn any future war and would determine Its outcome.Given this assumption, American soldiers came toview modernization as synonymous with findingways to apply atomic weapons to battle, Withmissiles absorbing a disproportionate share of theService's research and procurement dollars,

Re-Equipping 99

Artist's conception of the Army's planned "flying jeep,"a hybrid aircraft seen as a delivery system for DavyCrockett.

little remained for non-nuclear combat. As Tayloracknrowledged in 1959, "the big money has gone forthe weapons which are limited in employment togeneral war situations."'"

Consequently, a pronounced unevennessmarked the Army's modernization effort afterKorea. While the Service made great strides in de-veloping nuclear delivery systems and weapons toshoot down strategic bombers, elsewhere moderni-zation proceeded on half-rations. As General Gavintold the Congress in 1957, "because of the need to

10C The Pentomic Era

sapport the big ballistic missile program ... wehave had to cut back on the other things such as anew family of tanks."'2 4 Research and development(R&D) allocations for FY 1957 put Gavin's commentinto perspective. In that year, more than 43 percentof the Army's R&D effort went to missiles and nu-clear weapons. By comparison, only 4.5 percentwent to new vehicles, 4.3 percent to artillery, and 4percent to aircraft.2'5

This imbalance in investment meant that apartfrom missile advances already described the Armymade only slow progress toward reequipping itself,under the imperatives of combat that it proclaimedto be so Importent. Again and again Service leadorsannounced that, henceforth, with the Army's em-phasis on strategic mobility "equipment not capableof air transportation will be the exception."2" Butthe reality was quite different. The Army fieldedvery few air-transportable systems, and those thatdid appear, such as a miniature truck (nicknamedthe Army Mule) and the M56 90-mm selfpropelledantitank gun, were not notably successful.

Mechanized forces fared no better. As GeneralGavin's remark implied, improvements in tank de-sign ia the 1950s occurred in barely noticeable in-crements. The mechanization of irfantry-supposedly necessary to allow foot soldiers to sur-vive and operate on a nuclear battlefield--made lit-tle progress. The Army' T113 armored person-nel carrier (APC) spent most of the 1950s indevelopment and still had not been fully fieldedwhen the decade ended. As an officer commented,"despite a greatly revised organization aid tacticaldoctrine, combat units as usual are trying to do withthe same old equipment until the new gear

Re-Equipping 101

US Army PhotoA US Army sergeant prepares Davy Crockett for firing.Davy Crockett was a 150-pound rocket that looked likea large mortar and lofted a miniature atomic warheadto a range of only a mile and a quarter.

arrives."" One hardly cani avoid concluding thathad the Army spent less money on nuclear-tippedmissiles, the new gear would have arrived muchsooner.

5. Reorganizing:The Pentomic

Concept

A s we have seen, investment decisions favoringmissiles in the post-Korea era meant that hard-

ware more directly related to the land battle re-ceived short shrift. By emphasizing programs mostconducive to congressional and popular support-space exploration, high altitude air defense, andIRBMs-the Army allowed its needs for improvedconventional equipment to go unfulfilled, As a re-sult, when the Eisenhower era ended in 1961, veter-ans of Korea or even World War II would havefound most of the equipment in the Army's inven-tory quite familiar. Apart from missiles and to alesser degree aircraft, equipment modernization inthe post-Korea era proceeded at a snail's pace

Surprisingly, the Army's determination to de-velop combat units with greater depth, mobility,and flexibility survived despite the poor progress

103

104 The Pentomic Era

made toward fielding new equipment. Throughoutthe post-Korea era, the Army pushed ahead with ef-forts to reorganize its divisions consistent with thenew imperatives of combat, and to develop tacticsappropriate to either a nuclear or non-nuclearbattlefield.

The importance of dispersing to improvesurvivability against nuc;lear weapons exercised thegreatest influence on the structure of this new or-ganization, Dispersion meant that units within adivision necessarily would fight with greater auton-omy than they would have in earlier wars, On thedeep and fluid battlefield that Army theorists envi-sioned units would find themselves on theirown--seldom tied in with friendly units on theirflanks, unable to count on higher echelons to assistwith either direction or materiel. Such circum-stances would require maneuver units that wereself-contained and self-sustaining,

Combat units employed during World War IIand Korea did not possess those qualities, The regi-ments comprising the traditional division seemedtoo bulky and too dependent on support from else-where In the division for their operational effective-ness. In such a division even a minor wound to thehead threatened to paralyze all of the limbs. Leaderssuch as General Gavin believed that in an atomicage a combat unit should be like "an amorphous bi-ological cell,"' Even severe damage to one part of adivision composed of many cellular componentswould not preclude the rest from fighting on.

Determining the size of these cells was critical,Reinforcing the traditional infantry regiment with

Reorganizing 108

combat support (artillery and engineers) and servicesupport (signal and logistics) would give it the heftto fight independently. But experience suggestedthat such a reinforced regiment would lack quick-ness and flexibility. More importantly, such a con-glomeration would constitute an attractive nucleartarget, the loss of which would render the divisionall but ineffective, The problem, according to Gen-eral Gavin, was "to dissolve the [existing] organiza-tion down to the size of units you are not afraid oflosing to one [nuclear] blast."'

To Gavin and others the echelon that satisfiedthe criteria of being large enough to fight independ-ently but small enough to be expendable was thebattalion. But the battalion that the Army developedas the building block of its new division differedfrom its Korean War-vintage predecessor, so muchso that the Army gave it a new name: battle group.

The battle group's design was intended to bemore pliable and sustainable than traditional battal-ions, Pliability came from providing each battlegroup with five companies, with each company inturn having five platoons, The Army hoped thatwith a greater number of units at his disposal acommander would have more options for deployingforces in depth or for disposing them to fight in alldirections on a "non-linear" battlefield,

Sustainability came from permanently as.signing additional support assets. Each battle grouphad a headquarters and service company providingextensive reconnaissance, signal, maintenance, andmedical support, Each battle group also had its ownheavy mortar battery. While artillery formally

106 The Pentomic Era

remained a division. asset, its organization into fiveseparate units lent itself to semi-permanent distri-bution among each of the division's five battlegroups.•

Emphasizing the ubiquitous recurrence of thenumber five and the organization's intended em-ployment in atomic war, the Army christened thisnew structure the Pentomic Division, (See figure 2.)In practice, Pentomic units came in three types:airborne, infantry, and armored, Of the three, theairborne division most deserves examination. Itserved as the prototype of the Pentomic organiza-tion when the 101st Airborne Division converted tothat configuration in the fall of 1956, In addition,given the pervasive Influence of the so-called"Airborne Club" within the Army's senior leader-ship in the 195os, the new airborne division re-ceived the most sympathetic attention and mostclearly illustrates the Intent of the Pentomicconcept.

4

The Pentomic airborne division represented astriking departure from its predecessor, Bycombining the functions of the regiment and thebattalion in the new battle group, the division elim-inated a complete command echelon, Its pattern offive subordinate elements at each remaining ec;he-lon greatly Increased demands on commanders, Tobe sure, with its battle groups and support elementsfully air transportable, the airborne division alonemet the Army's stiff criterion for strategic mobility.But In doing so it sacrificed tanks, armored person.nel carriers, and cannon artillery heavier than105-mm, At the upper end of the scale, the new

Reorganizing 107

14*VsI

108 The Pentomic Era

division compensated for this lack of heavy weap-ons with Honest John rockets for nuclear fire sup-port and unarmored 90-mm and 106-mm antitankweapons. At the scale's lower end was a substantialincrease in light crew-served weapons, such asmortars and machine guns, The number of helicop-ters increased, too, from '10 to 37, an attempt to off-set a reduction in wheeled vehicles, The totalnumber of assigned soldiers dropped from slightlymore than 17,000 in the old division to 11,486 Inthe new.,' The division possessed only a thin logis-tics base, but the Army downplayed this potentialweakness with promises of "new logistical supportsystems and procedures.""

The real question was how the Pentomic dlvi-sion would fight, For tactics, even more than organ.ization, reveals the essence-and shortcomings-ofthe Pentomic experiment,

For offensive oporations, the Army developedtactics notable for their transparent simplicity. Asthe Army saw it, flanking maneuvers that classic-ally had described the acme of offensive operationswould lose their relevance on future battlefields.Henceforth, penetration would become the predom-Inant mode of attack, But it was penetration with adifference. As two Army theorists postulated, the"frontal assault, always tempting as tho most directroute to the enemy's vitals, would henceforth be.come the cheapest route after atomic weapons openthe way,"' Rather than the attacker pushing throughthe enemy's defenses, nuclear fires would blast agap through the enemy front before movement onthe ground even began. Swiftly concentrated

Reorganizing 109

maneuver units then would follow, dashing throughthe gap to perform "the technical tasks and finish-ing touches" of the attack as they rolled unimpededinto the enemy's rear."

These advancing ground forums would deploynot for heavy fighting-the initial nuclear prepara-tion having made that unnecessary-but for exploi-tation. Thu tactical requirements ware tight controland rapid movemnent, With this aspect in mind,units would attack in column. Such a formation ac-commodated high-speed movement and also facili-tated socurity since the shaken enemy would havedifficulty fixing the attacker's fast-moving spear-head. While such a narrow array could bring littlefirepower Immediately to bear, the Army did notsee this lack as a serious impedimentY

Army leaders billed their new offensive doc-trine as a revolutionary departure, But was it'?Granted, a Rommel or Guderlan* hardly wouldhave recognizod it as maneuver warfare, But anearlier generation of British and French staff officersfrom World War I would have grasped Its essentialsimmediately. Its principal aspect mirrored the ap-proach they had unflinchingly pursued throughyears of deadlocked trench warfare in France: astubborn faith in the ability of fires to shatterprepared defenses; a belief that preliminary

*Erwin Rommel. Gurinki field marshal. brilliiiant I) cot ndodan armored division in the attack on France in 1940; In Febru.ary 1941 he tnok the specially trained tank corps. thEm AfrikaKorps, Into Libya, For his succuso there, he earnud the namo"the desert fox," Heinz Guderlan, German goneral, was cnni-mandor in chie of armored units against Poland, wt:iu, France,1940, and Russia, 1941,

110 The Pentom|t Era

bombardments reduced the attacker's role tosecuring by rapid, controlled advances the gain thatfires had made possible;, and a consequent attemptto improve responsiveness and control by simpli-fying tactics--attacking straight ahead, using stereo-typed formations, and de-emphasizing factors suchas deception or surprise that complicate anoperation,

Army leaders in the 1950s did not acknowledgeany similaritlis between their thinking and dis-credited offensive doctrines of World War 1. Theybelieved that nuclear weapons made all the differ-ence. A few well-placed tactical warheads wouldaccomplish what millions of shells fired over peri-ods of days or weeks had failed to do in World War1. Armed with this faith In nuclear firepower, theArmy believed the only question to be the technicalone of learning how to pass exploitation forcesthrough an area scorched by nuclear fires.

By the middle of 1955 the Army tried to deni-onstrate that it had answered even that questionduring a series of nuclear tests designed to illustrateits new tactics. The most important was 3 well-publicized operation called Desert Rock VI con-ducted at Yucca Flat, Nevada, and involving acomposite armored force, Task Force Razor, post.tioned 3,000 motors (about two miles) from a30-kiloton (30,000 tons of TNT) atomic device.When the device was detonated a choking dust andterrifying flash of light Instantly filled the vehiclesnearest to ground zero, But neither vehicles norcrews appeared to suffer any adverse effects. Withina half-minute Task Iorce Razor had opened firewith its tank cannon and machine guns. Within

Reorganizing III

AW

US Army PhotoUS Army soldiers from a composite armored force,Task Force R1azor, took part In Operation Desert RockVI at Yuc~ca Fiat, Nevada, in 1955, The troops were posi-tioned 3,000 meters (almost two miles) from ground zerofor the detonation of a 30..kiloton atomic devicim (equiva-lent to 30,000 tons of TNT). Neither vehicles nor crewsappeared to suffer any adverse effects from theexplosion.

112 The Pentomic Era

three minutes communication had been estab-lished. And eight minutes after the blast, TaskForce Razor was advancing toward its objective,skirting within 900 meters of ground zero, even as amushroom cloud billowed 40,000 feet above the de-sort floor.1 "

It was a great show, impressing the ;orps ofnews reporters on hand for the occasion, Only a fewof those present noted the test's sterile laboratory-like conditions, Three times the Army had post-poned the test while waiting for just the rightweather conditions, The featureless desert, idealterrain for armor, was not a duplication of the for-ested hills, rivers, and urban complexes of WesternEurope. The activities of Tusk Force Razor-itselfhardly representative of an Army In which dis-mounted Infantry still predominated-left much tobe desired as a tactical exercise, A classified Armyafter-action report called the exercise "an un-realistic maneuver," devoid of tactical authenticity,Days had been spent positioning each armored ve-hicle, an undertaking which the Army report ac-knowledged would be "Impossible in a combatsituation." To prepare for the detonation, the taskforce had assumed an administrative posture, mnuk-Ing itself completely vulnerable to enemy action for30 minutes prior to H-hour, Radios and engineswere turned off, turrets rotated to the rear, sight ap-ertures sealed with tape, and all crews "buttonedup" inside their vehicles. Task Force Razor couldnot see, move, or shoot; communications were pos-sible only through a specially rigged network of tel-ephones linking each vehicle,

Reorganizing 113

After the detonation the task force had ad-vanced in a tight wedge formation to facilitatecontrol-with every vehicle monitoring a single ra-dio frequency and many turning on their lights tohelp in keeping station through the heavy dustthrown up by the blast, The Army had calibratedthe shot to minimize any radiation hazard, hopingthereby to permit the armor to attack directly acrossground zero. As it turned out, however, that whenthe lead elements reached a point 890 meters (a lit-tle over a half mile) from ground zero the radiationlevel inside the tanks had reached 10 roentgens perhour, forcing the commander to order a 90-degreeturn away from his assigned objective. The other-wise thorough Army report did not explore theimplications of having to exclude from any partici-pation in the exercise the more than 100 wheeledvehicles on which Task Force Hazor relied forreconaissance, medical evacuation, resupply, andmaintenance support,''

The Army staged exercises such as Desert RockVI to convince outsiders of the compatabillty ofground forces and nuclear weapons. As the after-action report of a subsequent test noted, In puttingtogether such exercises, "planning proceeeded fromthe basic decision that first priority be given todemonstrating the Army at Its best - The reportwent on to note that only "secondary considerationwas ,.. given to achieving such test and evaluationas could be effected."'" But the exercise agenda en-compassed more than generating propaganda aboutthe st vivability of equipment exposed to nuclearshocks or the trafficability of terrain after a nucleuarexplosion, To put to rest fears abou effects of a

114 The Pentomic Era

"friendly" nuclear blast on nearby troops, the testshad to involve actual units with real soldiers. TheArmy used the results of exercises such as DesertRock VI to publicize reassuring conclusions aboutthe effect of radiation and fallout.

For instance, an Army physician, writing afterDesert Rock VI, admonished soldiers for their "bug-aboo of radiation," a fear that he believed was basednot on fact but on an irrational "fear of sterility."The effects of radiation, he claimed, generally didnot extend beyond 1,500 meters (a mile) fromground zero. In predicting the effects of nuclearweapons, therefore, "radiation casualties are not im-portant in numbers." Anyway, he took comfort fromthe fact the' even victims of a 700-rad dose* wouldnot require "any significant attention" for at least aweek after exposure.' 3 In a similar vein, GeneralWyman declared in 1958 that the problem of radia-tion had "already been solved by science." Sani-tizing nuclear weapons not only made them"adaptive to a much wider variety of situations onthe battlefield," but made their employment "morelikely in view of the reduced danger to the civilianpopulation of the areas involved."'14

Observers in a decade more sensitized to theprospective horrors of nuclear weapons may findunconvincing such optimism about the ease withwhich soldiers and civilians will survive their ef-fects. But if the Army's new offensive doctrine

*Rdd (from RAdiation Absorbed Dose) Is the unit of ab.sorbed dose of ionizing radiation (X-rays, for example)equal to the amount of radiation that releases an energyof 100 ergs per gram of matter. The rad is used to meas-ure the effect of radiation on living soft tissue.

