The military-industrial complex is at once more and less than the name implies. As a catch phrase, it may be on its way to surpassing in notoriety "merchants of death," the term that grew out of Senator Gerald Nye's investigation of the arms industry in 1934. But the complex is not a well-organized, centrally directed entity. It is a vast, amorphous conglomeration that goes far beyond the Pentagon and the large manufacturers of weapons. It includes legislators who benefit politically from job-generating military activity in their constituencies, workers in defense plants, the unions to which they belong, university scientists and research organizations that receive Pentagon grants. It even extends to the stores where payrolls are spent, and the landlords, grocers and car salesmen who cater to customers from military bases.
Any important shift of defense spending thus affects many interests and individuals. In fiscal 1968, the Defense Department contracted for $38.8 billion in goods and services, plus $6.5 billion for research and development, amounting to 5.3% of the 1968 G.N.P. These funds went to many thousands of prime contractors and subcontractors.
According to a recent estimate, 21% of skilled blue-collar workers and 16% of professional employees are on payrolls that rely on military spending. Entire communities depend almost totally on a military installation, defense plants, or both. Junction City, Kans. (pop. 20,500), lives off Fort Riley. The post pumps $143 million into the state's economy, most of it in the Junction City area. When an Army division left in 1965, business plummeted 30%.
Communities in this situation grow panicky. Yet some towns have survived the loss nicely. Presque Isle, Me., and Greenville, S.C., for instance, both managed to use land and facilities previously occupied by military installations for industrial development.
Generally, the effect of the M-I complex is to foster heavy defense spending and impede cutbacks, even in an inflationary period. Not at all by coincidence, the legislators who have the most to say about military spending—the chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services and Appropriations Committees—have been blessed over the years with substantial military business in their states and districts. Congressman George Mahon (House Appropriations) can point to the fact that Texas gets more business from the military than any other state except California (which gets $6.6 billion a year). South Carolina's Mendel Rivers (House Armed Services) can, and frequently does note that his home town of Charleston thrives as a result of its huge shipbuilding facilities and naval installations.