DEFENSE: Sounding Board

In the month since "Engine Charlie" Wilson's defense budget had been sent to Congress, the Eisenhower Administration had grown steadily more nervous over the violence of the opposition to the proposed $5 billion cut in Air Force appropriations. Major General "Jerry" Persons, the President's liaison man with Capitol Hill, had put in long hours trying to coax dissatisfied Congressmen back into line. Dwight Eisenhower himself had thrown the weight of his military prestige behind the air-power cut in a nationwide radio speech. Last week, fighting to stave off the possibility that Congress...

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