Reorganizing 115

lacked both an awareness of history and a sense ofrealism, the concepts developed for defending onan atomic battlefield were even more eccentric.

In 1956 Colonel Henry E. Kelly published anarticle entitled "Dig That Atomic Foxhole" thatcontained detailed guidance on how to do it."' Al-though Colonel Kelly's brief piece had no discern-ible impact, its concreteness and specificity made italmost unique among Army writings that discussedhow to defend in the 1950s, For in designing con-cepts for use against a nuclear-equipped attacker,the Army pursued its obsessive concern with dis-persion to its logical conclusion. The result was adoctrine that signalled a virtual abandonment of tra-ditional precepts.

Army leaders reasoned that the need to avoidconcentrating friendly troops had made linear de-fenses obsolete. The threat of the enemy's nuclearweapons no longer would permit forces to defendalong a single thickened front with units carefullytied in on their flanks. Such a daisy-chain defensewould be identifiable, targetable, and easily de-stroyed. Considerations of secutity therefore de.nianded that units spread themselves in greatdepth. Yet prescribing dispersion raised its ownproblems: how could dispersed forcs muster thecombat power to stop an attacker?

The concept that eventually emerged was areadefense. In its simplest terms, this tactic consistedof establishing what General Wyman called "smallislands of resistance widely separated over the mostfavorable terrain.""' Each island w&s a battle groupsituated on key terrain, organized •nio a defensive

116 The Pentomic Era

perimeter, and fighting an essentially independentbattle, The division would have no reserve as such;even battle gr:ups disposed In depth would have aprimary mission of defending in place.

Essential to understanding the concept was anappreciation of what the Army now meant by "keyterrain." As Lieutenant Colonel James W. Edwardscommented, the existing notion of key terrain"which stresses fields of fire, concealment, observa-tion, and natural obstacles is rapidly becomingobsolete,."I To seize the high ground, once the de-fender's fundamental axiom, now marked theheight of folly, In a nuclear era, according to MajorGeneral Hamilton H. Howze, "any force occupyingthe highest hill will be instantly detected and asquickly obliterated.""8 Henceforth, the value of ter-rain stemmed not from any immediate utility It of-fered the defender, but from the indirect advantagegained by denying it to the attacker. No motorizedattacker could sustain an assault without main-taining his lines of communications unbroken. Evena momentary interruption in the flow of fuel, am-,munition, and spare parts would cripple the most

successful offensive. This modern Achilles heelgave key terrain its new definition. Colonel Ed-wards concluded that henceforth critical terrainwould be the ground which, if occupied, "will denythe enemy the use of supply lines," The commanderwho anchored his islands of resistance to such ter-rain would "enmesh the enemy in a web of defen-sive perimeters and then ... strangle him bydenying him logistic support."'"

Colonel Edwards viewed the elements of thisdefensive web as static, forcing the eneony to attack

Reorganizing 117

them because of the important ground theycontrolled. General Howze, an armor officer andpioneer of modern Army aviation, took a more dy-namic view. The commander controlling several is-lands of resistance, he wrote, would "react to attackby moving fcrward certain groups while others per.haps move sideward or backward." Battle would re-semble "a game of chess, where pieces intermingleand each side seeks to neutralize or destroy the crit-ical parts of his opponent--in a word, to checkmatethe king."20

Although this truly was a bold design, it didnot lack problems, What was the proper interval be-tween those islands of resistanccs? The commandantof the Infantry School declared that considerationsof survivability prescribed "three to five miles be-tween battalion centers of mass,I'2t That writer andothers made vague references to covering the result-ant gaps through future improvements ini sur-veillance. Such expressions oi hope reully wereacknowledgements that neither existing target ac-quisition methods nor available direct-fire weaponscould cover such distances, The Army's islands ofresistance indeed would be islands, with the ex-pansos between thom all but conceded to theenemy.

The defenders, moreover, had to concern them-selves with the security of their own lines of com-municationis. Indeed, in General Howze's mobileversion of the area defense, defenders would be asdependent on uninterrupted logistical support asthe attacker. How would the division commanderhelp sustain widely scattered units in a battle thatallowed the enemy to permeate between defense

118 The Pentomic Era

positions and to engage them from all dii )ctions?General Howze saw the answer in an "increased useof air lines of communication."2 2 But this solutionwas futuristic, with limited immediate application,Recent history-most notoriously the Battle ofStalingrad *-gave little cause for confidence ineven the most determined efforts at aerial resupply,Nor did the aircraft available to the Pentomic divi-sion appear capable of meeting such demands. Asnoted earlier, the airborne division had only 37 hel-icopters, all with limitations in range and capacityinherent in the early types of that aircraft, Infantryand armored divisions had even fewer helicopters.

Denied resupply, the islands of resistancewould crumble, Isolation from other units wouldthreaten their self-confidence, and the casual will-ingness to accept soft spots seemed to invite defeatIn detail by a numerically superior foe. Only nu-clear weapons offered some hope of deliverance,Perhaps Instead of islands each American battlegroup would be a magnet-attracting concentrationsof the enemy that would surround it, Such concen-trations would present ideal targets for Americantactical nuclear weapons. Their use in such circum-stances promised to exact an enormous toll of theenemy. Unavoidably, of course, the magnet toowould suffer.

*The Battle of Stalingrad (summer of 1942-2 February1943) was a major turning point in World War II: theunsuccessful assault on Stalingrad marked the limit ofthe German advance In the East and the beginning of asuccessful Soviet counteroffensive. [Stalingrad now IsVolgograd, in the Russian Soviet Federated SocialistRepublic.)

Reorganizing 119

The area defense thus reinforced the Army'sgrowing dependence on nuclear weapons, For onlythe early and liberal use of such weapons couldmake up for the doctrine's deficiencies. Yet the con-sequences of such an act were grim, By relying onnuclear weapons to stave off defeat, the Army mightwell be called on to destroy itself in the process.The irrationality of such a course did not escapethoughtful soldiers.

How did these changes affect how the sol-dier felt about being a soldier? Of all the questionsconcerning the Army after Korea, this question maybe the most difficult to answer, and the one forwhich empirical evidence is most difficult to pro-vide. World War II and the events that followed putan end to the clubbiness of the old Army. The char-acter of the Army after World War lI-far largerthan any previous peacetime force, cumposedlargely of short-service draftees, and dependent onfrequent rotations to man large overseagarrisons-virtually ensured that its ethos would becentralized, bureaucratic, and impersonal.

The fighting in Korea reinforced such tenden-cies. Denied the chance to focus on victory as a fi-nal objective, commanders in the field sought othermeans of measuring operational efficiency, In prac-tice, however, the methods that were devised be-trayed only a tenuous relationship to real combateffectiveness. The Army In the field evinced a nowinterest in things that could be counted: friendlyand enemy casualties, ammunition expended,patrols conducted, and outposts manned.

120 The Pentomic Era

Once the Army legitimized such measures ofperformance, command-particularly at the higherlevels-evolved into a business of managing statis-tics to obtain a prescribed result. Higher headquar-ters assigned quotas on everything from how manyfoxholes to dig in a defensive position to theamount of equipment a unit could report lost incombat over a given period. When Lieutenant Gen-eral James Van Fleet commanded the Eighth USArmy in Korea, his favorite indicator was ammuni-tion consumption-the more the better, Accordingto General Taylor, "artillery officers got, if not deco.rated and promoted, at least commended for thenumber of rounds they fired"-regardless of whatthey hit."' Predictably, the emphasis on statisticsvastly increased the burden of paperwork imposedon companies and battalions. Worse, the pressureimposed on overburdened commanders to producethe right numbers-or else-steadily underminedthe reliability of their reports. 4

Post-Korea reforms intended to modernize theArmy caused this bureaucratic-managerial style tobecome further entrenched, The emphasis on hightechnology as a keynote of the new Army Inevitablyproduced the inclination to see soldiers less as war-riors than as operators and technicians,

The 1954 report of a presidential panel on de-fense personnel-the Cordiner Commission-re-flected this perspective. According to the CordinerReport, "radically accelerating technologicalchange" was forcing "every modern institution tocritically reappraise old practices and old traditionsas it battles to survive in this changing era," The

Reorganizing 121

military was no exception, "Fantastically complex"equipment was creating unprecedented require-ments for technical competence among Service per-sonnel, No longer would a soldier be evaluatedprimarily in terms of "discipline and physical fit-ness." The new measure of effectiveness was tech-nical competence. So too were demands on officerschanging. The future, according to the Cordiner Re-port, would require a "military officer-manager"schooled in "the techniques of cost accounting,budgeting, and a variety of industrial managementoperations."2

Advocates of efficiency in an organization ofsteadily increasing complexity viewed soldier-technicians not as individuals but as interchange-able parts coming off an inexhaustible assemblyline, With a large portion of the force serving an In-voluntary two-year hitch, the soldier seemed less amember of the Army "family" than a commod-ity-something to be fashioned, used up, and even-tually discarded in favor of a fresh replacement, Asa predictable result, military service became less acalling or way of life than a job-and usually a tem-porary one at that.

The entrance to the company orderly room be-came a revolving door, with personnel coming andgoing at an astonishing rate. During FY 1955, for ex-ample, the Army discharged 800,000 soldiers andbrought 500,000 new recruits on active duty, allwhile reducing its overall strength from 1.4 millionto 1,1 million,' The perpetual reassignment of per-sonnel overseas to sustain the multi-division forcesdeployed in Europe and Korea only accentuated

122 The Pentomic Era

this turbulence, A long-time observer of the Armyattempted to describe the effects of this turbulenceon soldiers as follows;

The system takes hold of them from the veryoutset-the formless, faceless, impersonel system,They are processed, classified, assigned to a train-ing unit-among strangers. They never get to feelany sense of identity or belonging-what's the use?They won't be there long, [Ordered overseas], theytravel with strangers, They are assigned to a unit inwhich they are strangers. [Within the unit], the non-coms who receive them and begin molding themInto real soldiers are rotated out before they've got-ten acquainted; their officers are being constantlychanged, [Very soonj their time is up and they'rerotated back to the United States, assigned some-where or other (any old where) to fill out their lastfew weeks, processed again, and released from ac-tive duty.21

Another writer, Colonel Richard W, Whitney,criticized the Service for "failing to provide thecombat arms soldier with a home in the Army and asense of belonging," A contributing factor, he be-lieved, was the Army's penchant for continuallydeactivating and reactivating units, regardless of thelength or distinction of their service records, ToWhitney, such a practice reflected "misguidedeconomy and administrative convenience" pursuedat the cost of unit esprit,""

The Army's senior leadership made one highlytouted effort to reduce personnel turbulence andbuild unit identification. Operation Gyroscope, awell-intentioned but ill-conceived plan to replace

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the individual replacement system with one of unitrotation, was announced in the fall of 1954 for im-plementation the following summer, Gyroscope-the name chosen to suggest "rotation withstability"-would involve the regular exchange ofwhole divisions between oversea garrisons andposts in the United States, The Secretary of theArmy optimistically predicted that Gyroscopewould permit some soldiers "to spend their entirecareer with a single division." By alwayF returninga particular deployed division tn the same statesidepost, the Service also hoped to provide a better lifefor Army families,211

Unfortunately, Gyroscope had problems fromthe outset, Few stateside units were maintained attheir auLhorized strength, Consequently, preparingone outfit for movement overseas often meantdepleting others that already were understrengthand whose doubtful readiness suffered further as aresult, Within deployed units scheduled to return tothe United States, personnel who had served onlybriefly overseas-in particular two-year induc-tees-often were diverted to complete their hitch inother units within the same theatre, The net effectacross the Army was not to reduce turbulence but toaggravate it, After a certain amount of tinkering, theArmy tacitly admitted its failure and in 1959 aban-doned Gyroscope.,"

The transformation of soldiering in the1950s-epitomized by General Taylor's remark thatevery American officer carried a field marshal'sbaton, "not in his knapsack but in his briefcase"-

124 The Pentomic Era

resulted from the accumulation of many small, ap-parently inconsequential decisions.-"

No evidence exists that senior leaders antic-ipated the impact of those decisions on their profes-sion. Indeed, few of these leaders recognized howthe internal life of the Army waE changing. The sen-sitive ones who did, however, became uneasy aboutwhat they saw, Although an influential proponentof reform while Army Chief of Staff, Ridgway alsospoke out frequently In defense of the warrior ethicand traditional soldierly values, When Ridgwaycalled man "the supreme element in combat," hehad in mind not a skilled technician but someonestanding apart by reason of his "courage and endur-ance" and his "fighting hedrt."3' Yet consideredagainst the full flood of change that the Army expe-rienced in the 1950s, Ridgway's views seem hardlymore than a battered remnant of traditionalism,bypassed by the forces of technology and bureau-cratIzation, However romantic their appeal,Ridgway's sentiments remained irrelevant to whatmost members of the atomic-age Army recognizedas the experience of soldiering.

One who did grasp better than most the impli-cations of this new ethos was Roger W, Little. Ajunior officer in the 1950s, Little later became a pro-fessor of sociology. His article, "Solidarity is theKey to the Mass Army," published in February1955, captured better than any official documentwhat was happening to the Army after Korea, "Sol-diering," announced Little at the outset of his piece,"is no longer a way of life," The old Army hadvanished, In its place had emerged a force that was

Reorganizing 125

bigger, smarter, better paid, and more reliant on ma.chines, a "mass army in which the soldier has be.come more like the civilian, and the garrison morelike the city," In this new Army the "individualisticconception of military life" had become obsolete, Inan Army where "military units have become morelike crowds than ... regiments," relationships weretoo impersonal and transient for individualism tomatter, Members of this new mass Army, reflectedLittle, "don't really 'know' one another," adding:

The regiments are ... anonymous collections ofpeople, constantly changing before their membersdevelop common standards, end sharing few if anymemories of the battle or the bivouac, The mass sol-dier thinks of his role in the Army as a temporaryJob, rather than a "calling" or a vocation, and com-pares it with other civilian jobs rather than othermilitary jobs,

That soldiers would view themselves as civil-ians in uniform was a natural consequence of thenew Army's preoccupation with efficiency, Accord-ing to Little, "military organization was consciouslyadapted to the image of the industrial plant." Utilityand efficiency became the principal criteria for de-termining how to do things or whether to do themat all, Customs formerly justified as building espritor maintaining traditions were discarded, repack-aged, or modernized-as with the replacement ofthe soldier-musician who blew retreat by a "bugler... pressed Into a microgroove and regulated by thenight clerk at post headquarters,"

Ever narrowing specialization drasticallyshrank the core of common experience that all

126 The Pentomic Era

soldiers shared. Specialization also increased theproportion of soldiers whose skills dealt with ad-ministration and management rather than fighting,"Even the commander ultimately becomes a 'man-ager,'" wrote Little, isolated by his staff so that hisrelations with his men were "mechanical ratherthan personal." Soldiers no longer looked to theirunit as a source of assistance but to the city-likemilitary post that offered "supermarket services"operating on a scale and level of efficiency that noorderly room could match.

