 It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope. A television journal of the important issues of the hour brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. A presentation of the Lawn Jean Wittner Watch Company. Maker of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Wittner, distinguished companion to the world-honored Lawn Jean. Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? CBS News Correspondents Larry Lassur and Lou Choppie. Our distinguished guest for this evening is Merton B. Teiss, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. In recognition of the fact that our country has been through two major wars in a generation, the Congress of the United States last year changed the name of Armistice Day to Veterans Day. Our guest tonight was in World War II, was on the staff of General Matthew Ridgway. He became commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars last August. Mr. Teiss, do you think that the veterans are getting it? Are you satisfied with the break they're getting now from the government and the country? I'm absolutely satisfied with the break that the veterans are getting from a grateful people in America, and I only wish that they could get that same break from the representatives of those people who are in Congress. I don't feel that they have from Congress. Well, what are your chief complaints? Are you thinking in terms of new legislation? No, I'm thinking of bringing back some of the legislation perhaps we had previously because I'm thinking primarily of that veteran who's disabled, who's now in a hospital and needs medical care and a treatment. And as you probably remember, under the Truman administration, there were 2,500 hospital beds taken away. And there's been a further advocation that there be some more taken away. And it's terrible because of this fact that we have at least on every day of the year 90,000 veterans of our wars in our hospitals today. We have 135,000 hospital beds for over 21 million veterans. Now, naturally all veterans don't take advantage of those rights that they do have and they pay their own way. But at the same time, we've got a lot of veterans, neuropsychiatric cases and tubercular cases who are hurting their communities, who could be productive citizens if that Congress of the United States would give us some more hospital beds and medical care. Well, may I ask you, are you working towards any changes in the veterans' laws, then, Mr. Tyson? We certainly are. And I've talked with Mr. Higley, the director of the Veterans Administration only recently, and Dr. Joel T. Boone, one of his top men who's the director of the medical section. And I've talked to congressmen and senators and we certainly are going to push for that as soon as this new Congress reconvenes in January. Was this going to cost the well-known taxpayer more money? I'd say to you what I said to John Phillips, who was the chairman of the subcommittee on appropriations last year. Is it good economy or false economy to have a man who's a neuropsychiatric, man who's lost a little something out of his head through the fall of his own when he kills some citizens? Is it false or good economy when a man's got tuberculosis and could be cured and he contaminates his family? So I say, sure, it's sound economy to make productive citizens out of those men. Well, Mr. Higley, how far away do you think we are from universal military training, Commander Tice? This may surprise you a little bit, but I think we're just this far away. I think by June 1st, 1955, we will have what you're referring to as universal military training. It may shock you a little bit, but I'm basically going to find the fact that this Selective Service Act is going to expire at that time in May. And we've got to have some kind of an act of having men in uniform as long as we have the threats existing today that do exist. Therefore, I believe we will have a form of universal military training in the substance of the Selective Service Act amended as it exists today. In other words, we'll have universal military training, you think, but we won't call it that. That's right. We can call it whatever we want to, but we're going to accomplish the same thing. Commander Tice, could you tell us what the VFW thinks of as a good UNT plan? We think this. We think that if you will give a man six months of basic training, and then have him committed that he must serve maybe six more years in a reserve status, going two weeks out of the year to a training camp, and certainly every once a month, at least having some training or classroom work, that then we will integrate sooner or later a reworkable, callable reserve for any emergency. And we'll cut down on that standing army of today, which is three million under in uniform. I don't know whether you realize it or not, but every man in uniform, whether it's Army, Navy, Marine Corps, anything else, it costs the government $12,000 a year, and I can see if they'll adopt what we're advocating in the Veterans of Foreign Wars for a workable program, a building up our reserves, that we can cut down that standing army to one and a half million men. Now, that can't be done overnight. Our plan is to more or less kind of have it by evolution rather than revolution. And that's the plan we're trying to get. Commander Tice, as you say, many of these things have an economic base. Now, one of the arguments I've heard against universal military training by a responsible official is that technology is fast making the prospects of a third world war into a technical war. And these people feel that the men who are going to fight this next war are going to be technicians, and they should be therefore trained by business in scientific training now, rather than taking them out of business life or scientific life, making the government train them in special schools. Well, of course, that's being done right at the present time and in many fields. At the same time, I'm thinking of what General Hershey told me only about a