More Serious Than in November

Said Defense Secretary Marshall: "The situation, as I see it, is more serious now than in November."

What dismayed Old Soldier Marshall as he faced a press conference last week was the U.S. public's attitude: he was afraid that Americans were letting down. Last November, in the black days of Korea the Defense Department, and Marshall himself, were accused of not seeing the conflict in its full seriousness, of not asking for enough, of not moving fast enough.

Now he was convinced, Americans no longer had that healthy sense of urgency. He had expected some such letdown along about next September, he went on, but he was astonished to have the reaction come so soon. He charged the press, commentators, political speechmakers, television, with contributing to the lightheartedness.

Splitting Hairs. There was certainly abundant evidence around that the country was coming to take the war in Korea as a matter of course, and along with it the fact that it is being fought without plan for conclusion, either by victory or negotiation. The public's lack of close interest was reflected in the diminishing lines of volunteer blood donors. It was also shown by the apathy of Congress. The Senate obviously felt that it could spend three months splitting hairs over the troops-to-Europe bill; in the House a coalition of Representatives meanwhile was trying to gut the Pentagon's long-range manpower bill.

Were there other reasons for believing that things had worsened? If there were, the public did not know what Marshall knew, and Marshall was not in a position to go into detail.

Hints & Glimmers. It is part of the Defense Secretary's job to keep in daily contact with secret intelligence reports, and busy with strategic problems. The public is left with only hints and glimmers of responses to critical situations. It learned, for example, that two National Guard divisions, the 40th and the 45th, embarked last week for Japan--the first Guard divisions to be sent overseas. They were being rushed off before they had finished their training. The public was also aware, but only vaguely, of big Russian concentrations in Manchuria and on Sakhalin island: a Russian assault on Japan might cut off the troops in Korea and touch off World War III. But these and similar grave possibilities, so real to the Pentagon, gave Americans no acute sense of clear and present danger.

Marshall was talking, he said, about a worldwide struggle that might go on another ten years. He was pleading that the country continue to face that fact. Americans would face it. But they expected their leaders to worry about it. What Marshall said about Congress was valid: Congress was elected to handle these problems over both the short term and the long term; it was not supposed to relax. As for the 150 million other Americans, there were signs that they were building their strength for whatever may come (see below).

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