NOTICE
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened October, 1983
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[i]

AIR FORCE SYSTEMS COMMAND ORAL HISTORY

OF

HAROLD C. STUART
ASSISTANT SECRETARY
OF THE AIR FORCE FOR
CIVIL AFFAIRS, 1949-1951

BY
CHARLES J. GROSS

DATE: 28 August 1978
LOCATION: Tulsa, Oklahoma

[iii]

6 October 1983

RELEASE

At the conclusion of our discussions on 28 August 1978, Harold C. Stuart orally granted me permission to use this interview however I saw fit. Subsequent efforts to obtain his written permission to use the interview have not been responded to. Because of the great value of the interview and Mr. Stuart's oral permission to use it, I have prepared this transcript for inclusion in the Air Force's oral history collection.

CHARLES J. GROSS
Historian
AFSC Office of History

[v]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE	i
RELEASE.	iii
INTRODUCTION	vii
GUIDE TO CONTENTS	ix
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT	1
GLOSSARY	65
INDEX	66

[vii]

INTRODUCTION

Harold C. Stuart, attorney and business executive, served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Civil Affairs from October 28, 1949 to May 25, 1951. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on July 4, 1912. Stuart graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1936, and was admitted to the Oklahoma bar that same year. Following service as a judge in Tulsa, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces in August 1942. His active duty included assignments as an intelligence officer with the 497th Fighter Bomber Squadron at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Headquarters Ninth Air Force in Europe, and the SHAEF mission to Norway. After he left active duty in February 1946, he remained in the Air Force Reserve.

In addition to his service as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Stuart actively participated in a variety of civic and business affairs following World War II. His Air Force related activities included being president of the Air Force Association, 1951 1952, and special consultant to the Secretary of the Air Force, 1961 1963. Mr. Stuart also served as chairman of the board of the Air Force Academy Foundation. His extensive business ties included the board chairmanship of the Southwestern Sales Corporation as well as directorships of such firms as Getty Oil, and the First National Bank and Trust Company of Tulsa.

This interview was one of several that I completed in connection with a dissertation on the Air National Guard's history while a doctoral candidate at Ohio State University. The interview took place on 28 August 1978 in Mr. Stuart's office in Tulsa.

I am deeply indebted to the members of the DCS/Logistics Management Systems Word Processing Center at HQ AFLC who transcribed the interview and Ms. Elizabeth A. Maness of the Office of History at HQ AFSC who typed the final draft.

CHARLES J. GROSS, PhD
Historian
AFSC Office of History

[ix]

GUIDE TO CONTENTS

Harold C. Stuart Interview

[1]

MR. GROSS: Asked Mr. Stuart to recount the events that led to his being appointed Assistant Secretary of the Air Force in 1949.

MR. STUART: When I got out of the service in 1946, I joined the Air Force reserves, as part of the Air Force Reserve. I got out at Camp Chaffee in Arkansas coming back from Norway. I had served in Air Force intelligence and ended up head of the Operational Intelligence Section of the Ninth Air Force Advanced Headquarters in Europe. General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, who was Commanding General, said he would release me. I wanted to get into the invasion of Norway. We thought they were going to remain in Norway and the Bavarian Alps, called the redoubt area, but they had plead surrender. But I was going up as head of Air Intelligence in Norway. So I went to Norway, and immediately after the surrender of the Germans with the SHAEF Mission Norway as A2 or intelligence of the Norwegian mission. I remained there until about December of 1945, came back and got out about March 1946.

I came back to Tulsa and started practicing law again in my old law firm. I was requested by a group of newspapers to return to Norway, Sweden and Finland and attempt to get some newsprint for them. I was successful in that venture and I was asked by General Donovan, who was head of the OSS, to go

[2]

back to Norway and set up with their underground in late 1948, early 1949, to set up a procedure for the protection of the Royal family and the Government of Norway in the case of an invasion. Coming back from that, after doing work in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, I was having lunch at the Pentagon with General Robert Landry and Lt Gen Elwood R. Quesada who was the Air Force ....Let's see what his title was. He was head of the reserves and the Air National Guard.

MR. GROSS: I think he was Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff or something like that.

MR. STUART: ….For Reserves and Guard and ROTC. Maj Gen Robert Landry, who was the first Air Force aide to a President President Harry Truman. We were having lunch on a Saturday after I had been debriefed by the OSS group for about a week and there was in the Secretary's dining room at the Pentagon was General Vandenberg having lunch with Secretary Symington. I visited with General Vandenberg, who had been my Commanding General in the Ninth Air Force, and with whom I had a close relationship. I visited also with Secretary Stuart Symington, who was then Secretary of the Air Force. That was on a Saturday afternoon. I'd been gone about six or eight weeks in the Scandinavian countries. I returned home to Tulsa Saturday evening.

Early Sunday morning I received a call from Secretary Symington asking me to return to Washington. He wanted to discuss with me my selection and appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Reserve Affairs and civil

[3]

aviation and the other Assistant Secretary with various responsibilities. After some thought and conversation with my wife, I did return and met him the next day, Monday. After a short conversation, he wished to appoint me then as the Assistant Secretary or have the President appoint me. He recommended me to the President for appointment.

I commenced on that day as the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force. One of the responsibilities was reserve and civilian components affairs: Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, ROTC and all matters dealing with those affairs, among other responsibilities.

Up until that time, from 1946 till then, the spring of 1949, I had been active in the Air Force Association, which was organized in 1947. I was the Oklahoma Wing Commander of the Air Force Association. We were very much interested in Air Force Reserve affairs and had then elected a National Director, I believe in 1948, 1947 or 1948. There were a lot of officers and enlisted men who had served in the Air Force or Air Corps at that time. It was the Army Air Corps up until 1947. I remember the bill that was passed by Congress, approved by President Truman setting up the separate Air Force. I believe it was September 1947.

The people who had served in the old Army Air Corps wished to maintain some relationship and identity and continue active in a reserve status. We in Tulsa, not having a military airfield, did not have aircraft assigned. We had a non flying Air Force Reserve unit. Those who were flying or those

[4]

who wanted the military bases went to Tinker field in Oklahoma City and possibly others.

The main thing that Secretary Symington was concerned about was the organization, cooperation, and utilization training of the Air Force Reserve and what was the Air National Guard. Apparently, in order to help get the bill approved for a separate Air Force, one of the stumbling blocks was the National Guard Bureau in the Pentagon which was the Army Guard and Air Guard in various states. The Army National Guard had traditionally been under the control of the governors of the various states. They were very jealous about having an Air Guard and the National Guard under the governor's control. They still had some national responsibility but, in the main, the governors considered them as their air force and their army. Historically, the National Guard was used by the governor to take care of insurrections, riots what need there was for protection of state, citizens and property. The governor could call them out at his decision. In order to avoid a loss of possible support to get a separate Air Force, General Carl Spaatz, who was the first Chief of Staff of the Air Force and his staff, agreed to let the Air National Guard filter in through the National Guard Bureau.

MR. GROSS: This is support for the National Security Act of 1947?

MR. STUART: Yes:

MR. GROSS: Okay, fine.

[5]

MR. STUART: When I arrived at the Pentagon, the problem was pretty acute. Major General Cramer was then head of the National Guard Bureau in the Pentagon and Maj Gen George Finch, from Georgia, who had been the Adjutant General of Georgia, was the head of the Air National Guard reporting to General Cramer. Their offices were in the same suite or complex in the Pentagon. General Quesada, at that time, was a special assistant to the Secretary. There was a lot of confusion ....

General Cramer became very zealous and jealous of his position. He wanted everything that General Finch, or the Air Guard, wanted to come through him for a decision. General Quesada and the Air Force desired certain training and certain operations and certain procedures which the Air Force wanted. Sometimes General Finch wanted them. Sometimes General Cramer wanted them and sometimes he didn't and he issued a directive that any letter or even phone calls should come through General Cramer. It became an untenable situation, especially when the various governors started calling the Air Guard out for air shows and parades in the middle of their two weeks active duty training. On occasions we would have squadrons from two or three states that made up a wing or group, on the active duty training and the governor would call them back for something that he desired or something which General Cramer approved contrary to the believed best interests of training the Air Guard. Certain of the governors did not want their Air Guard to fly over the state line. They could not fly outside of their state boundary which made it very difficult for their training or maneuvers.

[6]

It came to a difficult impasse. I went to see General Cramer and told him that we were sending Air Force directives to General Finch. We would send him a copy but he, in our opinion, could not and should not try to override Air Force directives for the training and the maintenance of the Air National Guard. General Cramer, at that time, then tried to isolate General Finch from the Air Force. They had an Air National Guard .... No, they had a National Guard convention in Montgomery, Alabama. I believe it was in the spring of 1950 at which time they didn't even have the courtesy of inviting General Finch. They said that, if he did come, he would not be recognized.

The adjutant generals of the then 48 states as a group were not recognizing him and they had a very powerful lobby. The Adjutant General Association, and the adjutant generals of the states, they had invited me to make a talk which was cancelled. They cancelled it. I believe that General Renthrough, who had a connection in the White House, sort of liaison with the National Guard, then insisted that I be invited to speak insofar as the Air Force was concerned. Maybe somewhat reluctantly they did.

I arrived in Montgomery and they wouldn't permit General Finch on the floor. He was seated in the balcony. I spoke and tried to give the Air Force side of and reasons why it was necessary for the Air Force to maintain the control of the Guard if they were going to be utilized in the event of emergencies. In their training, their maintenance and most other activities I explained that we would cooperate with the Governors, that we would

[7]

cooperate with the National Guard Bureau. I received many compliments on my position and stand at that time. I think I was able to get a much better reception.

General Quesada, in that period, was transferred to another assignment and then Brig Gen John P. McConnell, who later became Chief of Staff of the Air Force, was appointed Special Assistant to the Secretary. Gordon Gray was then Secretary of the Army, an old friend of mine. He and Secretary Symington, the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Air Force, and the Special Assistants or the Assistant Secretaries with that responsibility in each department met. After lots of discussion, they decided to appoint a committee from the adjutant generals to work with the special assistants and draft a plan for the best utilization of the Guard--Army and Air Force.

