A congressional committee headed by Mr. Hébert of Louisiana is midway through hearings freighted with tension, on the question of the proposed elimination of the Army Reserve. The tension is for various reasons. For one thing, there is the cadre of officers and men who have devoted a significant part of their lives in the services of an idea —the Army Reserve—who have now heard the doctor recommend euthenasia. It is difficult, after years of service, to be told that economy, or managerial tidiness, or whatever it was that Mr. McNamara’s computer disgorged, justifies the elimination of an active service which for years, and in several crises, proved itself an impressive means of buttressing the national security. All the more difficult if you believe for the best of patriotic reasons that Mr. McNamara’s computer is on this occasion, as on a few others, disposing of people, ideas, and traditions, on the basis of ill-digested data.
Buckley
Comments