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But the cost of maintaining the U.S. Seventh Army in Germany, with its five combat divisions plus huge additional air and ground support groups, runs into hundreds of millions of dollars a year. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara has long been convinced that a substantial reduction of this force can produce big savings at no cost to U.S'. power on the Continent.
U.S. Army strength in Europe, which peaked at 270,000 in late 1961, has been reduced by 22,300, and additional troops are being brought home at the rate of about 1,000 a month. Many are "extra" soldiers rushed to Europe after the Communists built the Berlin Wall.
Others are being removed from the supply line to Germany as new computerized inventory systems and more efficient transport techniques are installed. Dozens of depots in France are being closed down or curtailed, and most of the equipment for U.S.
European combat troops will henceforth move direct to Bremerhaven, the big North German seaport. Recently, the Pentagon announced that 5,400 members of the 4th Logistical Command, in France, will be brought home.
Arguments for Fullback. Last August when McNamara reshuffled the Berlin Command, trimming away 600 men from the garrison there, then declared his intention to remove the 3,500 men of the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Germany, the Bonn government reacted frantically. The Pentagon intends to reduce the U.S.'s Germany contingent by still more troops, most of them noncombat types. But to soothe jangled German nerves, the withdrawals were suspended until last week's Big Lift exercise demonstrated just how swiftly the U.S. troops could be returned in case of trouble.
Only the most nervous will object to the U.S.'s trimming the fat off its European forces and withdrawing men who can be replaced by technology. But the argument will continue whether it would be safe also to withdraw many combat troops—perhaps even most, as Ike is suggesting.
Some believe that a U.S. force re duction in Europe would improve the climate of detente with the Soviet Un ion. The Communists themselves have at times suggested various forms of a Western troop "thinout." But this is certainly not what Ike and others have in mind; a pullback offered as a concession to the Russians might be near-suicidal.
A far more attractive argument is the possible improvement in the U.S. balance of payments. Actually, while the Pentagon could trim a lot out of its budget (every division costs some $75 million a year), there would be no great saving to the gold flow, since West Germany is tied by a so-called "offset" agreement to spend some $650 million a year in 1962-64 on materiel purchases in the U.S. The guarantee to offset U.S. dollar