month ago about a man who was in his employ, went in to, was called back in and from the reserve, he took a ship that was a Norwegian ship across the waters and came back and he was seeing General Hershey and General Hershey said, how in the world could you command and take that ship when you didn't know anything about it? And he said, well, it took me a couple of days to find out how to run it. I think we're overemphasizing this great highly technical man that they're thinking of in those terms. We better keep our mind on the man. You can't take real estate without putting your feet on it. And that's taken by the man who's carrying that M1 rifle over his shoulder normally. In other words, you think we're overemphasizing the possibility of a push-button war? Oh, that's way out of the picture, I would say, and it's too bad because it may lure, it may lull our own citizenry to sleep, that there is no push-button war. I don't think in the offing at all. It's going to be just the same old thing that the war is terrible, and it's going to be fought along the same basic lines it always has ever since Napoleon. Well, of course, the VFW looks into all the things besides Veterans Affairs. I was thinking especially that hullabaloo last year up in Norwell, Connecticut, when there were charges that the VFW had organized a vigilante committee to search out un-American suspects. And what's the situation in regard to that now? Well, to me, it was very humorous because, of course, we have no vigilante committees, they're prohibited under our Constitution and bylaws, we've never had them. But what took place there is going to take place tomorrow and the next day. We've been charged by Letter, by J. Edgar Hoover, we were also asked by President Roosevelt, by President Truman, and also by President Eisenhower. And every loyal American citizen has been to report any subversive to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is a proper agency to investigate them. Under no circumstances do we ever evaluate any possible evidence that we might think we'd have about somebody else. We certainly don't make any investigation and we have no committees on any levels. Post, department, the state, we call it the department or a national level. Do you have any secret committees? We have no secret committees whatsoever. We have no secret workings. Well, Commander, some of these things might lead to abuses. Is the VFW set up to seek out and slap down abuses of this? Well, perhaps I haven't yet clearly spoke myself. The VFW does not seek out those people. It's only when they're exposed to it and they see it and then they feel a sworn duty and obligation actually as an American citizen to report it. In fact, it isn't the VFW. I charge every one of our 160 million people in the United States should do the same thing. What do you feel if the anti-communist bill passed by the last Congress meets your aim sufficiently? It certainly is a step in the right direction. You know that we advocated that in 1926 at our national encampment at El Paso, Texas, that the Communist Party be outlawed and of course that we called it our finest hour in VFW history. We're very happy it was passed. Speaking of the Communist as the head of a major veterans organization, do you think there's anything we should do about these continuing incidents of the Soviet Union's pilot shooting down our reconnaissance planes? I certainly do and I think we should go further than that. I think that we should tell Russia that you can't go in another step further. I think it's a tragedy and a travesty that they've been able to subjugate over 800 million people in the world today and actually our own government and our own administration hasn't had a clear-cut firm policy on it. I say that they've gone too far already and this isn't anything to be investigated. I think that's something that we should take action on right now. Now that certainly doesn't mean war and it means one thing to me. It means avoiding war. What do you think we could actually do? What can we say to them? Well we can say one thing and that is we certainly should carry out exactly what the orders were originally that if we're ever fired upon by anybody to fire back and to give them everything we have once they have opened fire. You think that the VFW and its local organizations and I see many of their organizations all over the country so I know I'm very glad to see you. Do you think they are playing a big enough role in civil defense these days? I certainly don't and we're urging them this year to do a lot more than has been done in the past. It hasn't been I'm very frank to say one of our major programs. It is this year and we're doing everything possible to coordinate and cooperate all of our efforts and every one of our personnel with Val Peterson and everybody connected to civil defense. I think the American public is very very indifferent to that program that may well spell the difference if it ever comes of life and death. I hesitate to be one of those bell ringers or whatever they call them but by golly I'll tell you it it could be very bad that we haven't made proper preparations in our civil defense and we're going to urge and encourage and give every single effort we can this year with our 10,000 posts and 7,000 ladies auxiliaries. Well we're all for you on that thank you very much Commander Tice for being with us tonight. Thank you very much. The opinions expressed on the launch in Chronoscope were those of the speakers. The editorial board for this edition of the launch in Chronoscope was Larry Lesser and Lou Chaffee. Our distinguished guest was Merton B. Tice national commander of the veterans of foreign wars. To give a launch in watch this Christmas is to give just about the finest watch made anywhere in all the world and happily a launch in watch is a gift that almost everyone can afford. Now for example there are many truly beautiful launch in models priced as low as 7,150. 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