The Threat to Civilian Control of the U.S. Military in 1961-1962: Part I

Twenty-ninth Chapter in a Series Chronicling the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

The U.S. Military Reports to Civilians

The U.S. military’s highest commanders report to the civilian secretaries of defense and the three uniformed services. The secretary of defense reports to the President, who is commander in chief of the armed forces.

The U.S. military’s job is to implement official policies under the direction of the President and the secretaries. It does not set those policies.

Hostility Between Kennedy and the Military

American military officers have traditionally refrained from partisan politics. At the height of the post-war Red Scare, however, some military officers allied themselves with ultra-right wing groups fighting what they had decided was a “win-or-lose” struggle to preserve America from a Communist “take-over.” They later claimed that in doing so they were loyally following policies set by President Eisenhower’s National Security Council.

When the Kennedy administration took office in 1961, those ultra-right officers ran smack into very different policies governing relations with the Soviet Union.

Curbs on Military Speeches

Eight days after Kennedy’s inauguration, The New York Times reported that the White House had ordered “drastic revisions” to an “anti-Soviet speech” by Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh (“31-Knot”) Burke. The Defense Department soon implemented a program requiring pre-approval of officers’ speeches. The ultra-right, led by conservatives like Senators Barry Goldwater and Strom Thurmond (both reserve generals), immediately accused the new administration of “muzzling” military officers and being “soft” on Communism. The newspapers had a field day.

The Walker Affair

The ultra-right John Birch Society became front page news in April 1961 when The New York Times reported that Major General Edwin A. Walker had used Birch anti-Communist propaganda to indoctrinate his troops.

Walker was soon relieved of his command. He was also rebuked for accusing public figures like Harry Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt of being Communists. He resigned his commission in November 1961. By then, he was an ultra-right martyr.

The Bay of Pigs—Vienna—“The Wall”—Check Point Charlie

The news of the monumentally bungled Bay of Pigs hit the headlines barely a week after the Walker affair did. Kennedy, on one side, and the CIA and the military on the other blamed each other for the invasion’s failure. Although both sides were partly right, the Bay of Pigs further damaged the already frail trust between the White House and its military and intelligence services.

So did Nikita Khrushchev’s humiliation of Kennedy at their June 1961 summit in Vienna. So did Kennedy’s dithering when construction began on the infamous Berlin Wall (mid-August). So did his apparent failure to stand up to the Soviets when they used tanks to close Check Point Charlie, the last open passage between East and West Berlin (October).

To the ultra-right, especially its military adherents, the new President was clearly too cowardly to stand up to Communists. If he didn’t, who would?

The Fulbright Memorandum

In July 1961 The New York Times reported that Sen. J. William Fulbright, D-Arkansas, had written Defense Secretary McNamara criticizing military officers’ ultra-right activism. Fulbright’s memorandum threw yet more gasoline on the fire that had been raging since January.

The “Whiz Kids”

The Whiz Kids were the “young, book-smart, Ivy League, think-tank civilian assistants” McNamara hired in 1961 to help him modernize the Pentagon.

The Pentagon brass, all World War II combat veterans, loathed their know-it-all new bosses. Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis E. LeMay particularly loathed them because they had discovered that the “missile gap” which had so frightened the American public in the 1950s had been invented by the Air Force to preserve its huge Congressional appropriations.

Does the Military Have the Free Speech Rights Civilians Enjoy?

In the next chapter we’ll examine what the American military had to say about these issues before a Senate committee. These issues become crucial when the looming Cuban Missile Crisis breaks.

In the meantime—what do you think?

mailto:phufstader@sbcglobal.net

Sources and Notes

The United States Constitution establishes the president as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The Department of Defense and the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force are directed by civilian secretaries appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The President’s responsibility as Commander in Chief of the armed forces is established by U.S  Constitution, Article II, “The Executive Branch,” section 2 (1). His appointment of high officers and their confirmation by the Senate is established in II-2 (2).

Admiral Burke’s rabid anti-Communism was described in Jack Raymond, “Bridges denounces White House ‘gag’ on Burke’s speech.” New York Times, 29 January 1961, p. 1. Raymond wrote that Burke “is known widely for his outspoken attacks on the Soviet Union, including his frequently repeated statement that if Moscow dared attack this country the Soviet’s back would be broken.” Burke’s remarks were particularly inappropriate because in January 1961, completely unbeknownst to him, the White House was negotiating with Premier Khrushchev over the return of two U.S. Air Force pilots shot down in 1960 by the Soviets.

I can supply more complete citations for the New York Times articles cited in this chapter.

For an analysis of the Bay of Pigs debacle, see Peter Kornbluh, ed., Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba. New York: the New Press, 1998.

Kennedy’s sense of betrayal over the Bay of Pigs has been much discussed. See, for example, Michael R. Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991, 146: “Kennedy’s feeling of betrayal by the CIA, the Joint Chiefs, and to a lesser extent the State Department…”

Fulbright’s memorandum to Secretary McNamara: “Memorandum submitted to Department of Defense on propaganda activities of military personnel.” Congressional Record – Senate. 2 August 1961, pp. 14433-14439. I have a paper copy in my files but no electronic copy. Although Fulbright was chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations when he wrote his memorandum, he sent it in a private capacity, not as chair.

The “whiz kids” quotation comes from Chapter 16 of Fred Kaplan’s The Wizards of Armageddon. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983, 248-257. McNamara’s and the whiz kids’ discovery that the missile gap did not exist is discussed in Chapter 19, “The Gap that Never Was,” 286-290.

For more on General LeMay, particularly his extraordinary attempts to provoke a war with the USSR, see “Scorpions in a Bottle,” pp. 560-576, in Richard Rhodes’s Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. See also Alan Rosenberg  and W. B. Moore. “ ‘Smoking, Radiating Ruin at the End of Two Hours’: Documents on American Plans for Nuclear War with the Soviet Union, 1954-1955.” International Security, Vol. 6 No. 3 (Winter 1981-1982), pp. 3-38.

For more on ultra-right activities during the early 1960s, including the involvement of the U.S. military, see Donald Janson and Bernard Eismann, The Far Right. A Report on the Character, Activities, and Background of Right-wing Groups in America Today. New York: McGraw-Hill Company, Inc., 1963. The Walker Affair is discussed in “On Base,” pp. 174-197.

The Stennis Committee’s 1962 investigation into the Walker Affair is the subject of the next chapter in this series on the Cuban Missile Crisis.