The U.S. is still bustling with civilian prosperity. More than a year after the Korean war began, six months after the President proclaimed a national emergency, there is no trace of stern austerity, though the nation is both fighting a big war and mobilizing against the threat of a bigger one. Stores still bulge with everything from aluminum ski poles at $7.95 a pair to metal-hulled cabin cruisers at $5,500 each. Most corporate profits are at record-breaking levels or close to it. So are prices—and so too are wages. Instead of becoming a garrison state, the U.S. could tell itself—for the moment, at least —that it had never had it so good.
How Are We Doing? The war mobilizers promised to arm the U.S. without disrupting its economy. It is evident as of mid-July that they have not disrupted the economy. But how well have they armed the U.S.?
Last week Charles E. Wilson, who had retired from his $275,000-a-year job as president of General Electric to become U.S. mobilization boss, made his second report to the nation. It had been a "year of achievement," he said. But it was not good enough: the mobilization program, he candidly admitted, is a full 20% behind schedule. Out of 64 key military items, 17 were behind schedule in the first three months of 1951. Items:
AIRCRAFT: Deliveries are about on schedule or slightly ahead, and two-thirds higher than they were a year ago. But production then was only about 215 planes a month, is only about 350 today. The mobilization-plan goal: 12,000 to 13,000 planes a year. (World War II peak: 100,-ooo a year.) Employment in the aircraft industry has jumped from 185,000 to more than 300,000.
TANKS: Deliveries are four times greater than before the Korean war—but tank production before then was infinitesimal. Another fourfold increase is expected in the next year. On light tanks, the news is good: new models rolled off production lines at the Cadillac plant in Cleveland in March, three months ahead of schedule. New heavy tanks are due off production lines this month or next.
SMALL WEAPONS: Production of the new 3.5-in. bazooka is so high that cutbacks have been ordered. Tied in with the airborne's effort to lighten all equipment, several new items have been developed. Among them: a new entrenching tool, four pounds lighter than the old; an aluminum-nylon helmet, 8% lighter; new tropical combat boots, 3/4 Ib. lighter. Also due to be lightened: rifles, pistols, machine guns and ammunition.
ATOMIC WEAPONS: Still supersecret, but Wilson reported "striking advances." Said he: "Atomic bombs considerably improved over those used in World War II are being produced on an industrial basis."
These figures, most of them vague because of security reasons, do not tell the whole story. U.S. industry was preparing to prove again that it is, as Viscount Grey once remarked to Winston Churchill, like "a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate." Among the fires now being lighted:
¶Steel mills are already halfway to their goal of producing an additional 18 million tons a year (greater than Britain's entire annual output) on top of the 100 million tons they were turning out before Korea.