SHARED USE OF NATO FACILITIES I want to emphasize something that I should have brought out earlier, that a good part of this total infrastructure program has to be met on a national basis, barracks and all that sort of thing. It is only common use facilities that we are talking about in this infrastructure program. Facilities that a number of NATO people will use. Anything that is ascribable to a nation's forces, they have to finance for themselves. But because General Ridgeway would fight his planes off all the fields you cannot say that the fields in France should all be financed by France, because we have a lot of U.S. forces on those fields, now in peacetime deployment-if you can call these perilous times, peacetimes-but in times of war he will have to fight those planes on and off the fields no matter who may be on them in noncombat status. He has to push them around as operational requirements call for. The same thing is true with regard to communications, obviously. That belongs to the whole NATO force and not just to that country where they happen to be located. Mr. VORYS. For instance, on infrastructure, I have in mind a story an air force officer told me about a field in Bordeaux where the U.S. Air Force was encamped on one side of the field and there were empty French barracks on the other side of the field. Mr. NASH. I saw that. I think we got those boys out of there before the cold weather came. Mr. VORYS. Why were they not in that empty French barrack? Mr. NASH. Because they were supposed to be moved out of there very fast. Some of those French barracks go back to the day of Napoleon. They used to be stables in those days and I think some of our boys would prefer to sleep in a tent than some of those smelly, unsanitary places. I would much prefer some of the winterized tents to some of these old, middle-aged barracks. Mr. SMITH. Are there any further questions? ADAPTATION OF NATO FORCE GOALS TO CHANGING MILITARY THREATS Mr. PROUTY. I would like to ask one question, Mr. Chairman. Are we not assuming in this discussion that the Russian force is going to remain more or less static? We are approaching these goals, but we do not seem to be taking into consideration that the Russians may be increasing their facilities. Mr. NASH. The basis of any strategic concept or any force requirement planning has to, of course, be built on intelligence and the NATO intelligence is kept up to date at every Council meeting. The Military Committee has an intelligence report at every meeting to determine what has been developing with the energy, and their force requirements have to be kept phased in with and geared to their latest intelligence of what the enemy is doing. That is why we are not going to be static. These force requirements are going to have to be kept under constant review and, in fact, are under constant review in terms of developments, for example, of new weapons. General Ridgway, under the orders of the Military Committee, has underway now a study as to just how new weapons-not just atomic weapons, but other new weapons that are coming along-will be meshed into the force picture. Of course, in doing that, he has to, through his intelligence sources, have as best they can ascertain it what the Russians are doing in the way of adapting their military machines to new developments and keeping them in phase. It is not static on our side and fluid and dynamic on the other. We try to keep it as dynamic on our side as we think they are on theirs. PAST COMMITTEE INVOLVEMENT WITH LEGISLATION RELATED TO NATO Mr. VoRYS. If nobody has a question, I want to make an observation. When you start off your history of this thing with March 17, 1948, in the future you might add this, as to who started this concept. In this committee an additional title for foreign assistance was prepared by our staff and by the State Department providing military aid to Europe on the basis that there was very little security to be accomplished with the Marshall plan. Some of us thought there was no sense in having an economic buildup to create a richer prize for the Communists to take. On the morning of March 17, 1948, word came to this committee that President Truman was coming to the committee room immediately after his speech on the floor, we understood to discuss this proposed title which was drafted and copies of it were here available. And so the committee rushed up here to the committee room immediately after the President finished his speech and we were sitting here waiting for the President and some newspaperman came by and said, "Is the committee having a meeting now?" Somebody leaked it to him and said, "Yes, the President is coming up here right now." This newspaper man said, "Well, that's a funny thing, I saw him go out the back door of the Capitol 20 minutes ago." Now that is the end of the story. Those are facts that can all be corroborated by committee records and staff records. I have repeatedly called the attention of the House to these facts that I have just mentioned. So, on the general concept, it did not start with the Vandenberg resolution as far as Congress is concerned. It started with a proposed title to be placed in the Marshall plan and communicated to the executive branch and without much of a communication back,18 I did not know whether you knew that. Mr. NASH. No, sir, I never knew that. Mr. VORYS. Your story about NATO starts in 1950 or 1951. With this committee, NATO starts in the fall of 1949, when we were told what NATO was going to do and what our part of it was going to be. Now it has changed so very much since then-the statements as to what we were to do and what others were to do has changed so 17 On the Marshall plan and the