The future, predicted Little, would only furtheralign the Army with the values of the industrialplant and the modern city. To an increasing degreesoldiers and civilians would "seek the same re-wards" and "share the same standards," Thecriticality of technical skills that smart young draft-ees so adeptly mastered or carried from civilian lifewould reduce the importance of long-service sol-diers. Abandonment of the notion that "living andworking together over a long period of time" wereessential to a good outfit also would contribute tothe career soldier's demise, His departure furtherwould blur the distinction between life in and outof uniform, Mobility between civil and military lifewould expand as skills required of both becamecomparable. Combat would consist of coordinatingthose skills, a responsibility to be overseen by tech-nocrats drawn almost directly from civil life, helpedby a class of military managers who would in-fluence subordinates not by leadership but "byimpersonal managerial techniques." Such mass sol-diers still would win wars, Little bleakly insisted,

Reorganizing 127

but "they will expect it to be done in a husinesslikeway, without fanfare and trumpets, and then gohome.1'l"

US Army PhotoDavy Crockett (Light), XM-28, at Aberdeen ProvingGround in March 1061.

6. Reaction andRejection

W hen General Lyman Lemnitzer, Taylor's suc-cessor as Army Chief of Staff, proclaimed in

1959 that growing Soviet and American nuclear ar-senals were creating "the equivalent of strategic nu-clear disarmament," he was restating an old Armytheme that rapidly was becoming the conventionalwisdom.' The Army's long-held view-that stra-tegic nuclear weapons were not usable and that fu-ture threats to American security most likely wouldtake the form of conflicts below the threshold ofgeneral war-now was the informed public's viewas well. Acknowledging this shift in public opinion,General Bruce Clarke, speaking soon after Lem-nitzer, tried once and for all to put to rest theArmy's old fear that nuclear weapons had renderedthe soldier obsolete. According to Clarke, coin-mander of the Continental Army Command(CONARC), "that dangerous myth of the frantic fif-ties is almost as dead as a dodo."'2

Indeed, the approaching end of the decadeseemed to presage a resurgence in the Army's for-tunes. Notwithstanding Eisenhower's undiminishedpersonal popularity, by 1960 the concept of massiveretaliation had been thoroughly discredited.

129

130 The Pentomic Era

Although the Army's critique alone had notachieved this outcome, the Service's early and per-sistent dissent had been vindicated. Highly toutedproducts of the Army's modernization effort, withemphasis on nuclear weapons and missiles, were inthe field or due there shortly. The Pentomic con-cept, with its radically new organization and doc-trine for fighting either nuclear or non-nuclear wars,v ., '- place. By and large, the Ridgway-Taylor-,avin reform agenda was complete. Indeed, despite

the Army's difficulties in the 1950s, Service leaderswho reviewed the decade could look back on somesignificant and satisfying victories.

More importantly, they could look with opti-mism to the future. "Flexible Response," the strat-egy so persuasively presented by General Taylor inhis book The Uncertain Trumpet, was acquiring allthe trappings of an idea whose time had come,: Re-gardless of who won the 1960 presidential election,Eisenhower's departure from office certainly wouldmean new military policies that would increase theArmy's share of defense resources and give it amore prominent role in national security affairs.

Surprisingly, however, the mood of the Army atthe end of the decade did not reflect optimism, butan uneasiness about what had been accomplishedthus far, Many officers were having second thoughtsabout the way the Army had conducted its fightagainst the "New Look." Some began to expressdoubts about the direction in which the Army hadmoved, suggesting that in seeking to escape onecaptor the Service may have surrendered itself toanother, more dangerous one.

Reaction and Rejection 131

These second thoughts took several forms. Onecritique came from those 3keptical that the answerto challenges triggered by technological change layin yet more technology. These traditionalists re-sisted any deviation from the principle that man re-mained the most important factor in the Army andIn warfare itself. They questioned the notior thatnew weapons and tenhnical gadgetry could guaran-tee the Army's relevance and effectiveness, Despitemuch pious Army rhetoric to the contrary, theyfeared that changes effected within the Army in the1950s betrayed a tendency to trade traditional sol-dierly values for technocratic ones. And they re-fused to accept this approach. One particularlyeloquent spokesman for this view was S.L.A.Marshall, the journalist and military historian, a re-spected "insider" even though not a member of theregular Army establishment, Marshall was espe-cially critical of the Army's infatuation with nu-clear hardware at the expense of fighting skills. Toread current Army doctrine, he wrote, "one mightthink that the whole future is to be won through theaugmenting of fire power." His own reading of therecent past, and expectations for future wars, ledhim to a different conclusion. The enemy seldomwas so obliging as to provide a perfect nuclear tar-get. In most conflicts since 1945 the enemy had pre-sented only "elusive targets," often mingling withthe civilian population and operating without fixedlines of communications. "To go after such forceswith atomic weapons," observed Marshall, "wouldbe like hunting fleas with an elephant gun."4

132 The Pentomic Era

That seasoned military professionals shouldfall prey to such fallacious ideas especially both-ered Marshall. How was it possible, he reflected,that Hiroshima could so abruptly persuade soldiersthat "all things had changed for their profession, an-cient values been flushed down the drain, and theway of the fighter _. made sterile by the weight ofthe bomb?" Marshall saw the answer in the Army'sapparent compulsion to "genuflect" at the "altar ofmachine power," He noted with regret that

it is not just in the world of Christian Dior that whatis fashionable provides entree to the purse, We liveunder the sign of the ephemeral. When an armylooks outdated, its support falls away, Thore areother hungry services and some of their spokesmenmight be rash enough to consider doing the jobalone.

Adhering to fashion in order to ensure institu-tional survival had not been without cost. Reform,warned Marshalt, was a "runaway word, sometimesmaking greater problems than it solves,." Byinstituting reforms that denied the primacy of thehIdividual fighting man, the Army ignored the les.sons of history and courted disaster,

A second group of critics attacked the reformsof the 1950s from a more pragmatic perspective,Less sensitive than the traditionalists to threats tothe warrior ethic, these officers evaluated changeaccording to whether the change was realistic, prac-tical, and applicable to war as they understood it.Judging the reforms of the 1950s according to thosecriteria, they found much that was wanting.

Reaction and Rejection 133

Some questioned the Army's cavalier assump-tions about the falibility of conducting coherentoperations in the midst of nuclear war. In 1959, anofficer complained of "too many aspects of nuclearwarfare that we have vague or no answers to to-(lay."' Lieutenant General Arthur S. Collins, Jr., re-calling the 1950s asserted that "the Army hadn'tthought through the use of nuclear weapons; therewas a tremendous emphasis just to get some nuclearcapability, without regard to how it might be used."According to Collins, "the Army never related theweapon to the battlefield, and how you were goingto fight under the conditions that a nuclear warwould create In a forward area." The typical maneu-ver exercise or map problem assumed that the Armywould fight conventionally until it began to loseand then "we'd let loose several nuclear weapons"to reverse the tide. Collins recalled one particularscenario that relied on the use of a single 500-kiloton (500 tons of TNT) weapon as follows:

They were talking about a tactical nuclear war... inGermany somewhere between Stuttgart andMunich.... I raised the question, "Do you have anyidea of the amount of damage that would resultfrom that size bomb?" Having seen what one small20-KT weapon had done to Hiroshima and thecountryside, I could imagine what a 500.KT bombwould do in the Munich area, They just brushed thedamage question aside, and I did not consider thereply adequate, Then when you took into consider.ation the other weapons that had been fired in thatproblem, It just didn't make sense to me,?

134 The Pentomic Era

Equally serious questions arose about the prac-ticality of the Pentomic organization. Operationalcommand of a division designed for optimum flexi-bility turned out in the field to be awkward andunwieldy. The span of control demanded of com-manders exceeded the capability of even the mostable. Reflecting the absence of an intermediate bri-gade or regimental echelon, the division com-mander found himself directly concerned with theactivities of as many as 16 different subordinateunits. And the structure of the battle group itself,whatever its presumed merit in a nuclear environ-ment, proved ill-suited for conventional operations,Units did not acquire a genuine dual capability. In.stead, they found themselves organized almost ex.clusively for nuclear war even as expectations grewthat the next war would be non-nuclear, Command-ers found the tasking of organized Pentomic unitsespecially difficult. The inability to modify formalorganizations to suit the needs of a particular mis-sion reduced the division's effective combat power.To make matters worse, the Pentomic division's In-creased foxhole strength proved illusory, As orga-nized, the division proved unable to sustain itselfduring continuous operations, Commanders re-sorted to stripping combat units to bolster servicesupport elements too weak to support the division,"

Senior leaders consequently turned on thePentomnic experiment with surprising vehemence,Most officers refrained from criticizing the Pen-tomic concept too openly as long as Its architects re-mained on active duty. Recollections recorded yearslater, however, allowed officers to be more candid

Reaction and Rejection 135

and to express virtually unanimous opposition,General Hamilton H, Howze blasted the Pentomicconcept's "ridiculous aspects," which he character-iNed as "too redolent of Hollywood or MadisonAvenue."Iu General Donald V. Bennett dismissed thePentomic division as simply "a device to say 'Yes,the Army has moved into this nuclear age.'Bennett believed that deficiencies in mobility andlogistical depth rendered the division virtually inef-fective, "So it didn't work," he concluded withsome warmth,"' "If I sound bigoted on this, I am,"In General Paul L. Freeman's view, the Pentomic di-vision was "a mess." "Every time I think of the ...Pentomic division, I shudder," he said, "Thank Godwe never had to go to war with It,"" Even GeneralGeorge H, Decker, Leninitzer's successor as ArmyChief of Staff, concluded that the Pentomic divislonwas "a jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-none" con-cept and stated flatly that it was not "a suitable ve-hicle for combat,"1 2

Other officers found fault with the assumptionsthat had inspired the Pentomic concept, In a pene-trating article entitled "Verbal Defense," ColonelHenry E, Kelly assigned American tactical doctrinea failing grade on two counts, According to Kelly,Army doctrine always presumed that "the attuckerwill employ tactics obviously unfavorable to him-self," Worse, the Army's doctrine implied that "atheoretical concept can be practically implemented... although no means of execution exist," To any"difficult practical problem" that it encountered,Army doctrine offered only "a verbal solution"-the"virtuous words" of dispersion, flexibility, and

138 The Pentomic Era

mobility. Kelly had nothing against what he called"these magic words," but he doubted that an armycould acquire suf.h qualities merely by repeatingthe words over arnJ over again. "Reliance uponwords which ar" 'lot backed by practical ability,"warned Kelly, "is extremely dangerous,'""

In a similar vein, two instructors at the ArmyCommand and General Staff college argued that apredilection for defining the tactics of the next warin vague, "genuric terms" was creating a "popularmisconception of the ground battle." They worriedthat such terms might mislead American officersinto thinking that "a few well.placed nuclear weap-ons" would suffice to set the stage for a "grand ma-neuver to 'sweep up the remains"' of the enemy."Such generalities appeal to the imagination," theyconcluded "but are of only limited practical value."The Army's emphasis on new techniques and thepromise of futuristic technology seemed to beg thebasic question: "How do we fight today's battle withtoday's equipment?"'14

More fundamental still was the criticism ofthose who questioned the sense of even trying tobuild an Army equally capable of fighting a nuclearor non-nuclear war, Critics attacked the concept ofdual capability from both sides, Representing oneperspective was Colonel Francis X Bradley, whosearticle, "The Fallacy of Dual Capability," appearedin the October 1959 issue of Army, Bradley believedthat the Army's pursuit of a dual capability showeda refusal to acknowledge the realities of Sovietpower, In his view, those who believed thatthe next war could be conaluded using only

Reaction and Rejection 137

conventional weapons were naive. Given theUSSR's superior strength, any war against the Sovi-ets inevitably would face the United States with thechoice to "use nuclear weapons or accept defeat,"To think otherwise was to engage in self-deceptionand expose the nation either to blackmail or out.right disaster. To Bradley, the lesson was clear: "Wemust go nuclear."'"B

Bradley's forthright advocacy of nuclear warprovoked a diametrically opposed response, ArthurS. Collins, Jr,, then a colonel, answered Bradley inan article appearing In the next issue of Army. Col-lins began by expressing disbelief that "anythingworthwhile or meaningful can result from the em-ployment of nuclear weapons in war." Collins dis-missed as unrealistic efforts to differentiate betweentactical and strategic nuclear weapons, He couldfind "no rational explanation _.. of just now tacticalnuclear war will be kept limited-which is theoverriding requirement in this type of military ac-tion." He chastised the Army for failing to calculatethe impact of even small nuclear weapons onnearby noncombatants, He argued that "what mightbe a limited nuclear war to us might be the nuclearholocaust in the area of conflict."

As a result, excessive American reliance on nu-clear weapons to defend places like Europe would"encourage our allies to be neutral and to tell us togo home," Collins thought that the Army had doneno better In considering the effects of nuclear weap-ons on its own operations, "We talk about whatthese weapons can do for us, but we seldom discusswhat they can do to us," His own view was that as

138 The Pentomic Era

long as the country's most likely enemies possessednuclear weapons, "little advantage seems to begained by our use of them." All in all, Collins con.cluded that "our American enthusiasm for moregadgets and fewer men has carried us away" withresults that were wrongheaded and evendangerous,"

The Army's doctrine thus found Itself underfire from opposite directions, Bradley urged theArmy to abandon its hopes for a conventional con-flict and embrace the expectation of nuclear warfarewithout reservation. Collins, on the other hand, ar-gued that even the smallest nuclear weapons pos.sessed no practical utility whatsoever, He believedthat the Army's challenge was to fight and winwithout being pushed across the nuclear threshold,Both officers agreed on one thing only: that theArmy should chu,.k the whole notion of dual Cupa-bility as unrealistic and unobtainable,

Hoping to salvage that notion, and somehowreconcile the views of Bradley and Collins, ColonelWilliam E, DePuy came up with yet a third perspec-tive. DePuy was a soldier of considerable Insightwho as a sunior officer In the 1970s would become aprincipal architect of the Army's recovery afterVietnam, His response to Bradley and Collins, alsoappearing in Army, was entitled "The Case for aDual Capability,"

DePuy believed that In pursuing a dual capabil-ity the Army had followed "the only sensiblecourse," one that could be faulted only for "suffer-ling] from too thin a diet of resources," His articlesought to preserve dual capabillity by providing a

Reaction and Rejection 139

justification for the concept that reached beyond theconcerns of Bradley and Collins.

DePuy began by examining the capabilities ofthe nation's likely adversaries, above all the USSR.The Soviet threat to American national security, heasserted, was both conventional and nuclear, Inconsidering this double-edged threat, DePuy be-lieved that "suggest[ing] that we have a choice be-tween them" was 'grossly wrong ,.. and by sodoing suggest[ing] that we turn our backs upon cer-tain aspects of the Sovhet throat which may, in fact,do us in "

DePuy knew that tn the topic of dAfense, "na-tional temperament" Inclined Americans "to leanmore heavily upon. our technology than upon ourmanpower," He believed, nevertheless, that existingthreats to US security, If assessed objectively, didnot permit Americans to indulge that inclination, Afoe that had both great numerical strength and thelatest in military technology denied the UnitedStates the luxury of choosing to emphasize eithermachines or men, The country needed both, Theneed was Imperative, he believed, to "maintain arough symmetry of capabilities with the communistbloc in each category of force, or at some point wesimply will be faced with a bet we caunot cover,"To achieve this rough equivalence, he insisted,would require that American forces "be greatly in-creased in both conventional and nuclear capa-bilities, Increased in NATO, in the Far East, and instrategic reserve."

