On the eve of the Geneva Conference came a noisy new debate on the size and strength of the U.S. Armed Forces, and their needs for the years of cold peace.
Out of the Pentagon leaked General Matthew Ridgway's farewell message as Army Chief of Staff, a restatement of his familiar thesis that the U.S. should have more foot soldiers, an Army view that President Eisenhower called "in a sense, parochial." Old Paratrooper Ridgway termed U.S. forces "inadequate in strength and improperly proportioned"; the U.S. had placed too much emphasis upon the atom and the Air Force, and this was insufficient...
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