Word: gruentherized
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Such talent for detail, priceless in a staff officer, can be disastrous in a commander, and some senior NATO officers were worried that Gruenther would let details distract him from broader thinking. "But we found that he is able to clear his mind and his desk with lightning speed," says one SHAPE officer. "He never abandoned the detail; he simply operates brilliantly on two levels instead...
...captive audiences and in public Al Gruenther sturdily ex-tolls the long, hard distance NATO has come from the days when Ike and Al first set up headquarters in the Astoria Hotel near the Arc de Triomphe, and ex-Prizefighter Georges Carpentier ran the bar downstairs. Then there were fewer than 15 NATO divisions, only one of them combat ready; the rest were largely split up into occupation units. Then there was no plan, and no communications to set it in motion. A phone call to Oslo took twelve hours, and passed through the Soviet zone of Germany. All that...
...Today Gruenther proclaims proudly: "Our resources are from four to five times what they were in those dark days of 1951." There is a plan, and "each unit knows what to do." The call to Oslo takes three minutes and goes direct. NATO has spent $1.9 billion building miles of road, miles of pipelines, supply depots and bases. Greece, Turkey and West Germany have joined NATO's ranks. Gruenther even makes a virtue out of his frustrations, pointing out the democratic problems in allocating costs for such things as airfields. "What should Norway pay for an airfield in Turkey...
...knows better than Gruenther that the history of NATO is also a story of NATO nations constantly falling short of constantly reduced goals. The original goal of 90 active divisions was cut by the Three Wise Men*to 50. Soon after he took command in mid-1953, Gruenther recognized that not even this goal was going to be met. In the U.S., Eisenhower shifted U.S. rearmament from a crash basis to "the long haul." In Europe, making a virtue of what was political necessity, Gruenther set up the New Approach Group to devise a new strategy for the defense...
...Gruenther confronted the 15-nation NATO council with the choice. If they were unwilling to supply more men to fight, they would have to accept the atom. The stern logic of numbers prevailed over the cold horrors of the new science. In December 1954 the NATO council approved the new strategy...