General McConnell was probably the most instrumental person. He was very able, very smart, had a good quick mind, worked well with people. I would say and believe that he, more than any other one person, was responsible for establishing the satisfactory procedures under which both the Army and Air Guard could operate.

It was decided by the Secretaries and the two departments that it would be necessary, because of the friction between General Cramer and General Finch, that both should be replaced. Immediately, the Adjutant Generals Association and a group of the strong National Guard group recommended various adjutant generals of the states, one from Massachusetts, one from Ohio, one

[8]

from California, to head the Air National Guard. We looked at them, considered their background, but believed that we would be in the same situation. General McConnell and I had long discussions about one person who had not been recommended nor even suggested, was Brig Gen Earl Ricks, then the Adjutant General for the state of Arkansas. He had a good background in the Air Corps, in the Far East, so I got in contact with the Governor of Arkansas.

General McConnell had come from Arkansas prior to his appointment to West Point. I telephoned Governor McMath and asked if I could come down that afternoon. I called him early one afternoon asking if I could come down that evening and talk with him. I got a B-25 and flew down to Little Rock. I asked if I could meet with him and his Adjutant General, Earl Ricks. The three of us had dinner. I was satisfied that Earl Ricks would be my choice. I asked the Governor if he would release him and said I would like to have him appointed the head of the Air National Guard. We agreed satisfactorily that that would be a good solution.

General Ricks said that, if he did come, he would like to bring two people with him. One was Major Winston P. Wilson. The other was Lieutenant Colonel I. G. Brown. I returned to Washington that night, discussed it again with General McConnell. With the approval of the Secretary and General Vandenberg, General Ricks was named head of the Air National Guard. With him he brought Major Wilson and Colonel Brown.

[9]

General Ricks, after serving in the Air Corps and after the war lived in a little town of Stamps, Arkansas. He had run for mayor. This was right outside of Hot Springs. He moved to Hot Springs where he remained in the Air Guard and was elected mayor of Hot Springs. He did a very fine job in cleaning up a lot of bad gambling situations in Hot Springs so he had some political ability. He was friendly, got along very well with people, handled difficult situations with people and immediately, upon taking over as head of the Air Guard, worked along very well with the National Guard Bureau, with the Army Guard, with the Air Force, and had a great rapport with the various states.

He was a good flier, had flown many, many years. He toured the various states. We were able to secure a promotion to major general for him and got I. G. Brown and Wilson promoted. From that time, we had little or no problems at all with the Air Guard, with their active duty training, with their maintenance utilization of their aircraft, with the Army Guard Bureau, or the Adjutant Generals Association.

Following General Ricks' death from cancer in the 1950s, about 1952, 1953, Wimpy Wilson was named head of the Air National Guard. I. G. Brown, I believe, was made training officer. On Wilson's retirement, I. G. Brown became head of the Air Guard. So, for a period from 1950 to the mid 1970s, the three we brought in from Arkansas very successfully headed the Air National Guard. During that period of time, we had excellent cooperation, excellent training. So much for the Guard.

[10]

On the Air Force Reserve, I was one of those who started the Civilian Components Policy Board. The Civilian Components Policy Board consisted of one member from the Secretary of each department Army, Navy, Air Force -and they had a special assistant. They had, I believe, two Reserves and two Guards. I believe there were six from each Service. General McConnell and I, we had tried to establish training procedures, administration of all of the reserve forces. We tried to improve the training.

Because the Guard had organizations in the various states and, because they were a more close knit organization, the fighter aircraft or the combat aircraft were generally given to the Air Guard which caused some jealousy between the Air Force Reserve and the Guard. But, they had a nucleus of an organization and they were referred to as the "minuteman" to be called out, because they had a state organization and were easier to train and to keep together. That was always a cause of some friction between the air reservists and the Air Guard. But with General McConnell, I worked on it. I had been a reservist. It worked out pretty well. On a couple of occasions, they were called to active duty, the Guard was augmented by reservists to fill up their table of organization and it worked out pretty well.

We also had the Air ROTC and the Civil Air Patrol. We had problems with the Civil Air Patrol that was made up of non military people and generally those who had never served or did not serve on active duty in the Air Corps, but flew as civilians, flew with their own aircraft on submarine patrol, and

[11]

search and rescue missions during the war and after the war. The main problem there, they made fast promotions. People were named colonel and each state had so many of them with wealth and who had airplanes who were named colonel. And, they had uniforms identical to the Air Force uniforms. They would wear an insignia identical to the Air Force with a small blue patch that designated them as Civil Air Patrol. There is a great deal of resentment among the reservists and the Guard and the regular Air Force, those on active duty. At various conventions or meetings, the heads of the Civil Air Patrol were commandeering military vehicles. The younger officers and enlisted personnel were saluting and taking some direction not knowing they were Civil Air Patrol. They had a political impact. They were organized virtually in every state and insisted on keeping the Air Force rank and uniforms.

I endeavored to change their insignia or their rank such as using the strips on the arm as is done in many foreign countries as designating their rank or maybe referring to them as the Canadians or rank that the Canadians or the British had when the air forces are distinguished from the Army. I was pretty close, or I think I was pretty close to accomplishing that up until the time that I went back into my private law practice. Now that's the basic story and if you want to ask questions or want me to elaborate on anything ....

MR. GROSS: Well, certainly I appreciate that. I do have a few questions I

[12]

would like to ask you. Looking back now on your experience as Assistant Secretary, how would you characterize the basic differences between the top civilian officials, such as yourself, on the one hand, and top military officials such as Chief of Staff, and the Air Staff? Was there any clear division of responsibilities? How would you describe that?

MR. STUART: Well, I had an excellent relationship with General Vandenberg and the people in the Air Force because I had served under General Vandenberg and served under several of the generals in the Ninth Air Force. I knew them. I knew them on a very friendly basis. Military wise, social wise, I can't recall in the Air Force that I had anything but the finest and best relations with the military. By the same token on the Secretariat level, Stuart Symington, Gene Zuckert, who was the other Assistant Secretary, and Arthur Burrows, who was the under Secretary at that time, they were extremely helpful to me. We had the very finest relationship.

I could talk with and discuss matters with the politicians much easier than could the people in the armed services. The politicians felt, many of them felt, that they owned the military forces. The officers were not in a position to stand up and discuss matters or to take positions contrary to positions that those in the Secretary's office could. Those in the Secretary's office did not have a military background. They were not trained. That was not their profession. Their profession was that of people in business and it gave a different point of view to matters and items that they, business community, a non military community didn't have because of their various professions

[13]

and training.

I think Stuart Symington did an outstanding job as the first Secretary of the Air Force. I think that Eugene Zuckert was as fine an objective person as I ever knew and I still say that. Arthur Burrows had been president of Sears Roebuck. He came with a lot of business training. I took the job when C. B. Witney, who was the first Assistant Secretary... I think he had problems relating to the Reserve, the Guard, because he was an immensely wealthy person with lots of investments and didn't have the time because of these various outside responsibilities and it was difficult with a man with that wealth to get down with the rolled up sleeve, digging with the Reserves and the Guard.

I had enlisted in the Army Air Corps. I was a judge here in Oklahoma at the time. I went to Texas to enlist. I wanted to get the training but I was over 26 and couldn't then. Then I was able to get into combat intelligence and going through Officers Training School and through various bases in this country and the intelligence school at Harrisburg then overseas through the invasion of France, all through France, Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany and Czechoslovakia when the war terminated and we immediately went to Norway. I had more of an opportunity to be with the officers and enlisted men. Probably I had more background and experience than Mr. Whitney had who was a very fine person but had so many other interests.

MR. GROSS: Were there any specific instructions that Secretary Symington

[14]

gave you when you took over regarding the reserve forces in particular?

MR. STUART: No. He said you are a lawyer, got a good education, used to be a judge. You spent four years in the service, have been in the reserves. You've had a lot more experience than I have. One thing I will always remember of Stuart Symington. At the first day or two that I was serving in the capacity as acting Assistant Secretary there was a very controversial matter that involved several hundreds of millions of dollars that came across my desk. I looked at it, took the file and went to the Secretary's office and said 'Mr. Secretary I would like to ask you a question about this.' He said 'sit down. Let me tell you. You're the Assistant Secretary. You have the authority and the responsibility. If you have to come up to ask me what to do, then I don't need you. You're the one that's got to make the decision. You go over the matters. You determine what should be done and you can come up and tell me what you propose and why.' He said, 'you're like a batter in a batter's box. The pitcher throws the ball. You don't have time to go down and ask the coach whether you should strike at the ball or not. You have got to make your own decision. Sometimes you'll get a hit. Sometimes you'll get a walk. Sometimes you'll strike out. Sometimes you'll fly out. But, if you've got a good batting average, you've got the job. But, if you have to come up and ask me, then, if I have to make the decision, then I don't need you. You're going to make some good decisions. You're going to make some bad decisions, but make your mistakes in commission not in omission.' I never forgot that. It's been a very valuable thing to me in business.

[15]

MR. GROSS: So, is an implication of that you in your position as an Assistant Secretary were to take some of the heat perhaps off of him and the responsibilities for the reserves?

MR. STUART: Take all of it: If he had anything that came up, he'd say 'go see Stuart,' and sometimes if a Senator or someone called him, why he'd tell them to see me. Or, if they came out to see him, he'd call me up. And, so far as I know, I had full authority and full responsibility and that's the way he operated.

MR. GROSS: During your period of service in the Department of the Air Force, do you recall any basic disputes between the civilian staff on one side, people such as yourself, and the military professionals on the other on the major matters of the policy over the reserve forces?

MR. STUART: No, not any major ones. We had some disagreements or minor disagreements or differences of opinion, but they were all resolved. Nothing went beyond me.

