To help maintain this kind of armed strength and improve its efficiency, I must urge the enactment of several important measures in this session.

The first concerns the selective service act which expires next June 30th.  For the foreseeable future, our standing forces must remain much larger than voluntary methods can sustain.  We must, therefore, extend the statutory authority to induct men for two years of military service.

The second kind of measure concerns the rapid turnover of our most experienced servicemen.  This process seriously weakens the combat readiness of our armed forces and is exorbitantly expensive.  To encourage more trained servicemen to remain in uniform, I shall, on the thirteenth of this month, propose a number of measures to increase the attractions of a military career.  These measures will include more adequate medical care for dependents, survivors’ benefits, more and better housing, and selective adjustments in military pay and other allowances.

And third—­also on January 13—­I shall present a program to rebuild and strengthen the civilian components of our armed forces.  This is a comprehensive program, designed to make better use of our manpower of military age.  Because it will go far in assuring fair and equitable participation in military training and service, it is of particular importance to our combat veterans.  In keeping with the historic military policy of our Republic, this program is designed to build and maintain powerful civilian reserves immediately capable of effective military service in an emergency in lieu of maintaining active duty forces in excess of the nation’s immediate need.

Maintenance of an effective defense requires continuance of our aggressive attack on subversion at home.  In this effort we have, in the past two years, made excellent progress.  FBI investigations have been powerfully reinforced by a new Internal Security Division in the Department of Justice; the security activities of the Immigration and Naturalization Service have been revitalized; an improved and strengthened security system is in effect throughout the government; the Department of Justice and the FBI have been armed with effective new legal weapons forged by the 83rd Congress.

We shall continue to ferret out and to destroy Communist subversion.

We shall, in the process, carefully preserve our traditions and the basic rights of our citizens.

Our civil defense program is also a key element in the protection of our country.  We are developing cooperative methods with State Governors, Mayors, and voluntary citizen groups, as well as among Federal agencies, in building the civil defense organization.  Its significance in time of war is obvious; its swift assistance in disaster areas last year proved its importance in time of peace.