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Show Evidence Of Carelessness Seen Sn 1 Armed Services Unification Bill f By DeWitt Emery (Editor's Note: DeWitt Emery is president of the National Small Business Men's Association.) A recent survey shows that unification of the Army-Navy, Air Force under the bill jammed through Congress in the closing days, has not been achieved. Nor is, there much likelihood that the services will be unified until Congress docs an overhauling job on the legislation. Actually the bill confirms the existence of the present services and adds the Air Force as a new and seperate unit, and makes the Marine Corps autonomous. The bill has brought into being be-ing a whole new flock of secretaryships, secre-taryships, agencies, committees and boards, run through interlocking inter-locking directorates, or militarists, militar-ists, or men of militaristic mind. The top "dog," who has cabinet rank is James V. Forrestal, a former New York banker. Brigadier General Merritt A. Edson, who was awarded the Congressional Medal, after a careful examination of the new set up, resigned his Commission saying, "In its various potentials it reaches into almost every walk of civilian life ... It sets up machinery for economic controls which may well draft your labor, la-bor, tell your publishers what to print, shift your workmen from state to state, and make or break your industries according to the extent that they are willing to I play ball with those whose power pow-er stems from the law ... It esiaonsnes wnai is in effect a permanent national general staff of the most Prussian character, and sweeps away every past limitation lim-itation which the Congress has wisely laid about our general staffs. "It surrenders control of the j foreign policy of the United States to a bloc of individuals within the National Safety Council Coun-cil who are captive and beholden behol-den to the military establishment establish-ment the defense secretaries' who, civilian though they are, must always be responsive to the thinking and planning of the career joint staff. This bill is not a reorganization of the armed services, but a reorganization of government itself." uhe.e can be no Question but that Congress swallowed this measure without giving it the careful consideration it should have had. Too much dependence seems to have been placed in staJements of the White House and War Department concerning the great economies which would j be made under the unification' plan, which now Secretary F0r restal states will not be forth I ' coming in 1948 and may not bn ' ' achieved even in 1949. Certainly when Congress jjeta -1 back into session, one of the first things it must do is to give the ' unification bill a very careful ' going over. There are some whn 1 claim that this bill confers such 1 vast powers on the military that any sort of an emergency could :' be used as an excuse for imno ing a military dictatorship on the country. If there is even a j remote possibility of anything I like this, then the law must hi changed, but quick. c ! It might even be that the first ! job for Congress is to save our ! Republic rather than to sav i Europe. ve i |