We had some differences with Congress mainly on the Air Force ROTC program. The Navy was able to give four year scholarships and in we called NROTC, Navy ROTC, and they could take boys out of high school and give them a four year college scholarship. Neither the Army nor the Air Force could do that. And, we wanted the same right. When World War II commenced and pilots had to be, if they were not already pilots, they couldn't go in unless they were

[16]

under 26 years of age. Those that had flying experience and all were young. The entire Army Air Corps, just before World War II started, was about 25,000 people and it expanded to several hundreds of thousands. Consequently, those with flying experience and combat experience in the Far East were promoted much faster than those in the Army or Navy. And they were boys whose educations had been interrupted, boys without college education, without college degrees. They went into the colleges and recruited these people who...[end tape 1.] People in fighters and in bombers, a lot of times had to react fast and the reactions of the younger persons, people who were what we call today 'hot rodders' at the time put together old cars, motorcycles, were leaders in their group, were called into the service. Called into the Air Corps and made good pilots, good squadron commanders, and the... group and on up. Consequently, at the end of the war, the percentage of college graduates in the Air Corps, then Air Force, was much lower than the Navy or Army. The Navy had by far the highest percentage of college graduates.

MR. GROSS: This is among officers?

MR. STUART: Among officers, and enlisted personnel, also. So an effort was being made in the Air Corps and Air Force to get more college graduates or send boys back to college then. Stuart Symington, General Spaatz, and General Vandenberg conceived the Air Force Academy and appointed a committee to select the site for the Air Force Academy. When the Korean war came along, that was stopped for the duration of the Korean War and was never really re-established again until President Eisenhower came in and Harold Talbott was

[17]

the Secretary of the Air Force. So another committee was selected.

I think the original thinking was the Air Force Academy should be near some big Air Force training base, Randolph Field; Maxwell Field, Alabama; Mitchel Field, New York. When Secretary Talbott came in, a committee had another idea. It should be separate, away from a military base, but within 60 or 75 miles of a town of 500,000 or more. So they narrowed it down to three locations, one Genessee, Wisconsin; another one was Alton, Illinois, north of St. Louis, the third one was Colorado, north of Colorado Springs or Denver. And the ultimate selection was Colorado.

But we were trying to get people in the Air Force ROTC and we were sending enlisted personnel as well as officers to schools to get their, complete their college education.

Another problem, of course, we had when they separated the Air Force from the Army, the air bases, those with large runways, maintenance facilities, did not have housing, did not have permanent housing. So many of the bases with fine strips were isolated areas, no places for the personnel to live. So the big drive was to get housing for the Air Force. In building these permanent bases you get an area like Laurinburg Maxton, North Carolina that had beautiful runways used in World War II but no housing and a town of 1,300 to 3,000 people but a difficult place to station troops. There were certain bases Mitchell Field, Bolling Field, Randolph Field, Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama that did have good areas and some housing.

[18]

The Air Force was very instrumental in helping get through Congress the Wherry-Spence Housing Act, which we could advertise and get bids for housing on military bases. The average square foot was low. I believe that we had an average $8,600 mortgage on an average housing unit, which, even at that time in isolated areas or areas where we had air bases, was not too great. I had an assistant for housing, Scott Donaldson and later Lawrence Reynolds from Joplin. And we built, the figure that comes to my mind, about 86 percent of the housing under the Wherry-Spence Housing Act.

The Army and the Navy didn't need it so much. We had quite a problem in Alaska. My first experience in Alaska in 1949 was that building housing in Alaska was extremely expensive. I think they had a figure of $65,000 per unit north of the Alaska Range and $55,000 a unit south of the Alaska Range. South of the Alaska Range what is now Elmendorf Air Force Base. North was what is now Eielsen Air Force Base. And, Secretary Symington was able to get General Wood of Sears and his staff or his people to design a house that we could bid.

Secretary of Defense Johnson appointed a committee, a banker, an architect, a man from the Federal Housing Administration; one from Texas, one from Indiana, one from New York, who went to Alaska to study this. We wanted a basement so that, in the winter time, they could dry clothes, store their goods. They came back with a report that it cost many thousands of dollars, $15 to $20,000 just to build a basement. In Alaska, however, we prevailed upon Congress to let us go ahead and bid on our terms and see what the bid

[19]

was. We got a house with a basement with an average of $16,000.

We then had B-36s in Alaska which is the closest point to Russia. With the education and the crew, they had no place to live. Those at Eielsen, which is 25-30 miles east-south-east from Fairbanks, living in Fairbanks were very poor accommodations. In other bases, families were living in one room garages and things like that. I think one of the good accomplishments for the Air Force was getting housing which we got a lot of and which is great for the morale.

I recall going to many bases for inspection. You'd have a congressman or a Senator come down to take a look and the Air Force commander takes them to the officers' club and gets them a fine steak or fine meal and shows off the better parts. I told all of them what I wanted to do was show them where the officers and enlisted men had to live. I think that was very helpful. Instead of showing the good part, show what the daily life, living conditions of the personnel. We were able to get a great deal of improvement for our personnel. But getting more college graduates and people with graduate degrees was very important.

I neglected to say that I brought in Frank McCoy as my deputy for Reserve and Guard civilian component matters. I had known Frank McCoy. He was from Oklahoma. Lived in Tahuska, fine family. I believe he was a lawyer, graduated about the same time as I did. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee on dedication

[20]

of Seward Air Force Base near Nashville. I had a long conversation and visited with Frank McCoy. I brought him in as my deputy for Reserves and Guard Affairs. He was very active in the Reserves and did an excellent job.

MR. GROSS: Did you have occasion during your tenure, particularly before the Korean War, to inspect various Reserve and Air Guard units?

MR. STUART: All the time: I made inspections, visits, as often as I could. On weekends, I would fly out to maybe two or three or four different areas and talk with them. Then the Air Force Association was very helpful, more so than the Reserve Officers Association. The Reserve Officers Association was pretty well dominated by the Army reservists and officers but the Air Force Association was started by Jimmy Doolittle. It was very helpful.

MR. GROSS: Based upon your visits and what you gathered from your service in the Pentagon, what was your assessment of the operational capabilities of those Reserve and Guard units prior to the Korean War?

MR. STUART: At first, most of the people wanted to get into the flying units. That was the big interest that they had. Whether they were flying or not, if they were with the unit that had airplanes, that attracted them and kept their interest. Their capability depended on the overall activities and their training as with the Air Force. We caused the Guard units to go to regular Air Force bases and be trained with them and the Reserves also came down to an Air Force base, an active Air Force base. I

[21]

thought, especially after General Ricks got there, they had capabilities. I visited many of them during the Korean War, and thought that they did, most of them did quite well and I think each of them depended on who their commander was. Some political friend of the governor's was appointed head of the Air Guard or the Adjutant General of the state was not a capable leader but used the Guard as an extension of his ego. Their capability wasn't as great.

MR. GROSS: Was this a fairly extensive problem prior to the Korean War?

MR. STUART: It was a hangover from the ...and I'm not being critical of the National Guard but the Adjutant General was a political appointment in Truman's days. And, it was a political crutch or one who had done a lot for the governor, getting the governor elected. He was a politician, rather than a politician with some military background, but not necessarily the most capable person as the leader. And then, when the governor would change, well then the Adjutant General would change. And, they didn't have the continuity.

We've had in this state very fine people at the head of the Air Guard, General Joe Turner. Here was a very good and ...unit in the Korean War and they did a fine job. Those that I visited in Korea, if they couldn't do the job, they were replaced by regular Air Force or maybe Reservists that were more capable. And, they have to have, in my opinion, that right to do that.

MR. GROSS: How would you, in the years prior to the Korean War, how would you

[22]

contrast the Air National Guard and the Reserve? The Air Guard had all of the tactical aircraft and people were especially anxious to get in that and the Reserve units, some didn't have any aircraft, just trainers and transports. A lot of the program, a large number were individual fillers who really didn't have much of a training program. Most of the emphasis seemed to go on the Air Guard. Was there a lot of resentment about that?

MR. STUART: There was a lot of resentment about it. The Reservists, who did not belong to the Guard, many of them were by far the most capable. We had a lot of surplus aircraft and they had to give them to some accountable group. And, they determined that the Air National Guard was the nucleus and they could have them. The states had a capability with the funds that the government afforded the states and that which the states put in a nucleus in which they could give these aircraft. And, we were cutting down under Secretary of Defense Johnson. We were cutting back on the personnel in the Air Force. And, we came back prior to the Korean War, we were down to the lowest we have ever been. I believe the lowest we've ever been.

MR. GROSS: That's around what, about 400,000?

MR. STUART: Yes, 400,000 is what I was going to say. That was the figure that I had. And, we had just been through the war to end all wars and so we didn't have the money, the gasoline. They couldn't keep people. These fighter aircraft and the bomber aircraft and the transports, we needed capable

[23]

people to do the maintenance. So, when you had to cut down, cut down on people, you had to keep the best people in the regular establishment. Consequently, they did not have for the Reserve, didn't have the money or the personnel or the best personnel to look after and maintain the aircraft. But the various states had funds, had a nucleus where they could give these aircraft and through the state and the federal government funds going from the federal government to the state, they could keep a little more than a housekeeping unit together and provide some flying. Many of the Reservists were good and wanted to continue flying then transferred to the Air National Guard.

MR. GROSS: To what extent was this decision to emphasize the Air Guard over the Air Force Reserve at this time also possibly a product of the political influence, not only the superior organization that they had in place, but the political influence of the governors and the Congress?

MR. STUART: I understand that the National Committee, the Adjutant Generals Association, was a very strong political force. They had teletypes in Washington and they'd teletype out to 48 Adjutant Generals and call them in to Washington. And, they were a political arm of their governor and usually of the same political party as their Senators and most of their Congressmen, so they could fan out through Congress, representatives and the Senators, and have a very powerful influence.