DePuy's analysis suggested an important shiftin emphasis. To a greater degree than Bradley or

140 The Pentomic Era

Collins, DePuy had anticipated forthcomingchanges in the Army's nuclear doctrine, The Armyinitially had justified tactical nuclear weapons asnecessary to make good the West's numerical inferi-ority. Although the Soviets had acquired the basicsecret of the bomb, the Army believed that theUnited States alone possessed the know-how tomake nuclear weapons small enough, accurateenough, and in sufficient quantity to be usable inland combat, Super weapons produced by superiortechnology would give the Army a war-winning ad-vantage that the Soviets would not be able to match,Unfortunately, American expectations regarding So-viet technological capabilities were disappointed.By the late 195os the Soviets had developed theirown family of formidable tactical nuclear weapons,As a result, attempts by the Army to justify suchweapons for their supposed warfighting edge nolonger had any credibility, DePuy's endorsement ofsuch weapons emphasized not the edge they pro-vided but the necessity of keeping up with anequivalent Soviet capability, More to the point, theobjective of keeping up no longer was to develop anarsenal for actual use; DePuy agreed completelywith Collins that any war fought with tactical nu-clear weapons would lead only to a senseless,"smoldering stalemate,"

The Army of the 1950s had spent billions In de-veloping nuclear weapons, It had undergone awrenching reorganization and rewritten its basictactical doctrine to gird itself for the expected do.mands of nuclear warfare, Yet scarcely had theArmy settled on Its new course when thinking

Reaction and Rejection 141

officers began to realize that Its nuclear weaponscould serve no purpose except to deter Soviet use oftheir own tactical nuclear arsenal-an arsenalwhose existence may well have been stimulated bythe energetic American endorsement of such weap.ons, Henceforth, wrote DePuy, the sole rational ob.ject of maintaining a tactical nuclear capability wasto be "strong enough to deny an enemy the chanceof victory through tactical nuclear warfare,""t

For all Its merit, DePuy's conclusion was notlacking in Irony, The Army had begun the Eisen-hower era attacking the concept of massive retalla.tion, Insisting that nuclear deterrence based onstrategic nuclear weapons inevitably would fail.The Army had assumed that when such failuresoccurred, American interests would require USforces to engage In combat-probably on a levelwell below that of general war, Because the "NewLook" threatened to eliminate the forces needed Inthe event that deterrence broke down, the Armyalso placed itself in opposition to the administra.tion's basic military policy,

Simultaneously, the Army instituted on its ownInitiative extensive reforms Intended to prepare forsuch wars-wars that the administration itself didnot expect even to come about, Yet having acquiredIts missiles and nuclear weapons, and havingadopted its Pentomic structure, the Army found it-self by the end of the 1950s organized not to fightbut almost solely to deter. From the perspective ofthe war deemed most likely to occur-or of the warthat actually did occur in Vietnam--the reforms ofthe 1950s unquestionably had made the Army a less

142 The Pentomic, Era

effective fighting force. In addition, these reformshad vastly complicated the problems of future mili-tary reformers by imposing on the Army an accu-mulation of nuclear weapons that would remainlong after short-lived dogmas such as the Pentomicconcept had been discarded, Corpural and HonestJohn-no less than their successors Pershing andLance-cast an Ineradicable pall over future at-tempts to define the purpose of land power and todevelop rational methods to use Its potential.

Considered in retrospect, Army reforms ofthe 1950s-seemingly so far-reaching at thetime-appear striking for their impermanence.When John F, Kennedy succeeded Eisenhower InJanuary 1961 and proceeded to Implement the con-cept of Flexible Respor.se, the Army abandoned its1950s Initiatives with almost unseemly haste. Battlegroups, Pentomic divisions, the emphasis on dis-persion and non-linearity, the quest for light forma-tions, the commitment to fighting with tacticalnuclear weapons: all quietly were shelved orunceremoniously dumped, Concepts hurriedly de-veloped as quickly lost their attraction, supercededby another wave of "new Ideas." Army publicationscrackled with a fresh vocabulary-brushfire wars,counterinsurgency, nation-building, specialforces-said to contain the essence of future wars.These were the concepts and skills that soldiers hadto master. After 1960, perceptive officers were nomore likely to speak out In favor of the Pentomicconcept than they were to call for a return to horsecavalry. Professional Journals instead featured

Reaction and Rejection 143

articles with titles like "Revolutionary War and Psy-chological Action," "Objectives and Methods ofCommunist Guerrilla Warfare," "When Wa Fight aSmall War," and "Antiguerrilla Operations-A CaseStudy From History."' 8 More than words were in-volved: soldiers of the early 1960s again wer vwhip-sawed by reorganization: a new divisional stru,.ture,new doctrine, new types of units-and before lung anew war in which to employ them.

Repeating the experience of the previous dec-ade, reforms of the 1960s sought to remake theArmy according to a self-generated inage of warfarethat the Army itself continued to revise with unfail-ing regularity. As a consequence, the Army rppentedthis proces again and again. By the mid-1970s anew doctrine, subsumed under the rubric "ActiveDefense," superceded counterinsurgency, itself auasualty of Vietnam. Withiu a half-dozen years theArmy discarded "Active Defense," replacing it with"AirLand Battle." Barely had the ink dried on themanual describing the principles of "AirLand Bat-tle" when that concept found itself if not sup-planted at least obliged to make room for anotherinnovation--"Light Infan~try."

The fitfulness of recent American militarythought stands in contrast to the orjderly and con-sistent evolition of Soviet doctrine. Consistency,especial!y if It implies stagnation, may not be avirtuc. On the other hand, neither is continuouschange masquerading as reform. At some point, thefrequency with which the leadership steps off in anew direction outstrips the institution's ability tofollow. However well intentioned, such change

144 The Pentomic Era

leads to disorientation and confusion ratht:r thanimprovement.

Why has the Army redefined its approach towar every few years? Objective factors have not re-quired such frequent change. Sihce World War II,the nation's role in world affairs, its vital Interests,and the perceived threat to those interests have re-Smained remarkably constant. Rathei than such fac-torL,, the absence of a consistent operational concepthas .nspired the Army's "new ideai,' with technol-ogy being used as a fig leaf to cover the changeswhile th9%, were being justified and attempts werekfing made to sell them,

The ethos of post-World War 1i America ac-counts in some measure for the Army's inability toadhere to sach a consistent outlook. After 1945,with most Americans believing that Hiroshima hadchanged all war irrevocably, the country showed lit-tle interest in considering the role that land forceshenceforth might play in national defense. Insteadof puncturing naive popular expectations aboutwarfare, the fighting in Korea strengthened them,creating a strong prejudice against engaging in anymore dirty land wars. Eisenhower's defense pro-grams signified the adoption of such thinking as na-tional policy, a turn of events made all the moredecisive by the President's military credentials.Designating deterrence as thq military's prtmarymission obliged Eisenhower to embark on a radicalrealignment of defense forces. The reduction ofresources permitted to the Army, while the mostobvious result of that realignment, wvas not, how-ever, its most Important effect. Of greater lasting

Reaction and Rejection 145

significance., Eisenhower's policies left the Armyshprn of its aelf-image ak the nation's primary fight.ing force, and groping for a worthy raison d'etriamong a people largely uninterested in the Service'sproblems.

Eisenhower understood fill wail how his poli-cies were afiectiug his old Service. As he observed+u Admiral Radford in 1956, "the lack of a doctrinethat assigns the Army a dotIrite and permanentminsion has left theni sonmewhat unsatisfied andeven bewildered, Their role is rather hazy to msanyof them.,""• a iienhower may even have felt somesympathy for the Army's predicament, but as Com-mander in Chief he insisted that the Army acceptthe diminished status that a strategy of deterrenceprescribed,

The savage cuts of the "New Look," theuncompromising stance of the President, and thecountry's general apathy toward the Service com-bined to give the Army's inevitable protective back-lash Its remarkable energy and its sometimesreckless character, In addition to positive aspects,such as efforts to "modernize," imprnve tacticalconcepts, and develop a more positive image, theArmy's campaign to defend itself also included pro.vocative jostling over roles and mics.o.t, attacks di-rected at the other Services, and progressivelyvirulent criticism of the President's own policies,Eisenhower was especially distressed by the growthof what he called "competitive publicity" amongthe Services, particularly when inter-Service rivalryresulted ia the "leaking" of classified information,"This habit of airing Service gripes In the press, he

146 The Pentomic Era

remarked in 1955, "might belong to a bunch of poll.ticians, not to the military."'2

Eisenhower failed to see that his own policieshad done much to provoke the behavior that hefound so distressing. The President might have beenable to contain inter-Service rivalry and gain agreater degree of support for his defense programshad he been more accommodating toward certainService interests-particularly the Army's need toretain a fully developed mission. Like so manyother senior officials in recent decades, however,Eisenhower chose to view Pentagon problems as or-ganizational ones. He believed that the controversyover his military policies reflected not substantiveconcerns but an absence of cooperation and unitywithin the Defense Department. Resolving that con-troversy he felt, simply was a matter of fosteringteamwork and broadmindedness. Yet his efforts toachieve unity by making the existing JCS eistablisb-ment work produced only disappointment, "So faras I am personally concerned," Eisenhower con-fided to his friend Swede Hazlett in 1956,

My most frustrating domestic problem is that of at-tempting to achieve any real coordination amongthe services.... I have tried to tell the Cniefs of Staff. that their most important function is their corpo.

rate work as a body of advisers to the Secretary ofDefense and to me..., Yet I have made little or noprogress in developing real corporate thinking.... Itry to make the Chiefs reali.-te .,. that they are menof sufficient stature, traininp and intelligence tothink of .,, the balance between minimun,

Reaction and Relection 147

requirements in the costly implements of war andthe health of our economy

Based on fhis kind of thinking, they habitually,when with me, give the impression that thetyl aregoing to work out arrangements that will keep thomilitary appropriations within manageableproportions and do it in a spirit of goodwill and ofgive and take,

Yet when each service puts down its minimum re-quirements foi its own military budgets for the fol.lowing year, and I add up the total, I find that theymount at a fantastic rate, There is seemingly no endto all oi this. Yet merely "getting tough" on my partis not an answer, I simply must find men who havethe breadth of understanding and devotion to theircountry rather than to a single service ...

More accurately, the President was seekingbroad-minded men as part of a reformed JCS organi-zation. He already had concluded that "the Chiefsof Staff system that we now have has failed,"' 1 Thisperception eventually led to the Defense Reorgani-zation Act of 105H, an attempt to Increase the au-thority of the Secretary of Defense and the ]CS atthe expense of the Services, Yet the specific contentof that legislation is of less interest than the mind-set it reflects: that the solution to deficiencies in thePentagon lay in reorganization to suppress Serviceperspectives in favor of those representing a joint orunified point of view,

Eisenhower believed that Service views inevita-bly were tainted by parochialism, a view widelyshared before and since. The President was mis-taken, however, in thinking that suppressing

148 The Pentomic Era

parochialism and reducing inter-Service rivalrywere the major military issues of the day. Theywere only symptomatic, The real question was nothow best to organize the military. Rather, as theArmy alone recognized, it was to identify the rangeof contingencies for which military forces shouldprepare in light of the expected requirements of na-tional security. For surely the Army was correct inasserting that the passive military role envisionedby massive retaliation was inadequate.

Shrewd enough in pointing out the fallicies ofmassive retaliation, the Army failed dismally incontriving an alternative to replace it. More thananything else, this failure explains the short-livednature of the reforms that the Army instituted in the1950s, Deluded by the chimera of nuclear weap-onry, hotly pursuing the false ideal of dual capabil.ity, driven by reasons of expediency to seek a sharein deterrence, the Army never was able to articulara coherent operrational concept that would bothovercome the reigning skepticism about land powerand provide a comprehensive strategy that over-came the deficiencies of massive retaliation.

The Incessant emphasis on technology was lit-tle more than an artful dodge concealing the empti-ness of the Army's thinking, The futurists who pro-claimed that changing technology was reshapingthe face of warfare succeeded only in laying theService open to doctrinal fads. Captivated by theprospect of turning the latest technological break-through to the benefit of short-term institutionalgoals, Service leaders charged off to develop thedoctrine, tactics, and organization needed to

Reaction and Rejection 149

convert technological promise into combat capabil-ity. The danger of this approach-to judge by the1950s-was that the Army's unfettered enthusiasmblinded It to the limits of technology in the overallequation of war and to the real proH ems that tech-nological change brings in its trail.

A recruiting poster for an ultra-modern, relevant Army

The contrast between the Army's attitude towardstrategic and tactical nuclear weapons provides thebest illustration, Inspired in part by the threat thatmassive retaliation posed to the Army's Interest,Service leaders fashioned a critique of strategic nu-clear weapons that was thorough, cogent, and wise.Convinced, nevertheless, that tactical variants ofnuclear weapons would be helpful in preserving theArmy's legitimacy, these same soldiers rebuilt the

150 The Pentomic Era

Service around missiles and low-yield nuclearweapons and plunged into the Ill-conceived,unrealistic Pentomic experiment. That experimentfailed and did the Army immeasurable harm, ajudgment corroborated by those who endured thePentomic Army and who junked it at the first op-portunity. With their critical faculties neutralizedby their anxiety over certain institutional needs.Service leaders had been stampeded into acceptinga cockeyed technological fix without grasping itsimplications.

Is this preoccupation with technology bad?Even if we conclude that the Army's preference forcertain. technologies in the 1950s was ill consid-ered, technological optimism at other times doesnot necessarily follow as inappropriate. After all,nothing is inherently wrong with technological in-novation. Certainly, habitual obsolescence is anumpromising path to follow in search of militaryexcellence, Yet a review of warfare since WorldWar 11 shows few instances in which technologicaladvantage has proven decisive. Instead, the recordprovides examples of superior technology power.less to avert defeat-as in the US experience inVietnam. The record contains at least one Instancein which technology hardly seemed relevant to awar's outcome: the reconquest of the Falklands byRoyal Marines and British infantrymen. Even in therealm of high-intensity conflict, the most brilliantvictories, such as those of the Israelis in the Six DayWar, have been won with aging, hand-me-downequipment,

This discussion is not meant to argue againstthe desirability of up-to-date material, But it sug-

Reaction and Rejection 151

gests that Americans may be missing the point inemphasizing technology as the cornerstone of mill.tary effectiveness. For the Army of the 1950s, benton preserving Its existence, this view certainly wasthe case. Reviewing the decade from the vantagepoint in 1960, two distinguished soldiers, ColonelGeorge A. Lincoln and Colonel Richard G, Stilwell,lamented the fact that the Army had expended "toomuch of the talent of our best minds to inter-Servicedebate and to the battle of the budget," Seizing onmissile and nuclear technology to free itself fromconditions imposed by the "New Look," the Armyhad fielded weapons that appeared promising intheory but whose "combat value ... against a nu-merically superior and nuclear-equipped foe isobscure." Lincoln and Stilwell doubted that tacticalnuclear weapons would ever serve any purposeapart from deterrence. Like other thoughtful sol.diers, they were discovering that an atomic armywas not a fighting army. Yet given the scope of theArmy's nuclear investment, they feared that theService would find it almost impossible to revertentirely to its previously conventional character. AsLincoln and Stilwell astutely noted, the Army'scommitment to nuclear weapons thus threatened to"chain our country to a strategy, even though thatstrategy has become questionable,"21 4

If the Army's compulsive commitment to nu-clear technology in the 1950s led to a strategic deadend, asking whether any alternative existed is a fairquestion, Given the benefit of hindsight. one suchalternative did exist. We can see today that theArmy's primary task down to the present has con-tinued to be precisely what it was in Korea: the ap-

152 Thu Pentomic Era

plication of force to maintain the global status quothat emerged from World War II, While the UnitedStates does not claim a formal empire, and the useof that term has severe pejorativa connotations, theArmy since 1945 has played the historic role of animperial defense force, called on repeatedly to pro-tect far-flung American interests threatened by glo-bal brushfires funned by the winds of politicalchange,

This role was as true of Korea in 1950 as it laterwould be of Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, andGrenada, Indeed, It is equally true regarding thelong-term US presence in Europe as part of NATOand the brief American intervention in Lebanon In1958; though in neither of those instances has pro.tecting the status quo involved fighting, Wether po-litically or morally these interventions have been"good" or "bad" is a question beyond the scope ofthis paper. From a military perspective, the essen-tial facts are that American interests repeatedlyhave required the Army to intervene overseas andthat when these interventions involve hostilities,the Army has engaged in combat of a traditionaland even somewhat old-fashioned character, In-deed, if recent American conflicts differ from earlierwars at all, this difference is less because of anynew technology they may involve than because ofthe pronounced impact of politics on their conduct,

In short, the model that the Army might haveadopted in the 1950s was an interventionist one, Incomparison to the Service's infatuation with hightechnology and dual capability, an interventionistmodel would have provided an operational conceptfar better suited to the tasks that political leaders

Reaction and Rejection 113

subsequently directed the Army to perform,Viewing itself as an instrument for intervention inhighly politicized conflicts of limited scale wouldhave enabled the Army over the long run to equip,organize, and train its soldiers in ways far more per.tinent to what they actually have been called on todo,

Granted, an American Army openly pro-claiming Itself to be an imperial police force wouldhave difficulty garnering popular or congressionalsupport, That statement holds as true today as itwould have for the 1950s, Adopting something likean interventionist model as an operational conceptaosumes that the Army would find ways to explainthe concept inoffensively, using terms suited toAmerican political discourse, The important pointwould not be the words, but the advantage gainedby being able to govern the Army's enormous inter-nal energies under a single, pertinent, unifying ideaof why the Service exists,

The military profession's Interest in historystems from more than intellectual curiosity,Historiographical debate does not attract soldiers tothe past; but the hope of identifying lessons withsome practical application does. Such an approach,however, is not without risk: superficial analysiseasily produces false or misleading analogies-withpotentially disastrous results, Nonetheless, if pur-sued with caution and intelligence, efforts to applyhistory are entirely legitimate and justify the pres-ent mtndedness that pervades military history, Dis-covering useful lessons from history requires that we

154 The Pentomic Ere

examine the past through a lens made up In part ofpresent-day concerns. Although such a utilitarianapproach to history may bother academic purists,this approach does not bother soldiers at all,

Soldiers of the 1980s rightly will ask whetherthe Army's experience of three decades ago has anyrelevance to questions that they face today, The an.swer is yes, emphatically so, Again today the Armyfind itself In a period of reassessment, Once more,Servico leadels talk about change that Is trans-forming the character of warfare, Many items highon today's military agenda in the United States-theutility of nuclear weapons; the impact of emergingtechnologies; the need for light, ultra-mo blileforces-are echoes of issues from 30 years ago. As aresult, the Army's efforts to address the problems ofthat day provide fertile ground for Identifying les-sons with application In the 1980s.

Chief among those lessons must be the impor-tance of possessing a clear understanding of theutility of force in the modern world, The Army can-not afford either to pretend that the destructivenessof modern weapons has made war obsolete, or topersuade itself that such weapons alone hold all theanswers to waging successful war, This issue is notone, of mere theoretical interest; it is the crux of thematter, As General Gavin observed to HenryKissinger In 1055, the realization that they "can nolonger use the products of human invention indis-criminately" has confronted soldiers with an "Intel-lectual problem" (if the first order: "For what pur-pose would one fight a war, and what would be theproper role of Armed Forces in any war?""' TheAirmy has yet to answer these questions in a satis-factory manner,

Reaction and Rejection 155

US Army PhotoLieutenant General James M. Gavin, Chief of Army Re.search and Development, with a model of the Redstonemissile In 1950. I-Is cautioned that the indiscriminateuse of the products of human invention ha. cnnfrontedsoldier, with the intellectual problem of the proper roleof armed forces in war,

156 The Pentomic Era

A second lesson is the value of treating Utopiantechnologies with a modicum of skepticism, With-out being Luddites,* soldiers must recognize thattechnology alone cannot guarantee fighting power;indeed in some respects the pell-mell pursuit oftechnology actually can upset the sensitive balanceof human factors that invests a force with genuinequalitative superiority in combat, As Martin VanCreveld has pointed out, modern wars repeatedlyaffirm the critical importance of fighting power, nottechnology, in providing the margin of victory,2"The US Army cannot afford to lose sight of thattruth,

A final lesson concerns the neglected virtues ofconsistency and follow-through. The skittishnessthat has haunted the Army since the 1950s, withstructural and doctrinal clhanges tripping over oneanother, has eroded the sophistication with whichsoldiers formerly viewed their profession. Aschanges in the way the Army plans to fight becomeroutine, the opportunity for mastering the essentialsof the military art and even the incentive to do sodecline. Frustration and cynicism result, reminis-cent of the old Roman warrior whose saying too of-ten is posted in modern ordvrly rooms as follows:

We trainod hard, but it raemed that every time wVwere beginning to form up into teams, we would be

* aihids of w r'kingmen In thi Industriol o:onltorg ol I)mliand

whol rlio nd Iotwof l i 1 8 ii is 1a i u, 'tho tlprlsingl hbogn iaNottIngbhamshiru, whrer groups of textilI workers, in the nomnoof it mythitial figurn milled Nod Iudd or king l udd, demtroyndknittiNg machilnms, it) which thoy ottrilutoid the provallinMune•mployment and low wages, No polil.,til aim was iivtolvedIn the]mo numvent, which did nut show iny ohiumilon, Th.,,motvortint wtu, stiuprmstd harshly by the gtovornmon

Reaction and Rejection 157

reorganized. I was to learin later In life that we tendto meet any new situation by reorganizing, end awonderful method it can be for creating the illusionof progiess while only producing confusion, ineffi.ciency, and demoralization.

Once it decides how to fight, the Army then mustprovide a stable and predictable environment inwhich its soldiers can develop the difficult skillsthat war will call on them to employ. Anything lessis a waste of time and potentially a waste of lives.

If we find fault with army policies and deci-slons dating from the 1950s, we should remind our-selves of the uncommonly difficult problems facingthe Service at that time, Such shortcomings as hind-sight may reveal never can diminish the stature ofan extraordinary generation of battle-proven sol-diers who confronted the challenges of the 1950swith integrity and imagination. To their eyes, thefuture was as difficult to discern as it is to our eyestoday. As we struggle to understand the militaryproblems of our own time we would be wise tolearn from their oxperience during the 1950s. At thesame time, in undertaking to address those prob-lems, we will serve the Army well if we can musterthe courage and determination that so exemplifiedthat earlier generation of military leaders.

Endnotes

Chapter 1

I, Maxwell D. Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet (NewYork, 1959), p. 108, The term Babylonian captivity (orexi'e) is commonly applied, in the history of israel, !'othe period from the fall ot Jerusalem (58b B,C,), when theHebrews were deported to Babylonia from Judea, to thereconstruction in Paleslinc of a new Jewish state (after538 B.C.): traditionally, the exile lasted about 70 years.The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar adopted the As-syrian policy of deporting conquered peoples to reducelocal nationalism, In 538 B.C. King Cyrus permitted theJews to return to their homelend. Various aspects of theExile aFnd the Restoration are described in the Old Testa-ment Books of Jeremiah, f.vekial, Daniel, Ezra, Nehe-rinah, 11 Kings, and II Chroulcles, (The term also refers tothe exile of the pope,, at Avignon from 1309 to 1377.)

2. The N•ew York Times, 13 january 1954.

3. These and 4tibsequent quotations are from NSC 16212,"Paslc National Security Policy," 30 October 1953, Rec-ord Group 273 (Records of the National Security Coun-cil), National Ai'chives; hereafter cited as k1G273, NA,

4. Russell F, Weigley, The American Way of War (New,York, 1973), pp. 399-400.

too

160 The Pentomir. Era

5. Annual Report of the Secretary of Defense (July 1,1959, to June 30, 1960) (Washington, DC, 1961), p. 34.

6. Robert H. Ferrell, ed. The Diary of James C. Hagerty(Bloomington, IN, 1983), p. 182.

7. "Recorded Summery of Addrebs to The AmericanPeople on The National Security and its Costs," 19 May1953, Public Papers of the President: Dwight D.F.isenhower (1953) (Washington, DC, 1960), p, 318.

Chapter 2

1. Historicul Hesome, Division IForce Structure, Activeand Rlese;'ve, It35M-J 63, undated. File 2-3.7/AC.A, Box68, Office of The Chief of Military History Manuscripts,R6cord Group 319 (Records of the Army Staff), NationalArchives; hereafter cited as OCMH Manuscripts, RG319,NA.

•. Annual Report of the Secretary of Defense (July, 1959,to June 30, 1960).

3. Hltorical Summary of Army Manpower and Person-nel Management System," 12 February 1fI65, File.. 37/AC.H, Box 69, OCMH Manuscripts, RG319, NA, p. 9and chart 3.

4. Colonel Kenneth G, Wickham, "What the CordinerReport Proposes," Army 7 (July 1957), p. 21. Between1954 and 1956, 132,000 officers In the grades lieutenantto lieutenant colonel quit the Army.

5, Major General Gerald I. Higgins to General MatthewD Ridgway, 8 June 1955, Box 20, The Papers Gf Matthew13, Ridgway, US Army Military History Institute. CarlisleBarracks, PA; hereafter cited as Ridgway Papers.

14.

•Endootes 181

8, Major Multissimus, "The Wearing of the Army

Green," Army 7 (May 1,957), p. 27,.

7. Major Forward, "CU*tain6 tftr the Army,'. The AriryCombat Forces Journal 6 (August 1,9W3), p. 52

8. "A Program for-the Army," The Army Combat Forces

Journal 6 (Sentember 1955)1 p.1.9.

9, Major John H. Cushmaii, "What is the Army's Story,"The Army Combat Forces Journal .5 (Octobhr 19,5),p, 49.

10. Lyman L, Lemnitzor, "This In a Siixiflant !Begin-ning," The Army Combat Forces Jouir.al 6 (November1955), p. 62,

11, Walbur M. Bruckcr, "A Vital Eknient of Our Na-tional Strength," MilitaryReVlc'w •6 (July 1956) p, 5.

12. Reanrks by Lieutenant Colonel William D. Wise, USSenate Subcommittee of tho Cownt.littg' (vi: Apprvpria-tions, Departeriot of Deferise Appropriation for 1955,83d Congress, 2d Sehilon, 21 May 1954, p. 363.

13, Master Sergeant Stuart Queen, "The Big Picture,"Army Injf,.aiutio,; l).Dg.U'10 (February 1955) p. 34.

14, The Army's Opposltltn to NSC 5410 is recouiL.te,1 inAssistant Ohief of Staff, G3, Sunmnary of Major Eventsand Proble.nis, Fiseo .Ynoi, 1954, File kj-2 4/AA 1.954,Box 751, RG 319, NA.

-15, "Memorandunm oF Disci.i;sion at the 190th Meeting ofthe National Security Council," :ýri Marrnh 1954, FureignRelations of the /United States, 1952"-1tP4. Vol. H: Na-tional Security AI.ilrs, Part I (Washington, 1984), pp.639-41: hereafter cited as FR.JS, 1952-54,

16. Farrell, ad, The Diary of tomes Hagerty, p. 182, Thequotation Is from Hagartv'a diary entry for 1 February1955.

-.1

162 The Pentomic Era

17. Chief of Staff, US Army to ICS, comment on draftJCS Estimate of the Military Posture throughout the FreeWorld, Iy 1956 through Fy 1059 (JCS 2101/131), undated[jurie 1954] CCS 381 US [1-31-50), sec 37, Box 32, JCSGeographic Fileý 1954-1956, Record Group 218 (Recordsof the Joint Chiefs of Staff), National Archives; hereaftercit'id as RG 218, NA,18. Brief of Plan of Action for the joint StrategicCapabilities Plan, 23 November 1955, ISPC 877/299, CCS381 (11-29-49), Section 27, RG 218, NA, Emphasisadded,

19, "Memorandum by the President to the Secretary ofState," 8 September 1953, FRUS, 1952-1954, p. 461, Em-phasis In the original,

20, Interview with General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, 8 Feb-ruary 1985, The Pentagon, General Lemnitzer was Dep-u.ty Chief of Staff for Plans and Research during theperiod 1953 to 1955,21. Conversations between General Barksdule Hamlbttand Colonel lark Ridgway and Lieutenant Colonel PaulWolter, Senior Officer Debriefing Program, US Army Mil-itary History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA (1976), Sec-tion 4, p, 66,22. Ridgway to Secretary of the Army, Sub): National Se-curity Council, 30 April 1954, Box 30, Ridgway Papers,23. Ridgway to Secretary of the Army, Subj: Final Re-port, 9 June 1955, Box 30, Ridgway Papers,24. Colonel Andrew J. Goodpaster, "Memorandum forRecord: Conference of Joint Chiefs of Staff with the Presi-dent," 10 February 1956, Box 4, White House Office Files(Office of the Staff Secretary, DOD Subseiies), Dwight D.Eisenhower: Papers as President of the United States,1953-1061, Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS; hereaftercited as Eisenhower Papers. Emphasis in the original.

Endnotes 163

25. Ridgway to the Special Assistant to the President forNational Security Affairs, Subj: Review of Basic NationalSecurity Policy, 22 November 1954, Box 30, RidgwayPapers, Emphasis in the original, This memorandum, re-vised by Ridgway in his own hand, became the basis ofhis presentation to the NSC.

26, "Memorandum of Discussion at the 227th Meeting ofthe National Security Council," 3 December 1954, FRUS,1952-1954, pp. 804-06.

27, Goodpaster, "Memorandum of Conference with thePresident," 22 December 1954, Box 3, Ann Whitman File(Ann Whitman Diary), Eisenhower Papers.

28. 7he New York Times, 4 January 1955.

29. FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations: Operations(September 1954), p. 5.

30, Colonel Shillelagh, ",,, trouble with cavalry is .

The Army Combat Forces Journal 5 (January 1.955), p. 35,

31, "Mission for the Army: The Winning of World WarIII," The Army Combat Forces journal 5 (February 1955),p. 16, The anonymous authors of this article are de-scribed as "a number of soldiers whose interest in theirprofession goes far beyond their daily duty,"

32, Associated Press ticker, 28 February [19551, Box 3,White House Office Files (Office of the Staff Secretary,Alphabetical Subseries), Eisenhower Papers,

33. Ridgway, Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B,Ridgway (New York, 1956), p. 317,

34, Ridgway's letter to Wilson, dated 27 June 1955, is re-printed in Soldier, pp. 323-332, Emphasis in theoriginal.

35, James L. Gavin, "We Can Solve Our Technical Diffi-culties," The Army Combat Forces journal 6 (November1955), p, 64.

________________________ ________________________________________________

164 The Pentomic Era

36, Associated Press ticker of Gavin's testimony, 28 June1956, JCS 471.6 (Guided Missiles.--1956), Box 56, Chair-man's Files: Admiral Radford, 1953-1957, RG 218, NA.Lewis L, Strauss to Admiral Arthur Radford, 28 June1956. Alfred Gruenther to Radford, 2 July 1956.

37, Taylor, Statement to Senate Armed Services Com.mittee, 20 February 19506, JCS 111 (1956-Budget(1958) ), Box 28, Chairman's File: Admiral Radford,1953-1957, BG 218, NA.

38, Rear Admiral Truman H. Hedding to Radford, Mili-lary Strategy and Posturo, I February 1956, JCS 381 (Mil-Itary Strategy and Posture), Box 47, Chairman's File:Admiral Radford, 1953-19,7, RG 218, NA.

39. Radford to Joint Chiefs, Strategic Concepts and theUse of US Military Forces, 28 March 1956.

40, The New York Times, 1i) May 1956.

41. Lieutenant General Clyde D. Eddleman to Hedding,The CNO Draft Flimsy re the JSOP Strategic Concept, un-dated [June 19561, ICS 381 (Military and Strategic Pos-ture, June--Decernber), Box 47, Chhairman's File: AdmiralRadford, 1953-1957, HG 218, NA.

42, Radford to Wilson, Formulation of loint StrategicObjectives Plan (ISOP), 25 April 1957, JCS 381 (MilitaryStrategy and Posture, June-tDec mber), Box 47, Chair.man's File: Admiral Radford, 1953-1957, RG 218, NA.

43. Gavln's book was War and Peace in the Space Age(New York, 1958). Taylor's was Uncertaln Trumpet.

Chapter 3

1. Taylor, remarks at The Army War College, 22 August1955, Box 5, The Papers of Maxwell D. Taylor, National

Endnotes 165

Defense University, Washington, DC; hereafter cited asTaylor Papers, Ridgway was equally adamant inopposing a civil defense mission for the Army, See hisFinal R9eport to Secretary Brucker, 9 June 1955, Yet twoyears later, Eisenhower was still expressing "consterna-tion at the reluctance of the Army to accept that as arole," The President was naively optimistic in thinkingthat the Army leadership would ever come around to hisway of thinking on this issue, John SD. Eisenhower,Memorandum of Conversation with the President, 20August 1957, Box 1, White House Office Files (Office ofthe Staff Secretary, DoD Subseries), Elsenhower Papers.2. Conversations Betweev. Lieutenant General Paul W.Caraway and Colonel H. flay, Senior Officers DebriefingProgram (1071), Sec. 8, p. 58.3, Ridgway, The Soldier and National Policy, remarks tita meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, 14 Febru.ary 1955, vol, 21, Records of Meetings, Archives of theCouncil on Foreign Relations, New York,

4, Taylor, The Army-An Appeal to the Record, speechto the Al Smith Memorial Dinner, New York, 20 October1055, Box 5, Taylor Papers.

5. Taylor, An Army Travelogue, speech to the Common-wealth Club of California, ljian Francisco, 31 October1955, Box 5, Taylor Papers,6I, Taylor, remarks to Army War Cclllnge, Carlisle Bar-racks, PA, 22 August 1955, box ), Taylor Papers.

7. Taylor, Security Through Deterrence, remarks toArmy War College, Carlisle Barracks, 20 August 1156,Box 9, Taylor Papers.

8, Gavin, War and Peace in the Space Age, p. 143.

9, Colonel George A, Lincoln and Lieutenant ColonelAmos A, Jordan, Jr., "Technology and the Changing

. ... ... ..

166 The Pentamic Era

Nature of General War," Military Review 37 (May 1957),p. 3,

10, Taylor, Address to the Graduating Class, Commandand General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 18June 1957, Box, 6, Taylor Papers,

11. Lieutenant Colonel William R, Klntner to HenryKissinger, 3 December 1955, vol, 61, Records of Groups,Archives of the Council on Foreign Relations, Kintner inretirement would become ambassador to Thailand andpresident of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, in1955, he participated with Kissinger in the Council caForeign Relations' study group on Nuclear Weapons andForeign Policy, Generals Gavin, Lemnitzer, and AndrewO'Meara were other Army participants, The conclusionsof the study group formed the basis for Kissinger's subse-quent book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (NewYork, 1957),

12. Colonel George C, Reinhardt, American Strategy Inthe Atomic Age, (Norman, OK, 1955), p. 58, An earlierand perhaps more influential statement of this viewpointcan be found In the 1952 report of Project Vista on AStudy of Ground and Air Toctical Warfare with SpecialReference to the Defense of Western Europe. That studyconcluded that the "tactical employment of atomicweapons against Soviet ground force targets may give theNATO armies the necessary margin of advantage." It rec-ommended accelerated efforts to provide the Army withthe proper mix of such weapons, Record Group 407 (Rec-ords of The Adiutant General's Files), National Archives,

13, Brigadier General Carl F, Fitzsche, "Tomorrow's In-fantry Today," The Army Combat Forces Journal 5 (April1955), p. 20.

14, Major Roderick A. Stamey, Jr., "Fire Power andSpeed Will Bent the Odds," The Army Combat ForcesJournal 6 (November 1955), p. 32,

Endnotev 167

15, "The Case for Tactical Nuclear Weapons," Army H(March 1956), p. 24.16, Lieutenant Colonel George B, Pickett, "Squeeze 'eaan' Blast 'am," Military Review 35 (September 1955), p.57, Pickett, "What Profiteth a Nation," Military Review34 (July 1954), p. 5.1 7. Lieutenant Colonel Clarence C. DeReus, "Throughthe Atomic Looking Glass," Military Reviow 35 (June1955), p. 11,

18. General Willard G. Wyman, "The United StatesArmy: Its Doctrine and Influence on US, Military Strat-egy," Military Review 37 (March 1058), p. 10,19. Pickett, "What Prafiteth a Nation?" p. 5.20. Reinhardt, American Strategy In the Atomic Age,p. 118.

21, Reinhardt and Kintner, Atomic Woupons in LandCombat (Hareisburg, PA, 1953), p. 55,22. Colonel Alexander D. Surles, Jr,, "Decision in theFace of Defeat," Military Review 34 (March 1955), p. 34,

23, T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War (New York,'1963), pp. 97-107 vividly describes the condition andfate of Task Force Smith,24, Conversations Between General Paul L. Freeman,USA (Ret.) and Colonel James N, Ellis, Senior OfficerOral History Program (1974), See also Ridgway, Soldier,pp, 286-7.

25, General WIllistom B, Palmer, "We Won't Have theTime," The Army Combat Forces journal 6 (October1955), p. 37,26. The Army's perspicacity did not extend to a recogni-tion of "revolutionary warfare" as a peculiar type that theArmy would confront. American officers did not drawany profound conclusions about the war In Indochina.

,0ý

16 The Peutomic Era

Little discussion of the French failure there appeared inAmerican military journals. That which did appear wasseldom helpful, Even Bernard B. Fall, an analyst of in-sight and experience, was telling American readern inlate 1,853 that the French experience could provide only"a few general lesons," Fall said that the Indochina war"cannot be considered a modern war since one of the op-ponents is entirely devoid of armor and air pnwer," Fall,"Indochina: The Sevwn Year Dilemma," Military Review33 (October 1953), p. 35.

27, Gavin, "Technical Difficulties," p. 64. Emphasis Inthe original. See also Taylor, letter to selected retiredgeneral officers, 29 November 1855, Box 0, T'ylorPapers.

28, William F, Train, "The Atomic Challnnge," MllitaryReview 30 (Novembot 1056), p. 5. Emphasis in theoriginal,

29, Taylor, The Army, 'T'oday and Tomorrow, speech toAUSA annual convendlon, Washington, DC, 25 October1851, Box 5, Taylor Papers,

30, Lemnitzer, The Role of the Army in Modern War,Kermit Roosevelt Lecture, Sandhurst, England, 5 May1953, Box 75, the Papers of Lyman L. femnitzer, Na-tional Defense Unlverslty, Washington, DC; hereaftercited as Lemnitz;er Papers,

31, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis C. Taynton. "Imlpact ofAtomic Weapons on Defense," Military Review 3' (Sep-tember 1956), p. 57,

32, Colonel Frank J, Sackton, "The Changing Nature (ifWar," Military Review 34 (November 1954), p. 60.33, To maintain the distinction between tho utility oftactical nuclear weapons and the futility of strategicweapons, the Army argued against the likelihood ofescalation, The use of smaller tactical weapons would

-A,

Endnoteu 169

not inevitably lead to the employment of larger ones, asthe Service saw it, But such reasoning use owed more tofaith than to logic. As the Commanding General ofCONARC (Continental Army Command) remarked in1958, the Army assumed restraint on the part of the Sovi-ets since they "had no more Intention of bequeathing theworld to the oyster-boring sea worm than we hive.,"Wymnin, "The United States Army: Its Doctrine and in-fluence on US Military Strategy." Milittry Revihw 37(March 1958), p, 12,

34, Wyman, "Highlights of Army L)octrine," Armor 67(March-April 1958), p. 14, For a detailed view of how theArmy viewed Soviet strategy, see Colonel Raymond LI.Shoemaker et al, "Readiness for the Littho War: OptimumIntegrated Strategy," Military Revivi 37 (April 1457), pp,16-22.

35, For a clear summation of this viewpoint, seo DAPamphlet 21-70, Tihe Hole of the1 Army, 29 lumn 1955,

30, Wyman, "Invitation to Think", nf'antry SchoolQuOrterly 40 (October 1956), p. 1(.37. Wyman, "Highlights of Army Dloctrine," p1) 16.

38, Sackton, "Atomic Weapons for tho Battalion Com.mander," The Army Combut Forcas Jourr1til 5 (December1954), p. 44,

39. Captain Evorett C, Royal, '"'The Tomla of Mobile War-fare: ArmcOr and Alm'orne," Armor 64 (March-A|pril1955), p) 4. Thr Puntomlni division was ono ti the fewArmy Initiatives of the 19•5os to attract PresidentElsenhower's enthusinstic, support, The Prtosident be-lieved that reducIng the sHIe of the) division would allowthe triny to accept further reductions It ia overall par.sonnet strength while maintaining the same norminalforce structure, Such was never the Army's intent, In-deed, the Army continued to push for more people andmore divisions, Apparent agreement on organizational

170 The Pentamic Era

reform further Illustrates the depth of misunderstandingbetween the President and his former Service. SeeGoodpaster, Memorandum of Confurence with thePresident, 11 October 19M0, Box 19, Ann Whitman File(Eisenhower Diary), Eisenhower Papers.

40, Theodore H, White, "An Interview with GeneralGavin_ _. Tomorrow's Battlefield," The Army CombatForces Journal 5 (March 1955), p. 22,

41, Colonel Edward L, Rowny, "Ground Tactic, in anAtomic War," The Army Combat Forces Journal 5 (Au-gust 1954), p. 19.42, Gavin, "Cavalry, and I Don't Mean Horses," Armor63 (May-June 1954), pp, 1.8-22,43, Taylor, "Remarks before the House Armed ServicesCommittee," 29 January 1957, ICS 111 (195B Budget),Box 28, Chairman'e Files: Admiral Radford 19,53-1957,RG 218, NA,

44, Taylor, "The Changing Army," The Army CombutForces journil, L (October l55), p. 1,

Chapter 4

1, John B, Madeils, Countdown for Decision (New York,1960), p. 65, See also Michael H. Armactost, The Politicsof Weapons Innovation: The Thor-Jupiter Controversy(New York 1961), p. 49,

2, Conversations Between Lieutenant General Paul W,Caraway and Colonel H, Ray, 8, p. 47, Caraway was abrigadier general in charge of Army research and dovel-opment in the period just after Korea.

3, Lemnitzer to Lieutenant General Charles L, iolts, 22January 1953, Box 1, Lemnitzer Papers,

Endnotes 171

4, See, for example, "Outstanding Army Rocket Record,"Missiles and Rockets 1 (November 1956), p. 33,

5, NSC 159, "Report of the Continental Defense Commit-tee," 22 July 1954, RG 273. NA,

6. The New York Times, 28 March 1948,

7. Unless otherwise noted, technical information onweapons comes from various editions of June's All theWorld's Aircraft or Jane's Weapons Systems,8. The New York Times, 21 May 1956,

9. "The Army's Bird in Hand," Air Force Macgazlne 39(June 1956), p. 42.10.. Ibid., p. 44.

11, The New York Times, 27 November 1956,

12. Army Regulation (AR) 525-30, Army Missilhs. 28August 1956,13, The Key West Agreement is printed In The NewYork Times, 28 Meuch 1.948,

14. Taylor, remarks to Army Ciommander's Conference,Fort Bliss, TX, 5 April '1956, Box 9, Taylor Papers.

13, Major General Holger N, Toftoy, "Army's Role inGuided Missiles," Missiles and Rockets I (November195B), p. 37,

16. 'The New York Times, 27 November 1956.

17. Douglas Kinnard, President Eisenhower and StrategyMan•gemenn (Lexington, KY, 1977), p. 74,

18. US Congre3s, House of Repreentatives, Commnitt.eon Government Operations, 86th Cungress, 1st Session,Orgunization and Management oa Mitslio Programs, 2March 1059, p. 298,

19, Taylor, A Program For Improving Limited WarCapabilities, remarks at Army War College, Carlisle Bar-racks, PA, 12 June 1958, Box 4, Taylor Papers,

172 The Pentomic Era

20. Preliminary Concepts for Battle Group Atomic De-livery System, 9 April 1958, Box 3, White House OfficeFiles (Office of the Staff Secretary, AlphabeticalSubseries), Eisenhower Papers.

21, Lemnitzer to Lieutenant General John E. Dahlquist, 4February 1954, Box 2, Lemnitzer Papers. Emphasisadded,

22. Taylor, remarks at the Army War College, CarlisleBarracks, PA, 20 August 1956, Box 9, Taylor Papers.

23. Taylor, Development of US Military Strategy, speechat the Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, 26 Janu-ary 1959, Box 4, Taylor Papers.

24, US Congress, Senate, Cnmmittee on Armed Services,85th Congress, 1st Session, Inquiry into Satellite andMissile Programs, 13 December 1957, p. 490,

25. Semiannual Report of the Secretary of the Army Jan-uary 1-June 30, 1957, (Washington, DC, 1958), p. 104;hereafter cited as Semiannual Report.

26. Semiannual Report FY 1956, (Washington, DC,1957), p. 83.

27. Lieutenant Colonel Anthony L. Wermuth,"Modernization-Minus," Army 9 (October 1958), p. 31.

Chapter 5

1. Meeting of Subcommittee I11, study group on NuclearWeapons and Foreign Policy, 15 February 1956, vol. 61,Records of Groups, Archives of the Council on ForeignRelations.

2. White, An interview with General Gavin, p. 22.

Endnotes 173

3. SemiAnnual Report of the Secretary of the Army, FY1956, p. 89.

4. Ridgway, Taylor, and Gavin each commandedairborne divisions during World War II. Ridgway alaocommanded XVIII (Airborne) Corps.

5. Semiannual Report, FY 1958, p. 106.

6. Semiannual Report, FY 1956, p. 87.

7. Roinhart and Kintner, Atomic Weapons in Land Com-bat, pp. J5-36,

8. Colonel Theodore C. Mataxis and Lieutenant ColonelSeymour L. Gcldberg, Nuclear Tactics (fiarrisburg, PA,1958•, pp. 164,211.

9. Ibid., pp. 169-70, 184.

10. Anthony Levelro, "Task Force Razor Shaves Big Ap-ple 2," The Army Combat Forces Journal 5 (June 1955),pp. 38-43. "The Breakthrough," Armor 64 (May-June1955), pp. 8-13.

11. The Armored School, Final Report of Test-Armored Task Force Participation-Exercise Desert RockVI, 1 August 1955, Copy obtained from the NationalTechnical Information Service (NTIS), Springfield, VA.The report has been completely declassified.

12. Exercise Desert Rock VII and VIII, Camp Irwin, CA.Infantry Troop Test, Exercise Desert Rock VlI & ViII, 11December 1957. Copy obtained from NTIS.

13, Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Lindsey, M.D., "NoTime For Despair," Armor 65 (May-June 1950), pp.38-39.

