< PREVIOUS ] [ 2006 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
It had to be one of the most unrealistic military exercises of all time, and that might explain why it led to something that was supposed to strengthen our nation's defense but might instead have made our country weaker.
Our modern Interstate highway system, which celebrated its 50th anniversary a few days ago, can be traced back to the summer of 1919 and the First Transcontinental Motor Convoy conducted by the U.S. Army.
The convoy was designed to determine by actual
experience the possibility and the problems involved in
moving an army across the continent, assuming that railroad
facilities, bridges, tunnels, etc., had been damaged or
destroyed by agents of an Asiatic enemy.
With 34 heavy cargo trucks, and about an equal number of
other vehicles, it set off from Washington on July 7,
connected with the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania, and
reached San Francisco 62 days and 3,251 miles later. It
averaged just over 6 miles per hour, and nine vehicles were
so damaged as to require retirement while en
route.
Try to imagine how an Asiatic enemy
in 1919 could
have had agents in place to perform a successful
co-ordinated attack on scores of bridges, tunnels, and
railyards -- and to cause damage that could not be repaired
in a week or two.
During the 1864 siege of Atlanta, Confederate raiders often attacked and damaged the rail line that supplied the Union Army. But Gen. William T. Sherman always had it running again within days, and Atlanta was duly taken.
So after quick repairs to the damage caused by the presumed Asiatic hordes of 1919, the trains still could have arrived on the West Coast with soldiers and supplies long before the Army motorcade could get there. That's why it was such an unrealistic military exercise.
Nonetheless, it made a deep impression on a staff officer who rode on the convoy, Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was appalled at the narrow lanes, mud holes, steep grades and weak bridges he saw along the way.
In 1944-45, Gen. Eisenhower led the invasion of Germany,
and there he saw Hitler's autobahns and the mobility they
provided his army. The 1919 convoy, Eisenhower later wrote,
had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways,
but Germany had made me see the wisdom of broader ribbons
across the land.
So when Eisenhower became president of the United States, he pushed for the 43,000-mile National Highway Defense System, which Congress approved. He signed the bill on June 29, 1956.
As the commander of an invasion, Eisenhower had observed that good highways help invaders at least as much as they help defenders -- so it seems odd that an extensive network of four-lane limited-access highways was supposed to improve America's defense.
But in those days, like these, you could sell just about
anything on the grounds of improving national defense (part
of my college experience was the result of a National
Defense Student Loan
). In case of invasion, troops and
equipment could presumably be moved with more speed and
flexibility on superhighways, and if nuclear attack loomed,
threatened cities could be evacuated quickly on these
highways.
We can be thankful that neither possibility has come to fruition, but after watching New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina last year, which came with plenty of warning, one wonders how successful an evacuation can be, no matter how many highways there are.
Since the interstates were built, Americans drive more, from 631 billion vehicle miles in 1956 to more than 3 trillion in 2004. That leads to increased petroleum consumption even as domestic production declines. In 1956, the United States imported 184 million barrels of oil. In 2005, the U.S. imported about 4.9 billion barrels -- more than 26 times as much.
Our major suppliers, with the possible exception of Canada, are hotbeds of anti-American sentiment, places like Venezuela, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. And in the past 16 years, we have engaged in two oil-based wars with Iraq, with no end in sight to the second one and our military stretched thin on that account.
So, is America really a stronger nation because of the Interstate system? Or have those highways in fact weakened our country?
< PREVIOUS ] [ 2006 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >