Word: vinson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Pentagon reorganization legislation to Congress last week, President Eisenhower opened the floodgates on the great debate and waited. He did not have long to wait for a Niagara from the man who has long rained over military matters in Congress: Georgia's seasoned, sharp-tongued Democrat Carl Vinson, 74, member of the House for 43 years, chairman of the old House Naval Affairs Committee for 16 years, and unchallenged czar of the Armed Services Committee for seven of the eleven years of its life...
Some folks dare to call Vinson "Uncle Carl," and sometimes "The Swamp Fox," after the Revolution's great strategist, Francis Marion. In committee hearings Uncle Carl's slow drawl and subtle digs ("Wha'd'ya say yer name wuz, Gen'ral?") can shake stars and tangle braid. Though he has long been a stalwart defender of a big Navy, knowledgeable Carl Vinson is also a wise, powerful force for a strong military establishment. But Ike's plan was too much for Uncle Carl...
Unity, Unity, Unity. The President was ready for the debate with his first public speech in behalf of his program. Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, Ike knocked down each of Carl Vinson's objections without mentioning the objector. "The purpose is clear," he said. "It is safety with solvency. The country is entitled to both." His double-barreled theme: "billions for defense; not one cent for heedless waste" and "unity-unity in strategic planning, unity in military command, unity in our fighting forces in combat units...
Better Squeeze. Ike did sidestep one aspect of the plan that has a riptide potential. The fiscal flexibility that he wants for the Defense Secretary, enabling the Secretary to shift as much as 10% of the total defense budget within and among the services, is one of Congressman Vinson's chief targets. The President carefully avoided mentioning this in his legislative proposal, instead announced that he will ask for such flexibility on behalf of the Defense Secretary in his next budget (fiscal 1960). He is confident that his program has a better chance of squeezing through a Congress that...
...from their only source of income. The case might have ended there had not Washington's powerful Army, Navy, Air Force Journal (circ. 28,166) gone into action. So hotly did the weekly Journal argue the injustice of the Navy's action that Georgia's Carl Vinson, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, started an investigation of conflicting service policies by which hard-earned military retirement pay can be denied without appeal...