MR. GROSS: Another question has puzzled me, sometimes. I've had it suggested

[24]

to me, I've never actually seen documentation to substantiate it, but I've had it suggested to me by several people that perhaps the composition and the size of the postwar Air National Guard, that is all these fighter planes or whatever, was in part simply due to the fact that there were a lot of surplus aircraft available. There were a lot of good veteran pilots and it was more a question of this than the military sitting down and looking at military requirements that we had to meet. They didn't say 'this is what we really need and this is what the Guard can realistically be expected to accomplish.' How would you react to that kind of judgment?

MR. STUART: Well, we did have a lot of surplus aircraft, a lot of surplus equipment and the driving force under Secretary Johnson was to cut down on the regular establishment. As far as the reserves were concerned, they didn't have the personnel to give to the reserves to maintain the equipment and the accountability and training because they had to keep the best people. And, when you are under a directive to cut down on personnel, you have got to look at what group can you best eliminate or reduce in size. The Air Force reserves were the first to go as far as ....

MR. GROSS: The reservists on active duty?

MR. STUART: Well, yes the reservists on active duty and the reservists training reserves. Whereas the states had funds and organization, which, as they were part state funds and part, mostly federal funds to the state because it

[25]

recognized that in each state the governor needed people he could call on for riots or insurrections or various problems he could call out for that state. It didn't call for the Unites States Army. You wouldn't call the United States Army to take care of a situation in New Mexico or Oklahoma or Kansas or California. But the governor could call out the Guard. So as an adjunct to that, he wanted to call out his Air National guard and have the right to call out the Air National Guard. But the Guard training in the Air Force, training a fighter squadron or bomber squadron, it's not likely that you call a bomber squadron for an insurrection or a riot or problems, nor a fighter squadron. But they did need the troops, the Army. They also wanted the fighter units, and the bomber units and so, as a matter of expediency, more than anything else.

MR. GROSS: No. This is sti11 difficult for me to understand, because what you are saying is that there was really no state mission for the Air National Guard. It was an expensive proposition even for the states not to mention the federal government, so why would a governor want an Air National Guard if he couldn't use them?

MR. STUART: Ego: He wanted to have his Air Force. Now that's a broad statement. That doesn't go for all the governors, but most of them loved to have their Air National Guard, their own Air Force. We ran into that a lot. And, when they wanted to have an air show, why he wanted an air show ....And, some governors didn't want their Air Force to fly beyond their own state line, because, if they flew beyond their state line, they would lose control of them. You couldn't train a squadron from Kansas and a squadron from New

[26]

Mexico and a squadron from Arizona unless you put them together as a group and you train them as a group. And, you have a squadron here, a squadron in Kansas, squadron in New Mexico, a squadron in Arizona to make up a group. So we'd have to bring that group together for training. But the governor wanted his own Air Force. At his inauguration, why they'd fly over or have some special function in the state, why he wanted them to fly by. But, that was taking gasoline or fuel away from the mission of an Air Force.

MR. GROSS: A number of Air Force commanders, Generals George E. Stratemeyer and Ennis C. Whitehead, for example, who were responsible through I think ADC and, later than that, Continental Air Command, for supervising the training of the Air Guard. They quite bitterly complained that they really lacked adequate jurisdiction or command authority over the Air National Guard because those were state units. They said basically that this inhibited the training and those units weren't really operational or ready for anything after several years. Furthermore, they felt, from their professional point of view, it didn't make much sense to have a dual component air reserve system which included a state Air Force and a federal Air Force Reserve.

As far as I can gather, out of sentiments such as these, there was a big push from within the Air Force, from the Department of Defense in 1948 or 1949 to federalize the Air Guard, to make it come under the Army clause of the constitution and amalgamate it with the Air Force Reserve. This was ultimately frustrated by the Congress. What were your feelings about this push at the time?

[27]

MR. STUART: That was very true. I worked very closely with General Stratemyer and I worked closely with General Ennis Whitehead of the Continental Air Command. They, in my opinion, were quite correct. But you would not be able to have either Reservists or Guard which fly or come to duty one weekend a month and have operational readiness that you'd have in a regular establishment. Once we got General Ricks in and General McConnell and then Frank McCoy, it got better. But you still could not have units that would be operationally ready because you did not have the control with the Continental Air Command that you should. Say all of them, all of the Guard units, would meet on the third weekend of July, a third weekend of every month and get together because you had to fly them from too many different states.

Most of the states had only a squadron or maybe two squadrons. But in order to train a group of four squadrons, you had to call on three or four different states and it came from a long distance and you'd get just the capability that you would have if you had the regular establishment that was able to train only one weekend a month. Now a lot of the people would go out on weekends and get flying in that could not be there for that particular weekend. And, if it was a third weekend in August, if they were a doctor or a lawyer or someone else, they couldn't be at every training session.

I think it was the best that we could afford with the tools that we had to work with and the personnel that we had to work with and the responsibilities that .... And, they received federal pay on their weekend training. But on anything else, if you have training only three days a month and two weeks

[28]

active duty during a summer month, I know a lot of times some of them couldn't go for the two weeks active duty at that particular time. It was the best system, looking back on it, that we could afford personnel wise, money wise, equipment wise. I think General Whitehead, who was the good, tough, hard taskmaster, and I think he did a great job. But I think policy wise, I think General McConnell did an outstanding job.

MR. GROSS: Getting back to this federalization thing, why was the decision made in 1948 or 1949 to try to make it a fully federal thing, basically?

MR. STUART: For training! We had occasions when the governors would stop, wouldn't let his Air National Guard participate. And, only in case of a war, in case of emergency, could they federalize the Guard. And, there's a lot of jealousies among the governors that they wanted to be able to say when their units, air units, could be trained.

MR. GROSS: Well this created a lot of political hostility and friction at the time, did it not?

MR. STUART: Yes, it did. But it was natural, because, as I say, the governors have always had control of their Army Guard. They said 'we'll train them.' You couldn't train them that way. It was too expensive and not sufficient manpower. And, a person would stay in the Air Guard for three years and he then would go on out. They're going out all the time and bringing new ones in so you didn't have the continuity.

[29]

MR. GROSS: What was Secretary Symington's position? Was he still Secretary of the Air Force at this time, I believe in early 1949?

MR. STUART: He was Secretary of the Air Force in 1949, 1950, and then President Truman was having trouble with the Reconstruction Finance Commission, RFC. They had three commissioners and that was the time of the deep freeze.

MR. GROSS: Vaccuna coats and some of that, Harry Vaughn!

MR. STUART: Well, no that didn't come till Adams. That was Eisenhower. But he, Truman, appointed Secretary Symington as the administrator. He was the sole administrator of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. So Symington went over to that and they appointed Secretary of the Air Force Tom Finletter. Finletter, in my opinion, is a very able learned man but didn't have the background. He was a New York lawyer. He didn't have the background or the feel for the people in the Reserve or the Guard areas that Stuart Symington had. And, then General Vandenberg became ill in 1951. General Nate Twining came in as Air Force Chief of Staff . General Nate Twining had been a National Guardsman, I believe in Oregon.

MR. GROSS: I knew that one of the former chiefs had been.

MR. STUART: Yes. He went from there to West Point, as I recall, in the latter part of World War I.

[30]

MR. GROSS: It seems that since the Korean War there have been a lot of changes in the Air Guard and the Air Force Reserve. Today they look like some pretty effective programs from what I've seen and from what I've studied. Evidently, whatever it is, the change between the Air Force and the Air Guard started happening when General Ricks came in or about that time.

MR. STUART: It did. Ricks came in. Earl Ricks was just like turning a light on in the dark.

MR. GROSS: What is it that he did that was so different?

MR. STUART: Well, he had a lot of rapport with people. He got along very well with the Air Force. He can get along well with the National Guard Bureau. He can get along well with people, get along well with the politicians. And, Earl Ricks did a great job. And, as far as training and problems, once General Ricks and Wilson and I. G. Brown came in, we had very little problem. They got along well with General Whitehead. And, with the money and the personnel and the fuel that they had ....Of course in June of 1950, when the Korean War started and they called in many Reserve and National Guard units augmented, we used National Guard units as the nucleus. There were one or two exceptions that we did have some reserve units that they called in that did have some aircraft that could go.

MR. GROSS: I believe there were a couple that were in Korea within two months of the time that they were called up.

[31]

MR. STUART: That's correct: This one was called up, in Oklahoma was called up immediately, federalized and called in to duty.

MR. GROSS: It was, I believe, October before the first five Air Guard wings were called to active duty, October 1950. Why was it so long? I don't recall coming across any references to plans for that till August, approximately September. Why was it at that point in time?

MR. STUART: Well, if you recall, in June of 1950, when the North Koreans came across the [sic]38th parallel, it wasn't considered that it would be necessary because it was a small, relatively small, country and they thought they could handle it with the regular Air Force and the regular Army. And, they started beefing up their training and filling out their units much earlier. But I don't recall exactly when they were called to active duty, how many months it was. I know I went to several units and swore them in.

MR. GROSS: Well, the first five flying units, wings of the Guard, weren't called up until early in October 1950. As things got worse, more got called up. I recall seeing a memo, I think it might have been from your office after trips that you made around, and you were discussing what at least appeared at my reading to be relatively poor impressions that the active duty establishment had of those units initially when they were called into serve. Sometimes the maintenance wasn't very good and they were short of personnel and their specialties weren't aligned actually with their skills. There was a comment in there that really the active duty establishment didn't

[32]

understand the difficulties that Reserves and the Guard had been operating under.

MR. STUART: That's correct. You had active duty people who were on duty 365 days a year, 366 on leap year, whereas the others were on active duty, I say training duty, Saturday and Sunday, one day a month and two weeks active duty during the year. They did not get the finest aircraft. They got the surplus aircraft. They did not get the finest maintenance people. They got the surplus maintenance people, as a rule, not always. And, you cannot keep up your training and keep up to date with Air Force regulations--maintenance, flying, training, gunnery, bombing, and the sophisticated equipment that the Air Force got. And there were, of course, jealousies because a person who is training every day of the year is bound to have more skills and a lot of updated equipment.

