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Luftwaffe. Of a scheduled 100,000 men, the air force now has about 64,000, nearly all volunteers. Under command of Lieut. General Josef Kammhuber, boss of all German night fighters in World War II, the Luftwaffe is already airborne and climbing fast. So far, five Luftwaffe wings are flying F-86s and F-845 for NATO. After keeping the French on tenterhooks for two years over a possible order for their Mirage III fighter, Strauss plumped last year for the U.S.-built F-IO4 as the Luftwaffe's main-line plane. The first trainer models have already been delivered, and the first 66 operational types are due from California in April. The revitalized German aircraft industry is building 210 F-1045 under license for 1961 and 1962 delivery, and a German-Belgian-Dutch consortium will supply another 364. All told, the order will cost the Bundeswehr a billion dollars, $175 million of which will be spent in the U.S.
O Divine Simplicity. The rambunctious Defense Minister has settled down a bit since 1957, when he married a brewer's attractive daughter, a summa cum laude graduate of the same Munich school where Strauss was primus (top) of his class. They have a ig-month-old son named Max Josef, and Strauss has already bought the boy an electric train and, of course, made himself an expert on electric trains. He still manages to knock back heroic quantities of Sekt (German champagne), may sit up all hours drinking beer and arguing furiously with newsmen or fellow politicians. He reads three to four books a week: currently, besides Robert Sherwood's Roosevelt and Hopkins, he is devouring a heap of volumes on a new interest, Africa. He has not lost his lust for Latin. On an indifferently argued staff paper he scribbles: "0 sancta sim-plicitas."
A typical day for Strauss, when he is not off at NATO meetings, inspecting bases or addressing political rallies, begins at 7:30. He has breakfast (tea, dark bread with butter and white cheese) with his wife Marianne and the baby at his villa above the Rhine. By the time his black BMW delivers him at the office at 8:45, his staff has already clipped the news from 140 German and foreign newspapers. Strauss plows through it all. Working at top speed on a schedule prepared 14 days in advance, he fires machine-gun orders at subordinates, sees people, attends meetings, dashes off to the Bundestag. He knocks off at 7:30 or 8, when he usually goes out with his wife to an official dinner.
Ear to the Future. U.S. officials find Strauss good to work with. He is the only Minister Adenauer allows to make major policy statements in the Bundestag without horning in to amplify or correct. Yet many people feel that they cannot trust Strauss. His hell-for-leather ways, his quick temper and his unmistakable relish for power brush many Germans, and others, the wrong way. "He is his own worst enemy," says an old friend. Typically, he supports Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard, 63, as Adenauer's successor, though he knows that Erhard lacks both health and political savvy to hang on for more than one term. Then it would be his turn. Meanwhile, there are signs that he wants to be Foreign Minister, and is beginning to work on Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano the way he did on Blank.