JAMES FORRESTAL, THE ORACLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200800005-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 22, 1999
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: January 1, 1962
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

AIR FORCE JAN 1962
Approved For Release 1999/09/1?WF
CPYRGHT .
James ForrestaL the Oracle
By Claude Witze
SENIOR EDITOR, AIR FORCE MAGAZINE
CPYRGHT
an ,attempt to prove that the military-industry team is a
self-seeking cabal, a modern merchants-of-death combine,
WASHINGTON, U. U.
On the seventh day of February 1947, James Forrestal
noted in his diary that he had lunched with Arthur Krock
of the New York Times and Congressman Clarence Brown
of Ohio. There was some discussion about the Universal
Military Training program. The Congressman said a UMT
bill could not pass Congress. He did recognize the chang-
ing nature of the national defense problem and expressed
the opinion that there should be closer liaison, in this kind
of an era, between the armed services and industry and a
more adequate program for the development of technicians.
Then, wrote Mr. Forrestal: ?
"I said that the Navy was moving along all of these lines
and I believed the Army was also. . . I. said that some-
time we would have to look to him for a defense of these
activities . . . that at sometime in the not-too-distant future
I foresaw the recurrence of attacks such as the Nye investi-
gation, to prove that the Army and Navy and American busi-
ness were combining on a neofascist program of American
imperialism, thought domination, etc."
On that day in 1947 Mr. Forrestal was Secretary of the.
Navy and destined, in a .few months, to be the first Secre-
tary of Defense. It was during his days in the Pentagon?
he served, in all, from 1940 to 1949?that the .United
States, facing a prolonged military menace in an era of
uneasy peace, turneu. to the military-mauktry team concept
for the maintenance of its arsenal. Mr. Forrestal played, a
key role in this decision and still is honored as the father
of the National Security Industrial Association, a defense
contractor organization which he recommended as a source
of "disinterested advice on research, manufacturing, and
procurement." .
It is an odd juxtaposition of history that when the Secre-
tarx predicted a Nye-type attack on the system and told
Mr. Brown it would need defending, he already was an
-old acquaintance of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the
Army Chief of Staff who later was to become President.
In the years ahead, from his platform at the White House,
-Mr. Eisenhower provided major stimulation to all efforts
to discredit the military-industry team approach to national
security. The record on this ran from 1953, when he first
voiced apprehension about the 'size of the military budget,
to his swan song last January, when he talked about the
"military-industry complex" - and warned of its "unwar-
ranted influence." ?
It was early in 1959 that Mr. Eisenhower warned of our
trend, as he saw it, toward a "garrison state." A short
time later he said "something besides the strict military
needs of this country" was influencing decisions and here
was credited .with helping to start the Hebert Subcommit-
tee investigation of retired officers who accepted jobs with
, defense contractors, That hearing, which simmered away.?
during the summer months; touched on many aspects of
the military-industry team approach 1)1_4 produced no real
evidence f misconduct. -
But th omechEarsRelegassvA9L91909/17,-:
The most elaborate effort 'o date appeared in The
' Nation for October 28, a six(y-four-page special issue
entitled: "Juggernaut: The Welfare State." The author,
-EIPU,,,Cook, has made previous reports of this magnitude
for The Nation on the Federal Bureau of Investigation
. and the Central Intejlizence Agency- He also has written
a book anitil Alger Hiss, who was a member of the Nye
It is the American way to depend heavily on -what
we call "industry." Our total national effectiveness is
deeply rooted in the utilization of the initiative, com-
petence, and resources of private industry. As World
War II so vividly illustrated, the total national
strength which we can mobilize in time of emergency
rests primarily upon the productive capability of an
industrial complex with motivations of its own. The
essential ingredient of that motivation is profit.
We happen to believe?and have demonstrated?
that such a system of so- 'sty is superior in the long
run to the monolithic structure which sometimes
seems so effective and efficient under conspiratorial
control?terribly efficient in the hands of an adversary
holdinv to a fixed a d narrow obiective of tyranny.
Committee staff?a sta
restal?long before he s
Chambers..
In the entire sixty-fot
evaluation of the threat
enemy. Such docurnen
great broken secret of
ignored. Russia's role, i
becoming the menace
created."
Cook says the issue
the military is Menace
as defined by Mr. Eisen
dition" instead of the co
has been.. At the outset,
John Birch Society and
to social progress. De
termined to see the tax
for the Warfare State,
There is no desire h
detailed review and ref
are taken out of contex
in interpretation. He 1
publications as the Co
curIK15f15121:56
?EUGENE M. ZUCKEIVT
Secretary of the Air Force
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called Communist by Mr. For-
red the headlines with Whittaker
pages of The Nation there is no
? the capabilities of the potential
tion as the Gaither Report, the
e Eisenhower Administration, is
the Cook article, has been that ofc
nly when "a menace had to be
a threat that civilian control of
by the military-industry complex
ower. He 'calls this control a "tra-
stitutional provision that it always
le associates the complex with the
just as deftly with all opposition
nse industry, he charges, is de-
iyer buy guns, not 'education; it is
t :the Welfare State.
re to dignify the Cook thesis by
tation. His ?quotations consistently
and just as consistently distortpd
ns heavily on such authoritative
ressional Quarterly but is highly
r ? ? ? ? ? a/s a a a'.g .the Hebert
ge t?
AIR FORCE Magazine ? January 1962
PYRG
Approved For Release 1999/09/17: CIA-RDP75-
(.1-/OKE NORRIS
CHICAGOOLL.
111 SUN-TIMES
m. 538,780
L. S. 661,G22
ar o kt
gn: ps.12:1, 4511:41;
Date:
OCT 18 1964
Critic
tLLrg?
