Word: ridgway
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Ridgway's words were aimed not at the 100 reporters before him but at the representatives of six Continental nations gathering next day to discuss a common draft period for the European Army. The conference had been called by Belgium's conservative government, which is finding its two-year draft period-the longest in Western Europe-a worrisome political issue.* There had been antidraft riots in Brussels, sparked by Belgian Socialists, and a distressing though brief mutiny among Belgian conscripts. Prime Minister Jean van Houtte, anxious to convince Belgian voters that they were not being asked...
General Matthew B. Ridgway last week made his first public request as NATO Supreme Commander, and next day Echo answered...
Neat and crisp in his sharply pressed summer uniform, Ridgway called his first press conference since taking over from Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was firm about one thing: the soldiers under his international command should all be drafted for two years. "The reason is . . . that in this day of numerous and complex weapons, it takes approximately a year to train an individual in standard arms," he said. "Just when a state stands a chance of regaining some of its investment on the soldier, it loses...
Economic pinch was the explanation given; yet complacency too was behind the slowdowns. Matt Ridgway tried last week to counter this feeling with a soldier's assessment: "There is no reliable evidence known to me . . . [that] the potential threat of armed aggression . . . has in any way abated." Warned the London Observer: "Everybody is now smugly persuading himself that the danger of war has receded and that it is therefore possible to go to sleep again. There will be a harsh awakening...
Last week Ridgway's headquarters solved the Mediterranean land-force muddle by splitting the land command in two: one force (Allied Land Forces Southern Europe) to be commanded by the Italian; the other (Allied Land Forces Southeastern Europe) to be commanded by an American (possible choice: Admiral Carney's able chief of staff, Paratroop Major General James Gavin). Still bobbing becalmed in a command vacuum, however, are Mountbatten's British warships. The U.S. argues that it has more ships in the Mediterranean and more knowledge of carrier tactics; the British say that the Mediterranean has traditionally been...