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In 1948, the late Defense Secretary James Forrestal asked for about $18 billion for defense during fiscal 1950. Thanks to a budget ceiling set by an election-minded Harry Truman and politics-first economy on the part of Congress, Forrestal got only $13.3 billion. Whether the extra money would have bought adequate defense forces is open to debate; it certainly would have bought proportionately far more than the funds appropriated. Reason: the $13.3 billion paid for the skeleton of an adequate defense; the extra billions would have put on the muscles.
In Germany, for example, the U.S. has a division and a half of combat soldiers. But it is operating PXs, mess halls, command centers, communications and all the other installations necessary for a much larger front-line force. Thus the U.S. could have doubled its combat force there with very little outlay because it would not have to add to its supply troops. In the same fashion, almost all other additions to the armed forces which the extra cash would have bought would have been to their combat and front-line strength.
The Forrestal budget would have bought twelve fully equipped regular Army divisions (v. the ten Johnsonized divisions that the U.S. had at the time of Korea). It would have bought the 70-group Air Force recommended by the Finletter-Air Policy Commission and Congress instead of the 48 groups] on hand last June. It would have bought a Navy of 420 combatant ships (v. today's 245).
Under the Forrestal budget the modern tanks that are now still on the drawing boards or in pilot models would have long since been coming off the production line, ready for battle. Forrestal's $18 billion, in short, would have given the U.S. ground, sea and air power—ready for use now—that it will not be able to get for months, even at a far greater cost.
Because the U.S. was penny wise, it will now have to be pound foolish. It will have to pay more for rubber, aluminum, copper, steel and every bit of raw material that goes into armament. It may have to start making weapons that are not the best simply because it has not spent the money to develop perfection. It will have to spend heavily to remove bugs on the production line which should have been worked out, at small cost, in the laboratory.
Last week Congress appropriated $11.7 billion (on top of the $14 billion already budgeted) for the armed forces for this fiscal year. Of the total, $3.1 billion will go to the Army, $3.7 billion to the Navy, and $4.5 billion to the Air Force (the rest will go for such projects as research on atomic weapons including the hydrogen bomb).
How much rearmament this new money will buy is anyone's guess; but it is certain that it will not buy as much as needed nor as much as Congress intended. The total 1951 appropriation calls for the purchase of 5,300 new military planes. Texas' Senator Lyndon Johnson told the Senate that in the time it has taken for the funds to be appropriated price rises have chopped their purchasing power by 750 planes.
Even without the price rises, the new appropriations are far from enough to pay for the defense expansion planned by the Administration.