Just about a year ago Najaab B. Halaby boarded a plane in New York. Halaby, Ford Foundation consultant, took with him two magazines to read during the flight to Boston--Time and Newsweek. Appointed by Foundation trustees to evaluate a novel Defense Studies Program here for possible financial aid, he was surprised to notice articles in both magazines describing the program.

The consultant was equally impressed with the program itself and its founder, W. Barton Leach '21, Story Professor of Law. He reported favorably to the trustees. Three months later Leach received $214,800--enough to place the program on solid ground after a shaky first year.

Since then the idea of providing training to serve as a background for Defense Department employees has spread to other universities--exactly as Leach originally intended. At Dartmouth, John A. Masland and Lawrence W. Radwar, experts in military history, are interested and plan to launch a seminar in the near future. Roger Hilsman at the Center of International Studies at Princeton envisions a seminar "soon." Ohio State University, which has considerable funds available for this type of work is also interested in establishing a program. Other groups at Yale, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Virginia are also considering the establishment of defense seminars.

One Course So Far

The Defense Studies Program at present offers but one course--the Defense Policy Seminar, open only to graduate students. Leach plans eventually, however, to promote a plan for undergraduate courses as well.

His immediate goal is to obtain people directly from the Defense Department to study military history, economics, and policy courses. He had one student last year and one this year from the Department, but neither was here primarily for that purpose.

Now that the program is on solid ground, Leach has started to look toward publishing a journal in the field--an "American Journal of National Defense," as he calls it. The publication would fill the gaps left by service journals today. It would be directed to a foreign affairs audience, and would provide a means for presenting policies as they develop with both sides of each issue printed at the same time, side by side.

Leach had been connected in one way or another with the Defense Department and the Air Force, in addition to holding his Law School post, for a number of years. He wrote to President Pusey in the fall of 1953 to explain an idea which he had thought about for several years. In the letter he explained that every department of the government had some form of unofficial academic tie, with people working in the field and conducting research pertaining to the work of a particular area of the department. Only the Defense Department lacked a breeding ground for future employees.

"Since college should be a place where a student can read, grow, and expand," Leach continued, "and is the beginning and not the end of education," a program in defense work could provide a trained group of people who could go into the Defense Department as a career.

The dearth of training facilities for defense personnel was understandable until the end of World War II, Leach went on, before Great Britain "began to lose its place in the sun and the United States and Russia began to emerge as the major postwar powers." The post-war change became apparent when 60 to 70 percent of the annual budget--equivalent to 15 per cent of the gross national product--was allocated to defense work.

The Bag of Resources

Leach concluded the letter with a challenge to the President. As the need for a defense training course became more apparent, he related, the universities had an obligation to readjust quickly to meet the need. "And no place in the country has a better bag of resources" for doing the job.

Pusey's answer, through Dean Bundy, was nothing but a polite brush-off. They agreed that the idea was "a very good and very interesting one." But the job got no further, and Leach was forced to launch the program without financial aid. Both the Law School and the Graduate School of Public Administration listed a seminar on defense in their 1954-55 catalogues, and Littauer subsequently formally assumed sponsorship of the program.

When Leach started his second year with the seminar this fall, he had come a long way. Instead of only 60 books from his personal library, he had 1,550 pages of reading prepared by last year's students. "Some of it is good, and some very bad," Leach comments. Army Col. Grank A. Osmanski, a Business School student, formed a student group which handled administrative details and preparation of literature for the program last year. "Osmanski literally saved the entire project," Leach entusiastically states. Now Leach's staff, available since the Ford grant, prepares and distributes reading for each week's session, freeing the students for more productive work in the course.

One example of reading prepared for students is the issue created by Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway's farewell letter, written after he had been denied reappointment to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ridgway had sevely criticized the proposed 300,000 man cut in the Army personnel and had been attacked in return. When he left his post, he defended his position and the original size of the Army. Readings on both sides of the question are provided, with appropriate comment. These, as all the readings, are available to anyone who has use for them. Bundy and H. Bradford Westerfield, instructor in Government, use some of the seminar's material in their American foreign policy course--Government 185.