Colonel David Shilling was one of the great flyers and aces of World War II and got more into research. And, they were developing various types of bombing techniques or rocket techniques, toss bombing, over the shoulder bombing. But, we didn't have the bombs, the bomb ranges, the gunnery ranges for the Guard units. Dave Shilling had another Colonel, Bill Baken and two or three others. There were about four of them that did great research—air-to-air refueling--which the Guard units did not have the opportunity to participate in. They would send them down to Eglin Field and they would devise new techniques. They came in at low level and pulled up and toss bombing, bombing without getting into the anti- aircraft fire. But, they

[33]

didn't have the experience. And, so it had to be a matter of training and updating them; and giving them newer equipment.

MR. GROSS: They got jets after units were mobilized. It took more than three to six months, really. I guess it was May or June 1951 before the first Air Guard units were in the Far East.

MR. STUART: And, they were flying the old P-51s.

MR. GROSS: Right:

MR. STUART: In Korea the regular units had the jets. Gabby [Francis S.] Gabreski was a great leader. He and Dave Shilling were both in the 46th, either 46th or 49th Fighter Group in Europe and they had such great people come out of Europe and in the Pacific. Joe Foss went into ...was a Marine. He went into the Air National Guard in South Dakota. He was a great inspiration. And, they wouldn't let Joe go back overseas because he was a Medal of Honor winner.

MR. GROSS: They didn't want him to get shot down or something?

MR. STUART: He wanted to go. They had sort of a rule of thumb that Medal of Honor winners could not go back in combat.

MR. GROSS: That frustrated him!

[34]

MR. STUART: Yes.

MR. GROSS: In looking at the performance of some of these units, I believe, two Air Guard wings were sent to the Far East Air Force during the Korean War, what was your assessment of their performance over there?

MR. STUART: When they got over there, they had, as you say, their table of organization. They would have to have various specialties. A lot of time a person didn't have that as his main specialty. So they would fill in, in order to fill their table of organization, with someone who was not a specialist in that particular field. But they had to have a warm body in there and they would try to train him. So it wasn't until they integrated the Guard ....They would keep the designation as the National Guard unit but then they would augment them with regular Air Force and with Reserves. I think, once that was done and they got a proper table or organization, they did very well. And, later, when the Guard and Reserve were called up in 1961...

MR. GROSS: 1961, I believe, sir.

MR. STUART: I believe it was. Secretary Zuckert asked me with another group, Randy Lovelace, probably the greatest doctor in the field of aviation medicine that we've ever known, from Albuquerque, Bill Bailey from Houston and a group of about 17 of us which Gene Zuckert, then Secretary of the Air Force, asked me to go over and make an assessment of the Reserves and the Guard units in Europe. And we spent about two weeks. We found that even

[35]

then that the Guard units a lot of time ....If the Guard unit was from Massachusetts and they were attached to a unit from Tennessee this is one example that I recall the Massachusetts general was very jealous of his unit and he gave them the best of everything. And, the Reservists and the Guard augmentation from Tennessee were very badly treated. And, we reported back to Zuckert and, within two days, the general of the Massachusetts Guard was relieved and another brought in.

We had a few occasions like that but, in a lot of them, they would bring in the Reservists and just augment them right in with the Guard where they had the Guard designation. They were 50 50 with the Reserves. And, of course, when you bring two groups together and you've got to interlock them and make them a unit when forced, there are a lot of jealousies developed, but they worked out of that.

MR. GROSS: What kind of impact did that have at that time on your operational capabilities in Europe?

MR. STUART: Well, I think the operational capability wasn't as good as the regular units but I think the operational capability after they were there awhile and got shaken down and some intensive training, was very good.

MR. GROSS: The reason I ask that question, sir, if you talk to Air Guardsmen, of course they are biased. They love the Air Guard and they should. But

[36]

if you talk to them, the kind of interpretation you get of the Berlin mobilization is, well 'we were asked to go and boom, we're over there in a month or so and we were ready there on the ground and fully ready to do the job.' I don't get that same impression from talking to you and reading other things at all.

MR. STUART: They were not and it was only because they augmented them with a lot of capable Reserves. One was good in its field as the other was just as good in its field but they kept the Guard designation. And, it was only because you were integrating these Reserves in to fill the specialties.

MR. GROSS: When were you fellows over there? Do you recall the dates that you looked at these people so I can get an idea of what time period you are talking about? I think it was October or November when they went over there.

MR. STUART: Right after that. It was right after that. It was in the fall of 1961 or 1962.

MR. GROSS: 1961, I would think it was.

MR. STUART: Because it was when Gene Zuckert was appointed Secretary of the Air Force . Gene and I were great friends. I met him in 1947 in a matter we had down here when I went to Washington the first time. And, I met him

[37]

and then, when I was appointed Assistant Secretary in 1949, we worked beautifully together and had great rapport. He was a great help to me. Then he and I officed together. We had an office together in Washington in 1960 when Kennedy was elected President. And, Gene and I were both considered for Secretary of the Air Force. I wanted him and he wanted me to take the job. And, it finally prevailed that he was the one. He lived there. He had more experience. Had been in the Surplus Property Administration. He was the one that was most capable and I served as a consultant to him and especially in civilian component matters, and housing matters.

MR. GROSS: Getting back to this report, back to Secretary Zuckert, in 1961 or 1962, were there any other significant findings that your group had for him as a result of your trip to Europe?

MR. STUART: We split up into two or three ....Bill Bailey from Houston, who is the Senior Executive Vice President of Fishback and Moore at the present time, he and Secretary Corf who later or at that time was Secretary of the Navy. John Connelly was Secretary of the Navy for awhile and then he resigned and Fred Corf went in. And, he and Fred Corf had been through the Air Transport Command. He had been in the Air Transport Command during World War II. Bill is a very personable person and one who can get down and see the problems with the enlisted men.

We spent most of our time with enlisted personnel at these bases. He and I

[38]

went off together and told them just to fly us to certain installations and let us just go in there and sit down and talk with them and we'd spend more time with the enlisted personnel. We thought that would be the best place that we could find out really what was going on in the unit and the morale of the units. That's what we were more interested in. And, the integration of the units, we did find that some of the officers were Guard officers. They were very jealous of their position and it was hard getting them integrated with the Air Force.

Now, when you say the Guard was fully operational and they could do the job, they could with being augmented with Reserves or maybe they might take two or three Guard units ....See you could call up the Guard units easier as a unit than you could the Reserves.

MR. GROSS: Why was that?

MR. STUART: Well, because most of the people of the Reserves would go out to a meeting once a month or once a week I think and we'd sit in for a lecture for about an hour or two hours and discuss Air Force matters but we had no real organization in the Reserves. They didn't have a nucleus or a focal point and most of the training was lectures with very little active participation. [End of tape]

MR. GROSS: Well, let's see, where were we when we left off there?

[39]

MR. STUART: Well, you were talking about the reserves that were on active [sic] duty and those who had been in the service that were called back., when some of the reserves weren't during the Korean War .

MR. GROSS: Yes, this seemed to create quite a few political problems for the Department of Defense and the Air Force if I recall correctly. Secretary [of Defense George C] Marshall, through the Civilian Components Policy Board, I think, he appointed a group of people to study some of the problems and make some recommendations. Were you at all involved in that activity there?

MR. STUART: Well, Yes, I don't remember the details. My position was that those who were in the active reserves should be called first. However, they needed certain specialties that were not in the reserves because of the highly technical equipment that we had, the gun sights and guidance systems, and jet engines and things like that ....We had propeller driven aircraft during World War II and we needed some specialists in jet aircraft and jet air engines that we didn't have.

The policy, so far as I was concerned, was that those who had remained in the reserves and were active in the reserves should be called. Some of those, however, were in jobs that their companies ....They were doing a job in their company that was more important to the war effort than they would be if they were called back into the reserves as another category of personnel. A specialist who was doing a job in one of the aircraft companies or one something

[40]

and be called back as a minute clerk or a clerk typist or something like that. And, we tried, insofar as our policy was concerned, to take those who remained in the Reserve and remained in the Guard first.

We had a lot of calls, I had a lot of calls, of people saying 'well my daughter just married so and so and he's going to be called back and he just got started in his business and you shouldn't call him.' My answer to that was well 'let's find who the next person on the list is and you call that man's mother and tell her their son should go and your son in law should not go.' And, that seemed to stop it pretty well.

MR. GROSS: The National Guard Association and the Adjutant Generals during this period of time, particularly in late 1950, were quite critical of what they termed the piecemeal activation of the Air Guard and I believe part of the Army Guard as well. Some of them charged that the regulars wanted to strip these units of their personnel and use them as the basis of building up the regular Air Force and reserve all the promotions for the young regular officers. Were you involved with any of the political flack about that?

MR. STUART: Yes, my position again there was ‘what was the best thing to do for the effort that we were getting on in Korea?' You had Guard units that were not sufficiently proficient as a unit themselves. They thought they were. But, I had to defer that to the military side. We had pressure on the military side to be sure that they were doing it in an appropriate manner. And, I

[41]

know there were a lot of complaints. Air Guard units were called up because they had a bunch of misfits. They had bodies. They had some good people but they had bodies filling the table of organization which did not make a good operating unit. They were friends. It's true they were friends and they wanted to stay with their friends. But the effort that we were putting out didn't justify bringing them in and keeping them as one unit.

We were putting in an all star team. We were putting in an all American team. We were putting in an all state team. Some particular high school football team couldn't qualify as the all state football team. They had some good players on it but, if we're playing another state, we wanted to get the best players we could to fit into that particular position. And, the pro leagues, they don't take an old graduating team from one university and put them on one pro team. They take and fill the positions. Because, we had a different situation than in peacetime Air Force.

MR. GROSS: What kind of specific shortcomings did the military people, people on the Air Staff, talk about in conjunction with these recalled Air Guard units in 1950 and 1951?

MR. STUART: Well, they hadn't had the experience with the more sophisticated equipment was the main thing. The war was over in 1945. Between 1945 1951, the state of the art had improved so much that they could not keep up with it with their weekend or month-end training. Doing it over again, we'd do the

[42]

same thing. If I were in a Guard unit or a Reserve unit, I could certainly understand that.