-WHERE RIGHT GOES WRONG
There are thousands, pLrll'ap iii Nuu,, et person* its: ttais
coutury of ours who would if they could (and they're trying)
save you from communism, socialism, Democrats, Repub..
licans, liberals, integration, income taxes, labor unions,' pftblie'
wons programs, the Supreme Court, the NAACP,
the Girl SC0L1151 1110 YWCA;qh0 YMCA, DWight DriztisCAL"
hewer. Richard M. Nixon, Lyndon B.lohnson,?public sehools, .
Community Chests, -olthage- pensions,' the United Nationi;',
the armed forces, police departments, the postal system: the
Atomic Energy Commission, immigration and tie fleor;j torr
STATI NTL
CPYRGHT
luxury with. syhich some of them surround themselves.. tne
Rev. Mr. Hargis, he of the Christian Crusade, is paid'$500
a Week, lives in a $44,000 home bought for him by his organ-
ization, uses $200 of its funds a week for maid service in the
"parsonage," rides in a $7,500 car bought by the Crusaders
and travels in a Greyhound bus that they -reconditioned for
him M a cost of $50,000 (steel kitchen, refrigerator, 'radio
broadcasting facilities And sleeping accommodations for 'five).
One would only observe that Paul Revere furnished his own
horse. ?
"
. 1 here may alSo be an clement of indulgent humor found ins
the odd blending of childishness and mental derangernent.that
'marks the far right and its fellow travelers. What the "Dringer.,
on the Right" authors say about the young students among
the extreme conservatives might be said about their elders as '.
as your drinking water. ?
As disparate 'as that list is, all of. its elements share in 1
common the enmity of the extremely conservative and radical.!
right that at one time or another has .assaulted all of them. '?'?;
These American rightists, then, !would , if they could. (and
they're trying) destroy the America that we know and That, k
I assume, all of us cherish. And they're couducting their
assaults while shouting pro-American. slogans.. It' makes it
?
curious story
The story has often been told in various books abOin the
. ?
right wing. A new and vigorous study of the subject appeared 1:
the othe.: day?"Danger on the Right," by Arnold Forster
and Benjamin B. Epstein, with a foreword by Dere ScharF,
national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of Irma
' Welds (Random House, $4.95 hardback, '$2.95, paperbackYq
Epstein is the league's national director and Forster its
! general ?:outisel, and the book was written, says the report; "As';',
part of the ADL`s total public service program,"- They look ?t
I close and long at 11 dwellers in the intellectual slums of the s
radical fight---Robert Welch of the john Birch SocietY,' Dr.
Frederick C. &:hwara, the Rev. Billy 'James Hargis, Dr.
George Benson, the Rev. Carl McIntire,.Dean'Clarenee Man-
nion, Dan Smoet, Edgar Bundy, Kent and Phoebe Courtney
and Willis Stone---and at such extreme conservatives as
i Ben Morrell and William F. Buckley, with briefer treatment
of lesser personages and organizations.. ?
'
Danger Hs its Funny Side ....,.. ,. ..-'
, r THE REAN R Who has 'kept his political and intellectual
,wits about him alay be ,,ait,sed by part of "Danger or the
I Right." . . . , ?. ..
I Certainly,. in.lhe air.:11 tringle dedication and doons..that i
:? the crusaders Of the right manage to engender, a reader may ;
?chuck erover ,the vast sums of money'. they collect and the !
A
'41., short," the ao414ere w4t4"the.?? riling rightists .
.1,ci:evc; that or." is *HI ? imag ?? ahRnliite gond and absolute
truth- and being of tender years, they believe that they have'
the key to these absolutes and the answers that flow there=
from." They. would solve all problems with 'a -single Simple
solution (invade Ctiba), They are not prepared for a life that ;
may perforce be lived out in a dins zone betwcen victory. and
defeat. They yearn to know once' more a nation that ? can
simply' send the Marine* to Nicaragua, and let it go at.lhat..''
? ?
. . . Until You StopAnd Think About It
BUT THE reader's laughter cannot be sustained. He must
let the weight of the movement sink in: Read the list of -,con-''
tributors among wealthy individuals .and large corporations
that obviously agree. with the rightists, and consider the',pos-
sible impact of the movement upon our future. ' ?
Most of its members seem pleased by the Republican nom- .
ination of Sen. Barry Goldwater for the Presidency. It Was a
victory for them, whatever the disclaimers entered by non-
right Republicans. The rightists. haye seen their members. and
supporters elected to Congress and to other high offices:They
are raising up a young generation, undergraduate and post-
graduate, that is articulate, intelligent, crafty, and dedicated,
and that will be with us for a long time to Come. The rightists
will continue to be a problem for moderate' Republicans: and '.
for such conservatives as Buckley who must, the authors write, -
eventually "come to the day when they regard the Birchen,
the Crusaders, the McIntires, the Smoots and the Courtney* as ;
millstones of which they must be free."
But, the authors add, the 'rightists are also the nation's .1
problem: "It cannot afford confusion onthe right, and if the
contusion persists, the public will in the end reject the Con-
servative 'along with the radical. Our' democracy, needs a
conservative faction, Without it, we wi)I be the poorer, hut 7
we will survive." , ?
' 1Forster and Epstein believe that the intended victims Of the
radical right will 'also survive?our military-foreign policy, 1
the Supreme, Court; the income, tax, Social Security, TVA; the
war on poverty, the cause of civil rights---'-beeause American
decisions have.always been made "at, or near, the vital center
?sometimes a little to the left, 'sometimes a little to the 'right. t
For that is where the voices Of reason and moderation are
heard 't f?1
pprovdd For Relc\ace 1999/09/17 :CA RDP76 0014191;1000200800006 0
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