Arthur W. Radford

Arthur W. Radford   (mariner, pilot)
Born	27 February 1896 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	17 August 1973 (Age 77) Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.
Military hardliner with Asia first strategy  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff  In office August 15, 1953 - August 15, 1957 Preceded by Omar Bradley Succeeded by Nathan Twining  U.S. Pacific Fleet/Commander In office 1949 - 1953

Arthur William Radford was a United States Navy admiral and naval aviator. In over 40 years of military service, Radford held a variety of positions including Vice Chief of Naval Operations, commander of the United States Pacific Fleet and later the second Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Noted as a strong-willed and aggressive leader, Radford was a central figure in the post-war debates on U.S. military policy, and was a staunch proponent of naval aviation. As commander of the Pacific Fleet, he defended the Navy's interests in an era of shrinking defense budgets, and was a central figure in the "Revolt of the Admirals," a contentious public fight over policy, As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he continued to advocate for aggressive foreign policy and a strong nuclear deterrent in support of the "New Look" policy of President Dwight Eisenhower.

Radford suggested use of nuclear weapons against China and Korea in the Korean War. After France requested U.S. assistance for its beleaguered force at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, Radford suggested an aggressive stance toward the Viet Minh, with threats of nuclear weapons. He also advocated U.S. military intervention in the 1955 First Taiwan Strait Crisis, with use of nuclear weapons. Radfor wanted an intervention in the 1956 Suez Crisis (to support Britain and France), but Eisenhower favored diplomatic approaches and threats of force.

Retiring from the military in 1957 to get his rewards from the private sector as board member, Radford continued to be a military adviser to several prominent politicians until his death in 1973.

Early Life and WW2

With an interest in ships and aircraft from a young age, Radford saw his first sea duty aboard the battleship South Carolina during World War I. In the inter-war period he earned his pilot wings and rose through the ranks in duties aboard ships and in the Bureau of Aeronautics. After the U.S. entered World War II, he was the architect of the development and expansion of the Navy's aviator training programs in the first years of the war. In its final years he commanded carrier task forces through several major campaigns of the Pacific War.

Post-war years

Radford was promoted to vice admiral in late 1945. For a time he was Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air under Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal. During the post-war period, Radford was a strong advocate that naval aviation programs be maintained. When Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King issued a post-war plan calling for the U.S. to maintain nine active aircraft carriers, Radford suggested he double the number, a politically unrealistic proposal.

After the war, Radford was a principal opponent to a plan to merge the uniformed services. A plan existed to split the Army and the Army Air Forces into separate branches and unite them and the Navy under one Cabinet-level defense organization. Fearing the loss of their branch's influence, Navy commanders opposed the formation of a separate Air Force and favored a more loose defense organization. Radford was picked by Forrestal to form the Secretary's Committee of Research and Reorganization. Months of discussion resulted in the National Security Act of 1947, a political victory for the Navy because it created the U.S. Air Force while resulting in a coordinated, not unified, U.S. Department of Defense with limited power and with the Navy maintaining control of its air assets. In 1947, Radford was briefly appointed commander of the Second Task Fleet, a move he felt was to distance him from the budget negotiations in Washington, but nonetheless preferred.

In 1948, Radford was appointed by President Harry S. Truman as the Vice Chief of Naval Operations (VCNO). Debates continued with military leaders about the future of the armed forces as Truman sought to trim the defense budget. Radford was relied on by Navy leaders as an expert who would fiercely defend the Navy's interests from budget restrictions, but his appointment as VCNO was opposed by Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, who feared his hard-line stance on the budget would alienate the generals in the other branches of the military. Some historians contend Radford brought strong leadership to the role. Naval aviation assets grew from 2,467 aircraft to 3,467 during this time, almost all aircraft for fast-attack carriers. He also oversaw the implementation of the "Full Air Program" which envisioned 14,500 total aircraft in the naval air force. Along with his predecessor John Dale Price, he favored reducing naval ship strength in order to develop stronger naval aviation capabilities. Then, in 1949, Truman appointed him as the High Commissioner of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet

In April 1949, Truman appointed Radford to the position of Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. A staunch anticommunist, Radford saw the greatest threat to U.S. security coming from Asia, not Europe. He traveled extensively throughout the Pacific as well as South Asia and the Far East. He became acquainted with political and military leaders in New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaya, Burma, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Formosa, and Japan, and learned about the sociopolitical issues facing each nation and the region as a whole.

"Revolt of the Admirals"

Despite his new office, Radford was soon recalled to Washington to continue hearings on the future of the U.S. military budget. He became a key figure in what would later be called the "Revolt of the Admirals", which took place during April 1949 when the supercarrier Template:USS was cancelled.

At the request of Congressman Carl Vinson, Radford strongly opposed plans by Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and Secretary of the Navy Francis P. Matthews to make the Convair B-36 the Air Force's principal bomber, calling it a "billion dollar blunder." Radford also questioned the Air Force's plan to focus on nuclear weapons delivery capabilities as its primary deterrent to war and called nuclear war "morally reprehensible". While the United States remained cancelled and the post-war cuts to the Navy were intact, funding was increasing during the Cold War era for conventional forces.

Korean War

Radford (left) and Douglas MacArthur confer on Wake Island in 1950. Radford was an admirer of MacArthur and a supporter of his strategies, both before and after the latter's dismissal.

Shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, control of Vice Admiral Arthur D. Struble's U.S. Seventh Fleet was transferred from Radford to Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy, who was Commander, Naval Forces, Far East. Joy's superior was General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of the United Nations Command Korea (UNC). As such, Radford exercised no direct responsibility over forces involved in the conflict.

Radford was an admirer of MacArthur and a proponent of his "Asia First" strategy. He supported Operation Chromite in October 1950, as well as the United Nations mission of Korean reunification. He attended the Wake Island Conference between MacArthur and Truman on 15 October, and later recalled his belief that, should the Chinese intervene in the war, the U.S. could still prevail provided it was able to strike Chinese bases in Manchuria with air power. When the People's Volunteer Army did intervene in favor of North Korea the next month, Radford shared MacArthur's frustration at restrictions placed on the UN force in the war preventing it from striking Chinese soil. Once Truman relieved MacArthur in April 1951, Radford reportedly gave the general a "hero's welcome" in Hawaii as he was returning to the United States.

As commander of U.S. forces in the Philippines and Formosa, Radford accompanied President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower on his three-day trip to Korea in December 1952. Eisenhower was looking for an exit strategy for the stalemated and unpopular war, and Radford suggested threatening China with attacks on its Manchurian bases and the use of nuclear weapons. This view was shared by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and UNC Commander General Mark W. Clark, but had not been acted on when the armistice came in July 1953. Still, Radford's frankness during the trip and his knowledge of Asia made a good impression on Eisenhower, who nominated Radford to be his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Eisenhower's official nomination for Radford came in mid-1953. Eisenhower was initially cautious about him because of his involvement in the inter-service rivalry and "revolt" in 1949. Radford's anticommunist views, however, as well as his knowledge of Asia and his support of Eisenhower's "New Look" defense policy, made him an attractive nominee, particularly among Republicans, to replace Omar Bradley. Eisenhower was also impressed with his "intelligence, dedication, tenacity, and courage to speak his mind." During his nomination, Radford indicated a changed outlook from the positions he had taken during the "Revolt of the Admirals". As chairman, he was eventually popular with both the president and Congress.

Military budget

Radford meets Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. It was during this meeting that Radford so impressed the President-elect that he was nominated to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the next year.

Radford was integral in formulating and executing the "New Look" policy, reducing spending on conventional military forces to favor a strong nuclear deterrent and a greater reliance on airpower. In this time, he had to overcome resistance from Army leaders who opposed the reduction of their forces, and Radford's decisions, unfettered by inter-service rivalry, impressed Eisenhower. In spite of his support of the "New Look", he disagreed with Eisenhower on several occasions when the president proposed drastic funding cuts that Radford worried would render the U.S. Navy ineffective. In late 1954, for example, Radford testified privately before a congressional committee that he felt some of Eisenhower's proposed defense cuts would limit the military's capability for "massive retaliation", but he kept his disagreements out of public view, working from within and seeking the funding to save specific strategic programs.

In 1956, Radford proposed protecting several military programs from funding cuts by reducing numbers of conventional forces, but the proposal was leaked to the press, causing an uproar in Congress and among U.S. military allies, and the plan was dropped. In 1957, after the other Joint Chiefs of Staff again disagreed on how to downsize force levels amid more budget restrictions, Radford submitted ideas for less dramatic force downsizing directly to Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson, who agreed to pass them along to Eisenhower.

Foreign military policy

While Radford remained Eisenhower's principal adviser for the budget, they differed on matters of foreign policy. Radford advocated the use of nuclear weapons and a firm military and diplomatic stance against China. Early in his tenure, he suggested to Eisenhower a preventive war against China or the Soviet Union while the U.S. possessed a nuclear advantage and before it became entangled in conflicts in the Far East. Eisenhower immediately dismissed this idea.

After France requested U.S. assistance for its beleaguered force at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, Radford suggested an aggressive stance toward the Viet Minh, recommending the U.S. threaten them with nuclear weapons as it had with the Chinese in Korea. He also advocated U.S. military intervention in the 1955 First Taiwan Strait Crisis as well as the 1956 Suez Crisis, but Eisenhower favored diplomatic approaches and threats of force.

Sources

• Bowie, Robert R.; Immerman, Richard H. (2000), Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy, New York City: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-514048-4
• Hattendorf, John B.; Elleman, Bruce A. (2010), Nineteen-Gun Salute: Case Studies of Operational, Strategic, and Diplomatic Naval Leadership During the 20th and Early 21st Centuries, Washington, D.C.: Department of the Navy,
• James, D. Clayton; Wells, Anne Sharp (1992), Refighting the Last War: Command and Crisis in Korea 1950–1953,
• Muir, Malcolm Jr. (2001), The Human Tradition in the World War II Era, Lanham, Maryland: SR Books,
• Palmer, Michael A. (1990), Origins of the Maritime Strategy: The Development of American Naval Strategy, 1945–1955, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press
• Stewart, William (2009), Admirals of the World: A Biographical Dictionary, 1500 to the Present, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company
• Tucker, Spencer (2009), U.S. Leadership in Wartime: Clashes, Controversy, and Compromise, Volume 1, Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO
• Lowrey, Nathan S. (2016), The Chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1949-2016, Joint History Office,

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