I was in a Reserve unit. I would certainly understand that. Sure, you'd like to be with your friends. I would like to be with my friends when I entered the Air Corps but I wasn't with a single person I knew. I crossed paths once in a while but I went to Officer's Training School with a lot of them but we were all split up. Everybody went every which way.

MR. GROSS: How extensively were the Guard units, particularly the flying units, infused with regular Air Force people or Air Force Reservists in leadership-type positions not just enlisted folks or whatever squadron commanders, operations officers, things like that?

MR. STUART: You had a lot of them that went in and became great leaders. Look at Jock Henebry, in Chicago, came back in and rose to major general. A lot of them did that--Joe Foss. I can't recall a lot of the names now.

MR. GROSS: Surely.

MR. STUART: But, sure there is a certain amount of jealousy of professional soldiers against an amateur soldier. A professional Air Force pilot who had gone to many schools and then had five years more experience than the person who was an amateur and not many amateurs that can beat out a professional.

[43]

MR. GROSS: In the summer of 1951, the Air Force followed up the Department of Defense's policies on reserve components and they convened what was known as the Smith Board to develop their own long range plan for the air reserve forces. Were you at all involved with that activity?

MR. STUART: No. I left then. Was that Major General Bob Smith?

MR. GROSS: Yes, I believe so.

MR. STUART: Yes, I know Bob Smith very well. Bob Smith was in the Air Transport Command. He was one of those reserve officers. There was John Bennett. Mel McNickle was a reserve officer. He came in and remained in and later became a lieutenant general in the Air Force. But there was a group of about 20 people, reserve officers who got some political promotions. And, there were people I could name names but I don't think that would be necessary who came in and their senator saw that they had regular promotions and really knew nothing about Air Force strategy or military strategy but, because they were an administrative assistant to some Senator. The Senate Armed Services Committee blocked ....

I'll give you an example. J. B. Montgomery, was a major general. He commanded the Eighth Air Force at Fort Worth. He resigned to become vice president of American Airlines in charge of their maintenance. His permanent rank was a colonel. One of the particular senators on the Armed Services Committee said...

[44]

and they put him in for a reserve brigadier general. They didn't want him promoted unless her administrative assistant was promoted. Well, here's a man who's been through a war, commanded the Eighth Air Force. Same thing for Rosy O'Donnell, lieutenant general in the Air Force. Didn't want him promoted. He had been in. He was one of the great bombing leaders of World War II and the Korean War. Commanded the bomber command. Didn't want him promoted unless her administrative assistant got promoted who'd just go to meetings once a week or twice a month, something like that. No comparison. Jimmy Stewart was on that same list. Jimmy Stewart was a good bomber pilot in World War II. He was on active duty, his reserve active duty, but blocked his appointment.

MR. GROSS: When was this by the way? Do you recall the dates on it?

MR. STUART: Oh, it was in the early 1950s.

MR. GROSS: Okay. Was this while you were still in the Department of the Air Force?

MR. STUART: No, but I was in Washington. The Smith Board convened to make a study of that. I didn't see a copy. Didn't read a copy of their report. Bob Smith's a good officer. He later became president of what is now Texas International Airline. He lives in Dallas now.

MR. GROSS: In 1948, President Truman, going back a little bit, President Truman

[45]

castigated the Army and the Air Force for allowing their reserve programs to languish. He pointedly contrasted them with what he assumed to be the progress of the Navy and the Marine Corps. Eventually he issued Executive Order 10007, told them to get their act together and strengthen the program. Of course, this was before you came in. During this same period of time, General McConnell was quite critical in several memos that I saw of the handling of the reserve programs by the Air Staff. Basically, he was saying that these people were neglecting their responsibilities for reserve programs. The planning was supposed to be integrated on a functional basis. If you handled logistics for the regular Air Force, you were supposed to devote some time and attention to the requirements of the reserves and on down the line.

From your experience as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, what was your impression of the general quality and interest of the Air Staff in the nuts and bolts of reserve forces planning at least prior to the point where they badly needed them in the Korean emergency?

MR. STUART: Well, it all comes down to the question of money and how much money. They say cut the budget 10 percent or cut the budget 20 percent. You decide where you cut the budget. The Air Staff and regular department was close to cutting below what they considered was the bare bones. Every department right now thinks that they are being undercut. Navy thinks they'd do away with the nuclear carrier, the Air Force with the B-1, the Army with other things. They sincerely believe that that is the best thing for the Department of Defense

[46]

and for the defense or offense of our country.

And, in most instances, I believe, they didn't put their top people ....I think the Air Force and General McConnell I think it was born out because he later became general and became Chief of Staff did by putting him in and by getting Earl Ricks and that group in. But, in personnel assigning people, if you had a choice, you'd say 'well gee we've to have ....This man's a good operations officer and we need him in operations in the Nineteenth Tactical Air Command'. You wouldn't put him in. the reserves where you didn't know if you were going to need him or not. It's just human nature I think not to do that.

A lot of the officers had not been regular officers. They were reserves on active duty and we had some good ones. I can recall the names of some of them. I just can't recall which were reservists and which were not but we had some very good ones that were on active duty with the Air Force. General Hill, a four star general now, commanding general NORAD, was a person who came in and went to the war, got out. He was in the reserves and now he's a four star general commanding NORAD. You have others but they were trying more and more and more to get college graduates and people who either had gone to West Point or now the Air Force Academy and take them through Command and General Staff School or War College to educate them.

And, I think the reserves, we set a quota, certain of them reserves. I think it's just human nature that you try to make yourself, your squadron, your group,

[47]

your command look the best possible. We had Ennis Whitehead. Ennis was a tough, hard taskmaster but was a great general and a great combat leader. One of the best I know. They put him in command of the Continental Air Command. He was fighting for good people and he had some good people.

MR. GROSS: General Whitehead, shortly before he left or maybe it was after he left Continental Air Command in 1950 or 1951, he wrote a memo to General Vandenberg while he was still Chief of Staff. And, he outlined all of the problems that he had seen in the reserve programs and most especially the way the Air Force had handled those reserve programs trying to... the early parts of them. And, I can't quote the memo from memory now, but the gist of one of his major points was he felt that the professional establishment, many of them regular officers, had really neglected the reserve components. They had, particularly with reference to the Air National Guard, allowed the whole issue of command jurisdiction and federalization of the Air Guard, that is turning it into a strictly federal force, to get in the way of working out some kind of working relationship with them. The Air Force, if they continued to do this, it was at their peril. It was certainly not in their best interests, nor in the nation's best interests, to continue this kind of friction and neglect as he saw it at that time. Now, was this perception shared at all among the people like Vandenberg, Twining and yourself?

MR. STUART: I think both Vandenberg and Twining had great empathy for that. We were getting into the guided missile people at that time and it was extremely

[48]

expensive. I headed up one of the Department of Defense groups to make a study of guided missiles. Every aircraft company and everyone that was making components for the Air Force, Army, or Navy or Marine Corps all wanted to get into the guided missiles. Because we stopped buying aircraft so all of us had the political pressures from all of the aircraft companies and suppliers. And, everyone had on the drawing boards an intercontinental ballistic missile, a surface-to-air, an air-to-surface, a surface-to-surface, and ship-to-shore and shore-to-ship missile and everything else. We had on it, the president of MIT, on that committee.

And we realigned the various roles and missions of the services. The Air Force had the intercontinental ballistic missile. They had an air-to-surface missile. The Army had a surface-to-air missile. The Air Force has an air-to-air missile. The Navy had an air-to-air missile. The Navy had a ship-to-shore missile. But we cut out a lot of those because all of the aircraft companies and their suppliers all wanted to be in the guidance, or the warhead or the propulsion and that ended up with getting Von Braun and the group from Peenemuende in Germany and brought over here and started the Redstone Arsenal or whatever it is down in Huntsville, Alabama. But those were very expensive.

MR. GROSS: When was this taking place? During the late 1940s?

MR. STUART: That was taking place about 1950, 1950-1951.

MR. GROSS: While you were still in the Department of the Air Force?

[49]

MR. STUART: Yes: It made a lot of services very unhappy. Dan Kimble was the Navy representative on there. General Mark Clark was on it for the Army. Archie Alexander, the Under Secretary of the Army, was on it representing the Army. Ben Chidlaw was the military Air Force representative. I was Air Force. And, what we see now is guidance systems and propulsion systems and all now in our Apollo missiles and in all of these others came from what they were doing and had on their drawing boards at that time. But those were extremely expensive. Question, 'do you stop those and take the money to put on the Reserves and Guard system?' And, again you got people. So you had a pressure from one side saying 'you got to cut down, you got to cut down the defense budget.'

MR. GROSS: This was before the Korean War?

MR. STUART: Yes. We had great pressure to cut down on the military services under Louie Johnson, the Secretary of Defense. So you had a great pressure there, and a great pressure, and you had pressure from the politicians in the various states. The Reserves wanted to do more and the National Guard wanted to do more but it was a question of money and people.

MR. GROSS: So the priorities would not go into the reserves. That seems to have changed somewhat today. Particularly in the last seven or eight years, there seems to be emphasis on the reserve programs now.

MR. STUART: But you still don't have much of a real reserve program, what I

[50]

would call a real reserve program. If we had a war today, you do have a situation now that the National Guard is flying, working on the intercept missions out of the Air Defense Command. So they have a role now and they're on alert and they're flying jet aircraft, they are flying F-105s. They're flying good jet aircraft which we didn't have then because we weren't building them.

MR. GROSS: Was there any speculation or planning before you left the Department of the Air Force in 1951 about what are we going to do with the Air Guard when it's all over in Korea and we do mobilize and come back?

