THE MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT

It would be easy for the forces of that ""military-industrial complex"" which President Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address to dismiss the argument contained in this volume out of hand, since Mr. Swomley has been in the front lines of the most strenuous battles staged by the opponents of that complex throughout the past two decades. One can only hope that this will not be the case, however, even though Mr. Swomley makes no denial of his partisan status. He has managed here to set out, in the most cogent terms, every major objection to the expansion of military power in policy-making and economic influence. That there has been an ominous expansion in both directions may be common knowledge, but no one before has documented these developments so clearly and convincingly before. The author has scrutinized Pentagon publicity maneuvres with great diligence for many years in his role of antagonist to universal conscription, and the patterns he finds there will not make for complacency. ""War exists chiefly because it has become an institutionalized method of conflict"", he concludes, and therefore any practical schemes for continued peace must include complete civilian control of the means to war.