Word: rearmed
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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They were: 1) the tragically tardy recognition by the U.S. of the fact that Soviet Russia is its enemy, and 2) the nation's too-long-postponed effort to rearm. Mistake No. 2 involved many people-the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Congress' (including many Republicans), Harry Truman and ex-Defense Secretary Louis Johnson, dancing in a program of false economy through the critical months of '49 and '50 with what Columnist Stewart Alsop last week called the President's "silly optimism" and Johnson's "dark guilt." Certainly Mistake No. 2 had left...
...size since it was formally pronounced "mature" by New Deal hare-braintrusters in 1936, was still capable of gigantic growth. No one thought that it could grow big enough-or fast enough-in the next few years to pour out civilian goods at 1950's rate and also rearm the nation. But most economists and businessmen knew that, barring the sudden arrival of all-out war, it could grow fast enough to keep the standard of living close to the present level and still meet the arms quotas...
...calls for increasing West Europe's present 19 divisions to 60 divisions by 1952's end. A far more serious matter of concern is the belief in some quarters that the timetable itself is too modest, that, given decisive and insistent leadership by the U.S., Europe could rearm much more quickly...
...underlying weakness of the Brussels plan of action is French inaction. If the French rearm rapidly, they will have less cause to fear German rearmament. But the French government is so deeply committed to a "go slow" policy on French rearmament that there seems little chance of a speedup...
...however, persuade the French to give up their opposition to arming Western Germany. At no point did the U.S. publicly and with finality tell the French what sensible French politicians would have liked to hear: the U.S. was not going to embark on a pointless effort to rearm Western Europe unless the French agreed that the Germans be allowed to have their own defenses against the U.S.S.R...