MR. STUART: Yes, there was. The Korean War was over in 1953 but in 1951 I was over there a couple of times. And, they had determined that General MacArthur was commander of the United Nations forces and we thought we could interdict the highways and the bridges and the railroads and did not want them to destroy anything of importance such as the power dams, hydroelectric dams or the machine tool industry or those things, because we said we would have to rebuild them. It was the thought that the Korean War wouldn't last too long. And, the Air Force, in my opinion, kind of had one hand tied behind it in fighting because normally to win a war you've got to make the other side destroy their desire to continue fighting. Now, if their power plants and their dams and all of those were destroyed long before they got the Chinese and the Russian anti aircraft guns where it became too costly to try to destroy them, they could have destroyed them with A-24s which are the single engine trainer planes. We used some A-24s over there. We had one squadron of A- 24s and they always

[51]

wanted to go out and mix it up with the MIGs because they could turn inside of them kind of like a butterfly. And, it's pretty hard to hit a butterfly with a rifle.

We knew that the tremendous buildup of the Chinese troops above the Yalu River but we couldn't touch them. We couldn't touch the supply lines, their great concentration of supplies and equipment. Had we done that, the Chinese certainly could not have been nearly so effective as they were in the winter of 1950.

MR. GROSS: But during this period of time planning, what was going on for the post war future of the Guard?

MR. STUART: Well, we weren't thinking quite as much of the post war future as to get rid of this one. I think it was a little later. Of course the Civilian Components Policy Board met periodically. It was every other month or every three months or something like that. I can't remember how often they did meet. [End tape]

MR. GROSS: In conjunction with the controversy in 1949, I believe it was between General Finch and General Cramer in the National Guard Bureau, basically over who was in charge here, that eventually both of those gentlemen were removed and General Ricks, I believe, was brought in to head the Air Force side. Why was it that Ricks was able to run the Air National Guard the way he and the

[52]

Air Force thought that it should be run then as opposed to the situation that had prevailed before the big blowout between Cramer and Finch. What had changed?

MR. STUART: Well, Ricks, with the help of my office and the help of General McConnell; Ricks could get along with people. He had a good personality and he was able to get people to do things. I think the Air Guard was greatly impressed with General Ricks and his manner of operations and he was out with them a lot more than General Finch was. His personality was different. Finch, and I don't say this critically, was an antagonist and Cramer was an antagonist, and they could not get along very well. But Ricks, he had been in the Guard. Of course, Finch had to. I guess he had been Adjutant General in Georgia. But the personality of Ricks and the people he brought in made a much smoother operation. And, there are two sides, three sides, four sides to a lot of problems. And, he was able to get a cohesive position. Give a little, get some, give some to get some and just was able to do a better job and he was out with the Guard a great deal.

MR. GROSS: Did you find that, after Ricks took over, that the people in the states, the Adjutant Generals as well as the units, were they much more responsive to the requirements that would come down from the Air Force through Ricks?

MR. STUART: Yes, much more so.

MR. GROSS: One of the big bones of contention, according to Cramer anyway during

[53]

this period, was that his interpretation of existing statutes. He was the one supposed to run the Guard. The Air Force didn't approve of that too much because he was an Army man and they figured he didn't know how to run an Air component.

MR. STUART: Had no experience!

MR. GROSS: Had no experience: Another thing that I've wondered about though was his contention that, as Chief of the National Guard Bureau, that he was entitled to be at least heard by the Air Force, the Chief of Staff, when there were major discussions about policy that would affect the Air National Guard. Now, from what I've been able to gather, the Air Force didn't go along with that too much either for some of the same reasons. Now did Ricks make the same kind of assertion and was he, in fact, included or at least listened to? Did he, in effect, become a member of the Air Staff as it related to Air National Guard matters?

MR. STUART: Yes: Cramer, it is true, was the head of the National Guard Bureau and he thought that he was, in effect, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as far as the Air Guard was concerned. His people under him were all Army. I've gone to Cramer's office many times to get Finch and Cramer together. We sat down and tried to talk but it was ....They were opposites and both of them were antagonistic. It was pretty difficult to do although I will say this, I thought that Finch, and maybe because I was on the Air side, at least I tried to get

[54]

Finch to be more amenable. But just when they refused to have him come into the National Guard Association meeting and they completely wiped him out. And, so I made it a point that he would be included in any of the meetings.

And General McConnell did, I thought, did a good job on that. And, McConnell and Ricks, on the military side, I think in a period of very few months were able to get support and understanding with the committee. Maybe I can recall the names of some of that committee but I think they had one Air Force general, a Guard general, and two Army generals . And, one of the Army generals sided with the Air Guard general as to how the organization should be set up. I don't know whether you've seen that report or not.

MR. GROSS: Is this the work that was done as far as the reorganization of the Guard Bureau?

MR. STUART: Yes.

MR. GROSS: A board was appointed by the Secretaries of the Army and the Air Force under General Miltonberger?

MR. STUART: Miltonberger, seems like Harrison was one of them.

MR. GROSS: May have been. So it's basically the work that these people did that kind of turn signal...?

[55]

MR. STUART: McConnell was kind of secretary of it.

MR. GROSS: May have been. I would have to check the records on it.

MR. STUART: Yes, and McConnell was very sharp and smart. He gave a lot of guidance to that.

MR. GROSS: What kind of guidance or suggestions was he making at that time? Did he talk with you about that at all?

MR. STUART: Oh yes, sure. We discussed it a great deal as to how they could work together, the foot soldier and the Guard pilot.

MR. GROSS: Within the Bureau?

MR. STUART: Yes.

MR. GROSS: Did it basically come down to the Air Force, or the Air Guard guy rather, being able to run the Air Force side of it and the Army guy run the Army side of it?

MR. STUART: Yes, yes. And, then they would have cooperation between the two. It worked very well. I've forgotten who the Army put in right now as the .... I can't remember his name off hand.

[56]

MR. GROSS: Fine: I had seen your reference in the letter, one of the letters to me, about the committee under McConnell, and I don't recall seeing anything specifically about that, but then it turns out it's the Miltonberger Board that met in 1949, 1950, something like that, and worked that situation out.

Where were we? I lose track of myself. Do you recall hearing any discussion or seeing any figures in 1950 or 1951 on the percentages or numbers of Air Guardsmen in mobilized units who never showed up? Was there any problem there at all or any discussions of it ?

MR. STUART: Yes there was a problem. Sure I saw figures but I don't recall the figures. A lot of people got in the Guard in order to fly and they used it as a kind of a country club in a way.

MR. GROSS: Sort of a flying club for veterans.

MR. STUART: Yes, a flying club. And, we had some problems there.

MR. GROSS: You had some problems getting people to go along:

MR. STUART: As long as we had the draft, we had a lot of influential sons of influential people who went in the Guard so they wouldn't be called in, wouldn't be drafted. A lot of that. They came in and attended very few sessions.

[57]

My son was in the Air Guard. His eyes were bad. He was nearsighted. I wanted him to have military training. He couldn't pass the physical for the draft and I was able to get him into the Air Guard, I wanted him to have some experience. It was a question of him not having any at all or having some. I insisted that he go to all of the meetings. He missed very few. But I know a lot of his friends that got in, they would never show up at the meetings. If they did, they wouldn't do anything. And he, because of his eyes, color blind, nearsighted, he could not be in flying. He went into computers but then they didn't want them much to handle the computers because they are pretty sophisticated pieces of equipment. Just going out there one weekend a month, they didn't think they knew enough about it and would really be detrimental.

The Guard did not have the kind of program that I would like to see them have because I think you ought to have some exercises, come out there with some exercises and keep these people busy. But, in the Guard and the Reserves, they would go to these sessions and they would have time on their hands. It was not being utilized. And, it was hard to get these training programs going. That's why one could be a fighter aircraft that have a mission like they do in the North American Air Defense Command. They have a mission and they are on alert and they are flying intercept missions, something to keep people active, keep their minds occupied on something. Those that did that did well.

Out here, they didn't have any airplanes. Then they finally got the big transports, they got C-124s, for awhile. They had one or two or three of those.

[58]

They would fly those on a long mission but there wasn't much for the others to do.

MR. GROSS: You don't have any idea then, getting back to the Korean War, of what the percentage of those people either never showed up or were deferred for some kind of medical or personal reason? Evidently it wasn't extensive?

MR. STUART: No, I don't know. I know a lot of them tried to get out immediately when they were called.

MR. GROSS: They didn't want to pay the price now.

MR. STUART: That's right.

MR. GROSS: Congress has often seemed to intervene to protect the Air Guard from changes that it didn't want.

MR. STUART: They got the most powerful lobby, concentrated lobby of anyone. So all they do is push that teletype and they got the Adjutant Generals, and they call them in on active duty. They get paid for going to Washington and then they send them out to see the congressmen and the senators. And, they got the governor behind them. They got the governor. Usually the same political party, at least one or two of them are in the same political party as the governor.

[59]

MR. GROSS: There is a certain irony there, though, if you look back at the period before the Korean War, particularly, and even some thereafter. The National Guard did have a very powerful and effective lobby with the Congress. But, the thing that I don't understand is why they were never able to translate that power into the kind of money and equipment that you would really need to have to make your reserve program a going thing.

MR. STUART: Well, it comes down to all a question of money again. There is always pressure to cut down on the budget. Well, the budget always keeps going deeper, deeper, in the hole. Right now, we've got President Carter saying 'I am going to cut down on the defense budget.' If you cut down on the defense budget, what has got to go? You have got to cut something out. When you cut something out, what do you cut out? It's a matter of bringing the Chief of Staff, Secretary, or the Assistant Secretary, somebody over to testify that 'these are the things that we think are most important. Now; if you want to give us more money, we can do these other things.' And, they give them a certain amount.

It's very difficult to get people when you got baseball, football, television, golf, had all of these lakes and opportunities to go away and take a man away from his family. He doesn't have the incentive or drive in peacetime to do those things. Many of them just wanted to stay in there in order to get their 20 years in order to get some retirement pay. Well, I never took a dime for reserve duty at any time. I would go on two weeks active duty and wouldn't

[60]

take any pay for it. They said you got to take pay. So I said 'well turn it over to one of the Air Force charities, because I am not a professional soldier.' And, I would not take expenses out. Sometimes I'd have to, but I didn't want any pay. I said 'I didn't want any promotions.' I didn't want promotions. They tried to promote me to a general. I said 'leave that to the people who are working on it.' Because I didn't need it. I had a business. That was not my profession. But I would have been very happy to go in, now or then in case of emergency.

