IS THE DEFENSE BUDGET BIG ENOUGH?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00297R001001300003-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 14, 2013
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 1, 1959
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/11/14: CIA-RD
FORTUNE NOVEMBER 1959
As the President draws up his seventh
military budget, he is under economic
and political pressure to cut deep.
How far can he safely go without en-
dangering a strategy that the Pen-
tagon believes has worked?'
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P74-00297R001001300003-7
Is the Defense Budget Big Enough?
by Charles J. V. Murphy
President Eisenhower this month will be giving increasing
attention to the defense budget of 1961, which will be pre-
sented to the Eighty-sixth Congress when it reassembles in
January. This is Ike's seventh military budget and the last
he will execute in full. It will largely determine how his
'finances will look when he winds up his eight years in the
presidency. And it involves some of the most difficult and
important decisions the President has had to make: choices
that must be made against the background of the Treas-
ury's current difficulties in the money market; against the
.mounting demands of the military for new and costlier
weapons; and finally, against the strange turn in the cold
war introd,:c. l by ? 1,.. per.onal diplomacy of the President
t . the unc. rtain!i4.7, 2ect
IfItir tht? A'. t?
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 50-Yr 20_ 13/11/14 : CIA-RDP74-00297R001001300003-7
economic recovery, such a surplus in 1961 may well be
.obtainable, but only on condition that the President resists
the reckless denands of civilian pressure groups, and mean-
while holds military spending at least at present levels, or
even reduces them. Rut it is just here that the President runs
into the countorvailing judgment of his military advisers
and his collateral obligation to support our allies, not to
say his sworn duty to maintain the defenses of the U.S. In
holding military expenditures in this fiscal year to $.41
billion, the military have been fOrced to shut down many a
cherished program, such a.: the Navy's Regii!.14 11
all thc Air Force's mach 3 F-108 interceptor. MoreoN, r. in
ae of rising costs, .'ust to maintain preen' rce 1.?%
? \ 51.0.000 1. i. t. c..11'?' to... r ? ;
!??! ot a pace I ?-? r?, ;f42J-
??"C. ry ?* .? ' :`,." ? he,