Vandenberg resolution, see footnotes 4 and 5 respectively on p. 11 of this volume. much and so often since then that some of us wonder. We do not think we are confused. We think those who have been talking to us are confused. For instance, all the way through a year or so ago, the six or seven American divisions were in and out of the totals. Furthermore, on this matter of 97 divisions, we have to rely on our military experts, or do we? If 97 divisions by the end of 1954 is the goal for the security of Europe, well it looks as if we might as well quit because there would not be any 97 divisions. That is based on comparing future estimates with a racing form; that would seem to be the case. COMPARISON OF NATO AND SOVIET STRENGTHS If these charts we saw the other day on aircraft are accurate, we might as well forget the whole thing. That is, if we have a chart posted up here which says 14,130 aircraft for the Russians, and we are told orally that they have 100 percent reserve-which means that the chart should say 28,000-and then we are told that the buildup on the chart includes the reserves, well, if that is true, by the end of the period talked about on the chart we have less than 7,000 planes on our side and 28,000-as opposed to an increase of 28,000 on the other side, well, the answer to that is, "Let's call the whole thing off." Mr. NASH. No, sir, that is not the answer to that and I am not going to give you the answer to that. I am going to let General Ridgway come before you and this committee and tell you what he can do with the force he has and expects to have by the end of 1953; how much of a job he thinks he can do with all of the things at his command. Now please, in comparing the relative strengths of air power, do not forget the air power that the United States has in the event a conflict in Europe comes into play. Do not forget the accomplishment of atomic power that is possible now, in an area that we feel quite confident at the present time the United States has a substantial margin of superiority. The cards are not stacked against us the way just looking at one piece of this picture, namely General Hansell's chart of last Friday, might indicate to you. I would rather have General Ridgway say that what he has is something he can do something of a job with. He will tell you that he has not got what he needs certainly in the way of reserves, ammunition, and other resources that he needs to back it up. But I do not think that he will paint for you a picture as pessimistic as the conclusion that you might draw from it if you were serious, but I know better. I know that you are not serious in drawing a conclusion that we might as well quit. I tried to be a little more subtle about it in kicking this statement off when I ascribed it in large part to Senator Vandenberg. The fact of the matter is that Senator Vandenberg-and on the basis of the additional history you have given us today-this committee is in large measure the father of the program and General Eisenhower in his capacity as the first Supreme Commander in Europe, gave it the strength to get up off the ground and begin. I say in conclusion that in terms of 2 years-which is all that it is in the time when he went to Europe-only 2 years-is something that we do not have to be pessimistic about. STATUS OF OFFSHORE PROCUREMENT Mr. VORYS. Is it your purpose to go into offshore procurement? Mr. SMITH. We had not planned to today, no. Mr. NASH. I will be glad to come back and talk to you about it. Mr. VORYS. Are there any contracts now in force for procurement of ammunition in Europe? Mr. NASH. Yes, sir. Seven hundred fifty million dollars. I should qualify that this way: Two hundred million dollars were placed in the way of ammunition contracts in Europe last year, 1952. Approximately five hundred fifty million dollars of contracts have been, and are now being placed in Europe. Mr. VORYS. Not "are now being." Mr. NASH. Let me tell you what that means. Mr. VORYS. I am allergic to "obligations." Mr. NASH. Three hundred million dollars of authorization was placed in the hands of our Army procurement officers in December. They put out competitive bids for all the NATO countries over there. It took 60 days for those bids to come in and be analyzed. General MacMorland came back here with the results of those bids about 3 weeks ago and we approved his going back to Europe to place contracts and we hope he has those contracts pretty well placed by now. Mr. VORYS. Does that include the 200 that you have already placed? Mr. NASH. No, it would be in addition, making a total of $750 million. Two hundred million dollars has been in process from 6 to 8 months. Mr. VORYS. When you say, "in process" does that indicate there has been any money spent? Mr. NASH. There has been some money spent. Mr. VORYS. In other words, you have a firm contract with a known person? Mr. NASH. We have gotten deliveries. We have, therefore, spent money. But I want to say on that-because you will probably want a lot more details on it when I come back to give you the whole offshore procurement program-it takes some time for these countries abroad to get into production and the amount of actual deliveries to date, I would not say were enormous. Mr. SMITH. I might say to the committee that that problem that Mr. Vory's has just mentioned is one of our four points that we are considering. We have had NATO objectives, the offshore procurement, and also the question of what they are doing in Europe to produce for the program. We can have that information at a later date. I think that is all then; thank you, Mr. Secretary. [Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned to reconvene at the call of the chairman.] |