MR. GROSS: To what extent do you believe that the political influence of the Guard and its ability to get some things that it wants and frustrate other things that the Air Force wants, to what extent do you believe that really gets around the ability of designated civilian officials such as yourself or the Secretary of the Air Force to exercise proper civilian control of the military under our particular system of government in this country?

MR. STUART: I don't think very much. I think you get pressures. I used to get pressures from congressmen or senators and I was always very happy to go there and explain to them and discuss it. Whether I was effective or not as an Assistant Secretary, it didn't bother me in the least bit because I was a reservist. I knew pretty much what they were doing and what I thought they were capable of doing. The main thing that people wanted, they wanted promotions and recognition. But, you know, a person that has been in the Guard three years and he has, maybe 24, 35 days or 40 days active duty time a year as compared to

[61]

somebody that has 365 days a year training and that's their life. A lot of them were able, because of their outside business and their executive ability, administrative ability, or particular ability in some particular business or line of business, to do a lot better job than people in the regular Air Force.

MR. GROSS: Particularly airline pilots, for example.

MR. STUART: Sure: But then, you know, the airline pilots, the minute that we wanted to call the airline pilots for our transport command, the airlines said that 'you can't do it.' They were getting paid all of the time, on weekends and getting promotions because they're working in the Guard flying in their transport wings. But when the war came along, we didn't get very many of them because Congress and everybody else said, 'look, we got to have these people flying the airlines.'

MR. GROSS: Well, it seems like you are sketching out a situation where at least nobody seemed to ever really connect participation in an organization, in a reserve component, with fighting a war some day.

MR. STUART: That's right: With the realities of a war, very true.

MR. GROSS: Was this sort of non-conception of reality, did this extend to the regulars in terms of their treatment of the reserve programs or was this just a set of expectations that Guardsmen and reservists had?

[62]

MR. STUART: If a person had ability, it was recognized in the main. If a person had ability, if he was a good flyer or a good mechanic or good statistician or good man on any of the [sic] AFSCs that we had, they would be recognized. Maybe not as much sometimes as they thought it should be. And, you have got so many colonels that you got to promote. Naturally, the people who are on the regular service and that board ....We set up a board for promotions of reserves and they recommended on the reserves, but then it would go on the same list to the Senate Armed Services Committee for confirmation. And, there was a lot of political pressures to get this man on or that man on the list. But you have so many that you promote. I thought that they did a pretty good job of promoting reserves. And, if anything, I think they got a little bit more favorable treatment than people in the regular Air Force.

MR. GROSS: Was this before or during the Korean War?

MR. STUART: During the Korean War they were integrated in and they could be measured side by side.

MR. GROSS: Yes! But you really didn't know whether they were this or that. They were just all USAF.

Well, that really covers most of the things that I wanted to discuss with you here. Are there any observations or comments that you would like to make about your experiences with the Air Force at least in relation to the Air Guard and Air Force

[63]

Reserve programs?

MR. STUART: No, I think in all the reserves, the Guard, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, four reserves in all, they ought to be treated under a similar law or under the same law, so that the Marines, the Air Force, the Army, and the Navy all get similar amounts of money or similar types of equipment. To maintain an airplane costs a whole lot more than operating a six by six vehicle, or a 105mm howitzer or a carbine, 20mm cannon or operating on a naval vessel that's maybe more expensive.

You got to have similar training then, I think, in the ROTC programs. They should be similar. One has a four year scholarship, the others ought to have some four year scholarships. I think the biggest difference when I first went with the Air Force was the funds and all for reserve programs and ROTC programs were under different laws. And they said 'we can't change it.' Now that seems like we ought to be able to make everybody, all of our services, be able to train the same type of people and give them the type of training that would make them proficient in their specific art. But trying to change Congress or trying to change the system in the Pentagon or anywhere else is like trying to change the direction of a charging elephant with your little finger. You might make a little change, but it's pretty hard to make a drastic change. Too much set in their ways. They have come up 20 years doing it one way and it's hard to make them change, regardless. Same way of getting something changed in the civil service. You can't do it overnight.

[64]

MR. GROSS: Unless, perhaps, it's a crisis.

MR. STUART: Yes: That's true.

MR. GROSS: Well, unless there is anything else, I think this has been marvelous. I appreciate talking to you.

MR. STUART: I enjoyed it.

[65]

GLOSSARY

ADC	Air Defense Command
AFSC	Air Force Specialty Code
DOD	Department of Defense
MIT	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
NORAD	North American Air Defense Command
OSS	Office of Strategic Services
ROTC	Reserve Officers Training Corps
SHAEF	Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces

Adams, Sherman, 29
Adjutant General, 8, 21, 23, 40, 52, 58
Adjutant Generals Association, 6, 7, 9, 23
Adjutant Generals of Georgia, 5
AFSCs, 62
Air Corps, 9, 10, 16, 42
Air Defense Command, 26, 50
Air Force, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 34, 38, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46,

48, 49, 50, 54, 60, 61, 62, 63
Air Force Academy, 16, 17, 46
Air Force Aide to the President, 2
Air Force Association, 3, 20
Air Force Intelligence, 1
Air Force Reserve, 1, 3, 4, 10, 13, 20, 21, 23, 24, 29, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 57
Air Force ROTC, 10, 15, 17
Air National Guard, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28, 33, 41, 52, 53, 54, 57
Air Staff, 45
Air-to-air missile, 48
Air-to-surface missile, 48
Air Transport Command, 37, 43
Alaska, 18, 19
Alaskan Range, 18
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 34
Alexander, Archie, 49
Alton, Illinois, 17
American Airlines, 43
Apollo missiles, 49
Arizona, 26
Arkansas, 1, 8
Army, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 25, 31, 45, 48, 49, 53, 54, 55, 63
Army Air Corps, 3, 13, 16
Army Guard Bureau, 9
Army National Guard, 4, 7, 9, 28
Army reservists and officers, 20
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, 2, 3, 12, 13, 14, 37, 59, 60
Assistant Secretary of the Army, 7
Aviation medicine, 34
A-24, 50

Bailey, Bill, 34, 37
Baken, Colonel Bill, 32
Bavarian Alps, 1
Belgium, 13
Bennett, John, 43
Bolling Field, D. C., 17
Braun, Von, 48
British, 11
Broom, Lieutenant Colonel I. G., 8, 9, 30
Burrows, Arthur, 12, 13
B-1, 45
B-25, 8
B-36, 19

California, 8, 25
Canadians, 11
Carter, Jimmy, 59
Camp Chafee, 1
Chicago, Illinois, 42
Chidlaw, Ben, 49
Chief of Staff, Air Force, 4, 7, 29, 46, 59
Chief of Staff, Army, 7
Chinese, 50, 51
Civil Air Patrol, 10, 11
Civil aviation, 2
Civil service, 63
Civilian Components Policy Board, 10, 51
Clark, General Mark, 49
Colorado, 17
Colorado Springs, Colorado, 17
Combat intelligence, 13
Command and General Staff School, 46
Congress, 3, 15, 18, 23, 61, 63
Connelly, John, 37
Continental Air Command, 27, 47
Corf, Secretary Fred, 37
Cramer, Major General, 5, 6, 7, 52, 53
Czechoslovakia, 13
C-124, 57

Dallas, Texas, 44
Denmark, 2
Denver, Colorado, 17
Department of Defense (DOD), 45, 48
Donaldson, Scott, 18
Donovan, General William Joseph, 1
Doolittle, Jimmy, 20

Eglin Field, 32
Eielsen Air Force Base, 18, 19
Eighth Air Force, 43, 44
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 16, 29
Elmendorf Air Force Base, 18
Europe, 1, 33, 34

Fairbanks, Alaska, 19
Far East, 16
Federal Housing Administration, 18
Finch, Major General George, 5, 6, 7, 52, 53, 54
Finland, 1
Finletter, Tom, 29
Fishback and Moore, 37
Foss, Joe, 33, 42
Fort Worth, Texas, 43
Forty Ninth Fighter Group, 33
Forty Sixth Fighter Group, 33
France, 13
F-105, 50

Gabreski, Francis S. "Gabby", 33
Genessee, Wisconsin, 17
Georgia, 5, 52
Germany, 13
Gray, Gordon, 7

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 13
Henebry, Jock, 42
Hill, General James E., 46
Hot-rodders, 16
Hot Springs, Arkansas, 9
Houston, Texas, 34, 37
Huntsville, Alabama, 48

Indiana, 18

Johnson, Secretary Of Defense Louis, 18, 22, 24, 49
Joint Chiefs of Staff, 53
Joplin, Missouri, 18

Kansas, 25, 26
Kennedy, John F., 37
Kimble, Dan, 49
Korea, 21, 33, 40
Korean War, 16, 21, 22, 30, 39, 44, 50, 62

Landry, Major General Robert, 2
Laurinburg Maxton, North Carolina, 17
Little Rock, Arkansas, 8
Lovelace, Randy, 34
Luxemburg, 13


Macarthur, General Douglas, 50
Marine Corps, 33, 48, 63
Massachusetts, 7, 35
Maxwell Field, Alabama, 17
McConnell, Brigadier General John P., 7, 8, 10, 27, 28, 46, 52, 54, 55
McCoy, Frank, 19, 20, 27
McMath, Governor Sidney S., 8
McNickle, Mel ; 43
Medal of Honor, 33
MIG, 51
Miltonberger, General, 54
Minuteman, 10
MIT, 48
Mitchell Field, New York, 17
Montgomery, Alabama, 6
Montgomery, Major General J. B., 43

Nashville, Tennessee, 19, 20
National Committee, 23 .
National Guard, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 19, 20,