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As a result, the Army was slow in developing the weapons for its historic mission: fighting on the ground. Item: the Army needed only three years to create the Jupiter missile, but required twelve years to develop the M-14 rifle. Item: the Army needed nine years to develop the M-60 machine gun, which only now is beginning to replace World War II models. Item: the Army, after seven years of work, is just now beginning to get the M-60 tank, the answer to the Russians' T-54, which appeared in 1952. But Army tank experts fully expect that the Russians will soon produce a new generation of tanks that can outclass the M60.
As the Army's Chief of Staff from 1953 to 1955, General Matthew Ridgway fought publicly for a bigger budget for conventional warfare—and was eased out of the Pentagon. General Taylor, Ridgway's successor, waged a behind-the-scenes battle—and resigned in 1959 in frustration. Next came two men who have been criticized for their lack of drive. General Lyman ("Lem") Lemnitzer, 62, a brilliant staff officer with little combat experience, served as Army Chief of Staff from 1959 to 1960, then moved up to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and President Kennedy have made little secret of the fact that they feel Lemnitzer does not have the forceful personality to fit the job. Lemnitzer's successor, General George Decker, 59, is a first-rate controller, a crack golfer and a man who has been described as being "as colorless as a bushel basket full of fog." Army Secretary Elvis J. Stahr, on leave from his job as president of the University of West Virginia, has yet to learn his job, recently admitted publicly that he did not know the difference between a battalion and a battle group.
"Mother!" But the farther from the Pentagon the Army gets, the better it looks. Since 1957, the Army has shucked off nearly 100,000 of its deadbeat "professional privates" that once cluttered up the ranks. A startling 83% of the enlisted men are in the Army for a career. Roughly one-third of all active-duty first lieutenants have had either ranger or paratrooper training. In the Seventh Army, nearly 75% of the officers above the rank of first lieutenant have had combat experience. "The Russian soldier is not nine feet tall to us," says General Bruce Clarke, commander in chief of the U.S. Army in Europe (USAREUR) and NATO's Central Army Group (CENTAG). Says Davidson: "The Soviet and Czech soldiers may have more rural ruggedness than our kids, but there's no mental comparison. Man for man and weapon for weapon, I'll take our people any time."