14. Wyman, Highlights of Army Doctrine, p. 14,

15. Colonel Henry E. Kelly, "Dig That Atomic Foxhole,"Army 6 (June 1956), pp. 38-39.

174 The Pentomic bra

16. Wyman, "Let's Get Going on our New CombinationsFor Combat," Army 6 (July 1956), p. 40.

17, Colonel James E. Edwards, "Web Defense," TheArmy Combat Forces journal 5 (June 1955), p. 37.

18. Major General Hamilton H. Howze, "Combat Tacticsfor' Tomorrow's Army," Army 8 (October 1958), p. 30.

19. Edwards, "Web Defease," p. 32,

20, Howze, "Combat Tactics for Tomorrow's Army,"p. 29,

21, Major General Joseph H. Harper and Colonel JosephH, Stilwell, Jr., "The Final Decision is the Infantry-mn n'm," The Army Combat Forces Journal, 6 (September1935), p. 44. Stilwell headed the Infantry School's Tac-tical Department. See also Lieutenant Colonel George B.Cullison, "The Integrated Battle Group," Military Review36 (November 1956), p, 39.

22. Howze, "Combat Tactics for Tomorrow's Army,"p. 28.

23. Conversations Between General Maxwell D. Taylor,USA (Ret,) and Colonel Richard A. Manion," Senior Offi-cers Debriefing Program (1976), 3d interview, p. 26.24, For a penetrating critique of Army Leadership inKorea. see "Faithful To Our Trust," The Army CombatForces journal 5 (December 1954), pp. 18-21. The anon-ymous author of this article was a combat veteran of bothWorld War II and Korea,25. Report of the Defense Advisory Committee on Pro-fessional and Technical Compensation, Volume I (Mili-tary Personnel), pp, 2, 4, 43. 78,

26, Taylor, An Army Traveloque speech to the Com-monwealth Club of California, 31 October 1955, Box 5,Taylor Papers, Such turbulence did not result entirelyfrom the drawdown after the Korean armistice. In FY

Endnotes 175

1950, with an Army of slightly more than one million,460,000 soldiers wern discharged and another 376,000brought on active duty, Taylor, speoch at Town Hall, LosAngeles, 21 May 1957, Box 6, Taylor Papers,

27. George Fielding Eliot, "Has the Army Lost Its Soul?,"Military Review 33 (November 1953), p. 9.28. Colonel Richard N, Whitney, "A Fighting Heart forthe Army's New Look," Military Review 35 (April 1955],pp. 9-10,

29. "One Third of Army Will Be on the Move EachYear," Army-Navy-Air Force Journal 92 (2 October1954), p. 122,

30, S.L,A, Marshall, "Gyroscope's End Provokes NoWidospread Protest," Army-Navy-Air Force Retgister andDefense Times 80 (19 September 1959), p, 11,

31, Remarks by General Taylor to thv Army Staff, 7 July1.955, Box 5, Taylor Papers,

32. "For Atomic Warfare ... A Look into the Future," Ar-mor 63 (September-October 1954), p, 5. This unsignedarticle contains a lengthy excerpt from a speech byRidgeway.

33. Roger W, Little, "Solidarity Is the Key to the MassArmy," The Army Combat Forces journal 5 (February1955), pp, 27-31.

Chapter 6

1. Lemnitzer, "Why We Need a Modern Army," Army 10(September 195 9j, p. 17. Emphasis in the original.

2. General Bruce Clarke, "The Word is Go," Army 10(March 1960), p. 39.

176 The Pentomic Era

3. Taylor, Uncertain Trumpet, pp. 30-34. Somewhat in-consistently in light of his earlier assertions that Sovietand American strategic nuclear weapons tended to can-cel vach other out, Taylor also used the bugaboo of a"Missile Gap" to argue that American inferiority left theUnited States in serious jeopardy of a Soviet nuclear at-tack. Uncertain Trumpet, pp. 131-32, 135.

4, Marshall, "Arms in Wonderland," Army 7 (June1957), p. 19.5. Marshall, "The Place of Man in a Modern Army,"Army 10 (April 1959), pp. 26, 30.6. Lieutenant Colonel Arthur W. Milberg, "Atomic WarQuestions For Battle Commanders," Army 9 [January1959), p. 28.7, Arthur S. Collins, Senior Officers Oral History Proj-ect, Senior Officer Debriefing Program (1982), pp.239-43.8. Ernest F, Fisher, Jr. Relationship of the ROAD Con-cept to Moral Considerations in Strategic Planning, File2-3.7/AC.C, Box 68, Office of the Chief of Military His-tory Manuscripts, RG 319, NA,

9. Conversation Between General Hamilton Howze andLieutenant Colonel Robert Reed, Senior Officer Debrief-lag Program (1972), pp, 6-7,

10. Conversations Between General Donald V, Bennettand Lieutenant Colonel Smith and Lieutenant ColonelHatcher, Senior Officer Debriefing Program (1976), Sec-tion 5, pp, 10-11.11. Conversation Between General Paul L. Freeman,USA (Ret.) and Colonel James N. Ellis, second interview,p. 30.12, Conversation Between General George H. Decker,USA (Het.) and Lieutenant Colonel Dan H, Rails, SeniorOfficer Debriefing Program (1976), p, 65.

Endnotes 177

13. Kelly, "Verbal Defense," Military Review 35 (October1955), pp. 45-46, 51,14. Lieutenant Colonel Linwood A. Carleton and Lieu-tenant Colonel Frank A. Farnsworth, "A Philosophy forTactics," Military Review 40 (July 1960), pp. 12,22.

15. Colonel Francis X, Bradley, "The Fallacy of Dual Ca-pability," Army 10 (October 1959), pp. 18-19,

16. Collins, "The Other Side of the Atom," Army 10 (No-vember 1959), pp. 18-19.

17. Colonel William E. DePuy, "The Case for a Dual Ca.pability," Army 10 (January 1960), pp. 32-34, 38.

18, George A, Kelly, "Revolutionary Warfare and Psy-chological Operations," Military Review 40 (October1960), pp. 4-13. Lieutenant Colonel George B. Jordan,"Objectives and Methods of Communist Guerilla War-fare," Military Review, 39 (January 1960), pp. 50-59.Brigadier General David N. Gray, "When We Fight aSmall War," Army 10 (July 1960), pp, 26-34, LieutenantColonel Donald V. Rattan, "Antiguerrilla Operations-ACase Study from History, "Military Review 40 (May1960), pp. 23-27.19. Goodpaster, Memorandum of Conversation with thePresident, 18 April 1956, Box 15, Ann Whitman File(Eisenhower Diary), Eisenhower Papers,

20. Goodpaster, Memorandum of Conference with thePresident, 2 April 1956, Box 15, Ann Whitman File(Eisenhower Diary), Eisenhower Papers.

21, Memorandum of Conference with the President, 17May 1955, Box 5, Ann Whitman File (Ann Whitman Di-ary), Eisenhower Papers. See also Eisenhower to SwedeHazlett, 26 February 1958, Box 18, Ann Whitman File(Name Series); record of telephone call, Eisenhower toThomas Gates, 12 January 1960, Box 47, Ann WhitmanFile (Eisenhower Diary); Goodpaster, "Memorandum of

178 The Pentomic Era

Conversation with the President," 5 July 1960, Box 50.Ann Whitman File (Eisenhower Diary), all EisenhowerPapers.

22. Eisenhower to Swede Hazlett, 20 August 1958, Box17, Ann Whitman File (Eisenhower Diary), EisenhowerPapers.

23, Goodpaster, Memorandum of Conference with thePresident, 18 May 1956, Box 15, Ann Whitman File(Eisenhower Diary), Eisenhower Papers,

24. Lincoln and Stilwell, "Scholars Debauch into Strat-egy," Military Review 40 (July 1960), pp. 67, 70,

25, Gavin to Kissinger, 9 October 1955, vol. 61, Recordsof Groups, Archives of the Council on Foreign Relations.

26. Martin Van Creveld, Fighting Power, German andU,S. Army Performance, 1939-1945 (Westport, CT,1982), p. 174.

.. . . ......

SelectedBibliography

Manuscript CollectionsArchives of the Council on Foreign Relations, New York.The Papers of Dwight D, Eisenhower, Eisenhower Li-

brary, Abllene, KS.The Papers of Lyman L. Lemnitzer, National Defense

University, Washington, DC,The Papers of Matthew B. Ridgway, US Army Military

History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA,The Papers of Maxwell D. Taylor, National Defense Uni-

versity, Washington, DC.Records of The Adjutant Geiieral's Files, Record Group

407, National Archives, Washington, DC.Recorda of the Army Staff, Record Group 319, National

Archives, Washington, DC.Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Re:ord Group 218,

National Archives, Washington, DC,Records of the National Security Council, Record Group

273, National Archives, Washington, DC,

InterviewLyman L. Lemnitzer, 8 February 1985, The Pentagon.

179

too The Pentomic Era

Oral HistoriesSenior Officer Debriefing Program, US Army Military

History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA; recollectionsof the following:

General Donald V. Bennett (1976)Lieutenant General Paul W. Caraway (1971)Lieutenant General Arthur S. Collins, Jr. (1982)General George H. Decker (1976)General Paul L. Freeman (1974)General Barksdale Hamlett (1976)General Hamilton H. Howze (1972)General Maxwell D. Taylor (1976)

Government Reports andPublished DocumentsAnnual Report of the Secretary of Defense (july 1, 1959

to June 30, 1960). Washington, DC: US GovernmentPrinting Office (1961)

The Armored School. Final Report of Test-ArmoredTask Force Partilcipation-Exercise Desert Rock VI,I August 1955, Document number AD.A080 235,National Technical Information Service, Springfield,VA.

Exercise Desert Rock VII and VIII, Camp Irwin, CA, "In-fantry Troop Test, Exercise Desert Rock VII & VIII,"11 December 1957, Document nurtber AD-A075 358,National Technical Information Service, Springfield,VA.

Department of State, Foreign Relations of the UnitedStates. 1952-1954 vol Ih: National Security Affairs,part 1 Washington, DC: US Government Printing Of-fice (1984).

Selected Bibliography 181

Public Papers of the President: Dwight D, Eisenhower(1953J Washington, DC: US Government Printing Of.fice (1960).

Semiannual Report of the Secretary of the Army. Wash.ington, DC0 US Government Printing Office(1954-1961).

US Army, AR 525-30. Army Missihis. 28 August 1956.. DA Pamphlet 21-70. The Role of the

Army. 29 June 1955.I FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations: Op-

erations (September 1954).US Congress. House of Representatives. Committee on

Government Operations, 86th Congress, 1st Session,Organization and Management of Missile Programs.

, Senate, Committee on Armed Forces, 65thCongress, 1st Session, inquiry into Satellite and Mis-sile Programs,

. Senate, Subcommittee of the Committeeon Appropriation. 83d Congress, 2d Session. Depart-ment of Defense Appropriations for 1955,

Newspapers andPeriodicals

Air Force MagazineArmorArmyThe Army Combat Forces journalArmy Information DigestArmy-Navy-Air Force journalArmy-Navy-Air Force Register and Defense TimesInfantry School QuarterlyMilitary ReviewMissiles and RocketsThe New York Times

182 The Pentomic Era

BooksArmacost, Michael H. The Politics of Weapons Innova-

tion: 'The Thor-Jupiter Controversy. New York: Co-lumbia University Press (1969).

Eisenhower, Dwight D. Mandate For Change. 1053-1956,New York: Doubleday & Company (1963),

Fehrenbach, T.R. This Kind of War: A Study ofUnpreparedness, New York: Macmillian and Com-pony (1963).

Ferrell, Robert H,, Pd. The Diary of James C. Hagerty.Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press (1983).

Gaddis, John Lewis, Strategies of Containment. NewYork: Oxford University Press (1982),

Gavin, James M War and P.ace in the Space Age, NewYork: Harper and Brothers (1958),

Geeihood, E, Bruce. Charles E, Wilson and Controversyat the Pentagon. Detroit: Wayne State UniversityPress (1979).

Jane's All The World's Aircraft, New York: McGraw (var-ious editions).

Jane's Weapons Systems. Now York: McGraw (variouseditions),

Kinnard, Douglas, President Eisenhower and StrategyManagement, Lexington, KY: University Press ofKentucky (1977).

Kissinger, Henry. Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.New York: Harper and Brothers (1957).

Maderis, John B. Countdown For Decision. New York:G.P. Putnam's Sons (1960).

Mataxis, Theodore C. and Seymour L, Goldberg, NuclearTactics, Harrisburg, PA: The Military Service Pub-lishing Company (1958).

Reinhardt, George C. American Strategy in the AtomicAge. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press(1955),

Selected Bibliography 183

and William R. Kintner, Atomic Weaponsin Land Combat, Harrisburg, PA: The Military Serv-ice Publishing Company (1953).

Ridgway, Matthew B, Soldier: The Memoirs of MatthewB. Ridgway. New York: Harper & Brothers (1956),

Taylor, Maxwell D. Swords and Plowshares, New York:W.W, Norton & "Company (1972),

- The Uncjr'laln Trumpet. New York:Harper & Brothers (1959),

Uhl, Michael and Tod Ensign, GI Gtumnna Pigs, 11p: Play-boy Press (1980).

Van Creveld, Martin, Fighting Power: German and US,Army Performance. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press(1982),

Weigley, Russell F, The American Way of War, NowYork: Macmillian and Company (1973).

Yanarella, Ernest J. The Missile Defonse Controversy.Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky (1977),

The Author

L ieutenant Colonel A. J. Bacevich, US Army,received his commission from the United States

Military Academy. An armor officer, he has servedwith armored cavalry units in the continentalUnited States, Germany, and Vietnam. He currentlycommands the 2d Squadron, 3d Armored CavalryRegiment at Fort Bliss, Texas.

In preparation for a teaching assignment withthe Department of History, USMA, ColonelBacevich earned an MA degree in American historyat Princeton University. Princeton later awardedhim a PhD for his dissertation, Areiorican MilituryDiplomacy, 1898-1949: The Role of Frank RossMcCoy,

Colonel Bacevich wrote this book while he wasan International Affairs Fellow with the Council onForeign Relations,

185

Index

"Actlvo Difense," 143Air defense, 74, 75, 76-80, 98Air defense battalion;, 77-78Air Force, US, 20-21, 70, 73, 74

and air defense, 75-80and deterrence, 15-16, 45-46and preventive war, 33and SSM.s, 82, 86, 88-90

"Airborne Club," 106"AlrLand Battle." 143Ajnx, 78-79, 80Antiaircraft weapon systemsý 77-8.8 See ola) Missiles

Arml defenso 115-119, S'ev oIso DINJfirNialo of forctsArmy, 24, 136, 137Army, Secretary of, 33-34, 113, See also Iruckor, Wilbur M,

Arny, US, See also Gavin, Lt. Gen, James MW; Ridgway, Gen,

Matthew B,; Taylor, Gen, Maxwell 13,

onra the Air Force, 15-16, 20, 45-4", 73, 74, 78-77, 78-80,

8a, 86-88, 90imaKe of, 20.-21, 22, See Wlso Public relations

Influencn of, 33-36, 96morale, See unador Personnol oppelithmi to "Now ,uok,"

21-22, 25, 130-133, 141,145, 151. Sev Cia) Massivu reill-

ation, Army opposition toand reform, 132, 141-145, 150-157role of, 15-18, 39, 47, 49-51, 52, 71, 144-145o 140, 151-153,

184--165n~t

strength of, 19, 42, 121, 174n.26Army Combut Formes Journol, 40

Army General Staff, 45"Army Mulis," 100

18H7

188 The Pentomic Era

Army War Plans Branch, 27Artillery, 100. See also Antiaircraft weapon systems; N"uclear

weapons, tactical; Rockets8-inch gun, 84155-mm howitzer, 84280-mm gun, 82-64, 94

Association of the United States Army (AUSA), 24

B-17, in missile test, 78"Babylonian Captivity" of the Army, 9"Basic National Security Policy," See NSC 162(1Bataan, 58, S8nBattle group, 5, 105-106, 115-116Battle of France, 66-67Battle of Stalingrad, 118, 118nBeetle Bailey, 20Bennett, Gen. Donald V., on the Pentomic Division, 135"The Big Picture," 24Bolte, Gen. Charles, 73Bomarc, 78Bradley, Col. Francix X., on dual capability, 13S-137Brucker, Wilbur M, (Sec. Army), 33-34, 35

on Gyroscope, 123on missile program limits, 92on public relations, 22

Brushfire war, 51, 142, 152, See also Localized conflictBudget, 16-18, 19-20, 21, 50-51, 72, 90. See also Economic

factors and defense Investment imbalance, 98-101, 103,151

Caraway, Lt. Gen. Paul W., and Army role, 49"The Case for a Dual Capability" (DePuy), 138Chief of Staff, Army, 34. Sec also Decker, Gen. George H.;

Lemnitzer, Gen. Lyman L.; Ridgway, Gen. Matthew B.;Taylor, Gen. Maxwell 0.

