The Senate Armed Services subcommittee, tracking down ammunition shortages (TIME, March 16 et seg.), rendered a blistering judgment last week against the Truman Administration. A majority report, signed by Republicans Margaret Chase Smith, Robert C. Hendrickson, John Sherman Cooper and Democrat Harry Byrd, agreed that:
¶A continuing shortage of ammunition had hampered U.S. forces in the Korean war, caused "needless loss of American lives."
¶A pinpointing of responsibility is "difficult." But Harry Truman, his Secretaries of State, Defense and Army, his Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Security Council, all shared in miscalculating "the aggressive designs of international Communism." The Truman Administration failed...