Word: vandenberg
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...would put naval aviation into the strategic bombing business. In 1949 the "revolt of the admirals" broke out, a no-holds-barred attack on the Air Force and its 6-36 which developed-on all sides-into the blackest chapter of modern U.S. military history. In the brawling, Hoyt Vandenberg kept his voice low. In his testimony to a congressional committee, he doggedly stated the simple facts: "The only military threat to the security of the U.S. ... comes from the Soviet Union," and the only force that could counterattack the threat at its source was the Air Force...
Balance of Forces. But Vandenberg always stopped short of saying publicly that the Air Force had to have first priority in funds and materiel if it was really to be the first line of defense. This was a deliberate personal decision on his part: he felt that nothing in air power history, from Billy Mitchell's public martyrdom to Tooey Spaatz's pleas to Congress, had achieved its purpose. Van vowed to keep his arguments "in channels" and in the secret councils of the Joint Chiefs. This did not prevent him from making broad public hints...
...well-balanced team," said Vandenberg in Dallas in 1949, "is not one in which all the players are of equal size or weight . . . [It] is one which is organized and trained ... to counter an opposing team's strength and take full advantage of an opposing team's weakness. This is the kind of balance we want in the forces that defend our nation...
...straining to build to the 70 groups which it then deemed necessary for minimum U.S. defense. In Korea air power was forbidden to strike enemy supply dumps across the Yalu or to strike at the menacing buildup of enemy planes and bases. At the MacArthur hearings last year, Vandenberg stepped lightly around the MacArthur issue. But he managed to strike another solid blow for air power...
...While I was and am today against bombing across the Yalu," Vandenberg testified, "it does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that I might not be for it tomorrow . . . Hitting across the Yalu, we could destroy or lay waste all of Manchuria and the principal cities of China if we utilized the full power of the U.S. Air Force . . . But... in my opinion we cannot afford to ... peck at the periphery as long as we have a shoestring Air Force . . . The fact is that the U.S. is operating a shoestring Air Force in view of its global responsibilities...