China, See People's Republic of ChinaClarke, Gen. Bruce, and the soldier in the atomic age, 129Collins, Lt. Gen. Arthur S., Jr., on nuclear weapons, 133,

137-136

Index 189

"Colonels' Revolt," 45Combat effectiveness, measurements of, 119-120Combat support, 105-106Command and control, 6"--9Communications, 116, 117-119Communist forces, 36-57, 05, 139. See also Soviet UnionConcentration of forces, 68Congress, US, and technology, 72Contingency planning, 60-61, 147-148Conventional conflict. See Non-nuclear aggressionCordiner Commission Report, 120-121Corporal, 86-87, 94, 142Counterinsurgency, 142, 143. See also Localized conflict; Non-

nuclear aggressionCovert action, 14-15Creveld, Martin van, on technology and war, 186Cushman, Mal. John H., on the Army's mission, 21

Davy Crocket, 94."5Decker, Gen. George H., on the Pentomic Division, 135Defense, Department of, 33, 74Defense, Secretary of. See McElroy, Neil H.; Wilson, Charles E.Defense Reorganization Act, 1958, 147DePay, Col. William E.

on dual capability, 136-140on tactical nuclear weapons, 130-141

Desert flock V1, 110-113, 114Deterrence, 11, 13-14, 31, 32, 141. See also Massive retaliation;

Taylor, Gen. Maxwell D.undor Eisenhower, 11-14, 15, 30-31, 49, 141, 144-145mutual, 13-14, 32, 41-42, 64, 140-141, 151

"Dig That Atomic Foxhole" (Kelly), 115Dispersion of forces, 67-49, 70, 104, 142.

See also Area defenseDivisions

101st Airborne, 100Pentnmic. See Pentomic concept

Dominican Republic, 152Dual capability, 62S3, 130, 134, 136-140, See also Flexible

Response; Localized conflict; Non-nuclear aggressive;Readiness

... .. . ..... .... .

190 The Pentomic Era

Dulles, John Foster (Sec. State), on retaliation, 11

Eastern Europe, 27, 28Economic factors and defense, 12, 33, 38, 51-52. See also

BudgetEdwards, Lt. Col, James W., on key terrain, 116Eisenhower, Dwight D. (President), 11, 142. See also Massive

retaliation and the Air Force, 15-16and the Army, 16-18, 39, 130, 144-1145, 104-165n.1

defense policy, 1&. 18, See also NSC 5410/1and the JCS, 36, 39, 146-147national security policy, 11-14, 38, See also NSC 162/2

and preventive war, 33and preventive war, 33and the Pentomic Division, 169n,39fnd Ridgway, 31, 38

Equipment modernization, 96, 98-101, 103Explorer 1, 75

Fall, Bernard, on modern war and Indochina, 157-168n.28"The Fallacy of Dual Capablity" (Bradley), 136Field Artillery Missile Group, 40th, 87Firepower, 55-57, 131. See also Nuclear weapons, tacticalFlexibility of forces, 09, 70, 134Flexible Response, 48, 130, 142. See also Dual capability, Lo-

calized conflict; Non-nuclear aggression- ReadinessFM 100-5, "Field Service Regulations, Operations," 40Foreign policy, US, 10, 1,4-15, 28Freemdn, Gen, Paul L., on the Pentomic Division, 135

Gavin, Lt. Gen. James M., 48on defense policy, 42-44on missile program costs, 99-100on nuclear warfighting, 88-69, 104, 105on readiness, 61on technology and war, 53, 154

Grenada, 152Gruenther, Gen, Alfred, on Gavin on defense policy, 43

Index 191

Guderian, Gen. Heinz, 109, 109nGuerrilla conflict. See Localized conflictGyroscope, 122-123

Hamlett, Gen. Barksdale, on Wilson and Ridgway, 34Hawk, 80Hazlett, Swede, 146Hedding, R, Adm. Truman H., on Army opposition to defense

policy, 44Helicopters, 108, 118Hercules, 78, 70, 80Hiroshima, 133, 144Honest John, 94, 108, 142Howze, Gen, Hamilton H.,

on area defense, 117, 118on Pentomic concept, 134-135

"Human wave" tactics, 56-57Humphrey, George T. (Sec. Tress.), 38

Indochina War, 61, 167-168n.20Inter-Service rivalry, 36, 82, 145-147, 151. See also Army, and

the Air ForceIslands of resistance. See Area defense

joint Chiefs of Staff (JSC), 28, 27, 29, 32, 34and Eisenhower, 30, 39, 146-147and use of nuclear weapons, 39, 44

joint Chiefs of Staff, Chairman of, 34. See also Radford, Adm.Arthur W,; Twining, Gen, Nathan F.

"Joint Strategic Objectives Plan (JSOP) Strategic Concept," 46,47

Jupiter, 87-88, 90

Kasserine Pass, 58, 58nKelly, Col, Henry E,

and "Atomic Foxhole," 115and "Verbal Defense," 135-136

193 The Pentomic Era

Kennedy, John F. (President), 142Key terrain, 116Key West agreement, 77, 79, 00, 86Kintner, Lt. Col. William R,, on weapons technology, 53-54Kissinger, Henry A., 53, 154Korean War

and the Army's historical role, 152and defense policy, 10, 11, 144and firepower, 55-56and readiness, 50, 5oand Truman, 0-10

Lance, 142Land power, 66, 142Lebanon, 152Lemnitzer, Gen. Lyman L.

on the Air Force and missile development, 73on nuclear arsenals, 129and principles of war, 63and "survival of the Army," 21

"Light Infantry," 143"Limited War One," 59Lincoln, Col. George A., on the Army of the 1950s, 151Little John, W4-06Litle, Roger W., on the "Mass Army," 124-127Localized conflict, 32, 43-44, 60-01. See also Dual capability;

Flexible Response; Non-nuclear aggression; ReadinessLuddites, 156, 156n

M56, 100MacArthur, Gen. of the Army Douglas, 9McElroy, Nell H. (Sec. Def.), 90-01Maginot Line, 66-67Manpower, use of, 10, 55-57, 139Marshall, Gen. of the Army George CQ, 34Marshall, S.L,A., on the Army and the atomic age, 131-132Massive retaliation, 11, 12-13, 14. See also Deterrence

Army opposition to, 22, 25-33, 37-33, 39-48, 63, 120-130,141, 144, 148

Index 193

Civilian opposition to, 48under Eisenhower, 11, 12-13, 2"126, 27, 29, 30-31, 38-39,

48, 129and the NSC, 27-28and the Soviet bomber threat, 70, 76-77

Medarls, Maj. Gen, John B., on weapons and the budget, 72Media, Army use of. See under Public relationsMilitary Review, 54-55"Missile Gap," 175n.3Missiles, 74-75. See also Rockets

antiballistic (ABM), 80cost of, 95, 97-101, 103, 141-142intermediate-range ballistic (IRBM), 87-90surface-to-air (SAM), 75, 78-40surface-to-surface (SSM), 75, 80, 82, 84-92

Mobility of forces, 69-70, 106

National Security Council (NSC), 26, 38, 76, See also NSC162/2

and the Army, 27-30, 35Planning Board, 27, 29

National Security Policy. See NSC 162/2Nation-building, 142NATO, 43Navy, US, 78"New Look,"' basis of, 15. See also under ArmyThe New York Times, 40, 45, 78NIKE, 78-79, 80Non-nuclear aggression, 11, 13, 14-15, 32, 37-38, 40-41, 42,

43, 44, 51-53, 60-62, 65, 131. See also Dual capability,Flexible Response; Readiness

No-notice war, 5940. See also ReadinessNorth Korea, army of, 10, 56, 50NSC 162/2, 11-15, 25.47, 32NSC 5410/1, 27-30Nuclear weapons

costs of, 96, 97-101, 140, 141-142and exercises, 94, 110-114, 133and foreign relations, 28, 137radiation and fallout, 113-114

. ... . .. . . .... . . ... . .. ... .. .. .. ....

194 The Pentomic Era

strategic, 54, 64, 129, 137, 149, 168-189n,33. See also Mas-sive retaliation

tactical, 54-57, 64-68, 82-88, 92-98, 108, 118-119, 130,131, 133, 136-138, 149-150, 151, 160n.12,168-1169n,33. See also Missiles

and warfare, 13, 15, 40, 50, 53456, 144, 154and warfighting, 04.70, 108-109, 115-118

Operation Gyroscope, 122-123Organization, nuclear age, 62-63, 104-105, See also Pentomic

concept

Palmer, Gen, Williston B., on readiness, 59-60Panmunjom, 10Pentomic concept, 130, 142

and organization, 5, 105-108, 133-135, 141, le0n.39and tactics, 106-113, 115-119, '35-136

People's Republic of China, 27army of, 10, 56-57

P'ershing, 91, 142Personnel

morale, 20-21, 114, 121, 122, 124-125, 158-157and rotation, 121-123and technology, 120-121, 124-127, 131, 139, 156, See also

Manpower, use ofPickett, Lt. Col, Gourge B,, on fi ,power, 55-55Plans and Research, Deputy Chief of Staff for, See Lumnitzer,

Gen, Lyman L.Preparedness, See ReadinessPresident of the United States, See Eisenhowar, Dwight D,;

Kennedy, John FK Truman, Harry S.Preventive war, 32-33, 37Public relations

Army use of, 22-24, 43, 45, 75, 82, 112, 113-114and inter.Service rivalry, 145

Radford, Adm, Arthur W,, 34, 44, 145and the Army's role, 47

..... ... .

Index 195

and NSC 5410/I, 29-30Readiness, 37-38, 58463, 141, See also Dual capability; Flexi-

ble Response; Localized conflict; Non-nuclear aggressionRed Menace, 10Redstone, 75, 87Redstone Arsenal, Ala,, 87Research and Development, Deputy Chief of Staff for. See

Gavin, Lt. Gen. james M.Research and development allocations, 98-101Revolutionary warfare, 167-108n,26Ridgway, Gen. Matthew B.. 29, 48

and Army status, 34-35, 36and the Army's role, 49-50, 164n.1and balanced strength, 37-38, 42and massive retaliation, 22, 31, 37, 50and the "New Look," 22, 41and the NSC, 29-30, 35, 35-38, 39and nuclear weapons, 31, 37, 38, 41-42and preventive war, 32-33, 37and Radford, 29-30, 34and the warrior ethic, 124nild Wilson, 34, 36, 41, 42

Rockets, 73, 94-95, 108Rommel, Field Marshal Erwin, 109, 109nRowny, Col. Edward L., and mobility, 69

Security of forces, 66. See also Dispersion of forcesSenate Armed Forces Committee, 41Sergeant Bliko, 20Servire support, 105, 108Skyiweeper, 77-78"Solidarity is the Key to the Mass Army" (Little), 124Soviet Union, 27

nature of the threat from, 10, 13-14, 32, 33, 38, 41-42, 44, 76,136-137, 139, 168-169n,33, See elso Communist forces

nuclear arsenal, 13, 32, 64, 140-141Space exploration, 73-74, 75Special forces, 142Sputnik 1, 75Stassen, Harold (Mutual Security Director), 36

.. .................................

196 The Pentomic Era

Steve Canyon, Z0Stilwell, Col. Richard G., on the Army of the 1950s, 151Stragetic Air Command (SAC), 15, 20, 76Strauss, Lewis L. (AEC Chairman), 43

T113, 100Tactical air support, 88-69Tactics. See under Pentomic conceptTalos, 78, 8OTask Force Razor, 110-113Task Force Smith, 59Taylor, Gen. Maxwell D,, 42

and "Babylonian Captivity," 9and a civil defense mission, 49and deterrence, 50-52on dual capability, 63and a Flexibile Response, 44, 48, 51, 52, 130on missile development, 98, 99, 175n.3on mobility, 69on nuclear weapons, 92-93on officers, 123awd alatittics, 120on tactical air support, 88and technology, 53The Uncertain Trumpet, 130

Technology. See also Manpower, use of- Missiles; Nuclearweapons; Personnel

and Army refurm, 144, 148non.nuclear modernization, 71-73, 90-101, 103and the Pentomic concept, 149-150

Third World, 52"This is Your Army," 24Thor, 90Toftny, Maj. Gen. Holger N., and tactical air support, 88W8OTrain, Brig, Gen, William F., on adaptability, 62Truman, Harry S, (President), 9-10Truman Doctrine, 10Twining, Gen, Nathan FK, 34, 48

Index 197

Uncertain Trumpet, The (Taylor), 10Uniforms, 22-23, 72USSR. See Soviet Union

Van Creveld, See also Creveld, Martin vanVan Fleet, Lt, Gen. James, 120"'Van Fleet' day of fire," 55"Verbal Defense" (Kelly), 135Vietnam War, 143, 152

War, nature and principles of, 13, 18, 40, 50, 53-54, 63, 68,144, 154

Weigley, Russell F., on massive retaliation 13Whitney, Cal, Richard W., on unit esprit, 122Wilson, Charles E. (Sec. Def.), 34, 36, 39

and air defense, 80and IRBMs, 90and "JSOP Strategic Concept," 47and Rldgway, 34, 38, 41, 42and Taylor, 42

Wyman, Gen, Willard G,on dispersion, 87on firepower, 56on sanitized nuclear weapons, 114and Soviet use of nuclear weapons, 168-lB6n.33

World War I, tactics of, 109-110World War II, readineso for, 58-59Yucca Flat, Nov,, 110

Zeum, 80

~.-. .~ - - ~ . . . . . . . . . . . ....... .. . . - - -

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Title and half-title pages In hobby shop stencil letteringand Frl, Quadrata

Special credits:

Advisory readers: Colonel Robert Kvederus, US Army;George B, Hvike of Berke Associates, Reston, VA;

rod Dr. Stanley L. Folk, Alexandria, VA

NDU Press editor: Edward H. Seneff

Cover artwork and title- and half.title-page merhanIcalspritpared by Luszho L, Bodrogi

THE NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY

Lieutenant General Richard D, Lawrence, US Army

THE INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL S'rRATEGIC STUDIES

Dr. John E. EndicottDirector

THE NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Dr. Frederick Kiley, Director

Colonel Robert Kvederab, USA Dr. Joseph E, GoldbergAisociati, Livrtor otosor 0 C

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Deputy Director for Production

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Lieutenant Monica M, Cain, USNDeputy Diretor for Administration

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