WAR—COSTS

7186 Costliest War

The material cost of World War II far transcended that of the rest of history’s wars put together and has been estimated at $1.5 million. In the case of the United Kingdom the cost was over five times as great as that of World War I. The total cost of World War II to the Soviet Union was estimated semiofficially in May 1959, at 2,500,000,000,000 rubles ($280,000 million) while a figure of $530,000 million has been estimated for the United States.

7187 Value Of Each World War

If the cost of World War II could be prorated among the two billion people of the world, the amount for each man, woman, boy and girl would be $1,708. This amount is exclusive of loss of lives and property.

7188 Vietnam War Costs

It took 100,000 bullets, statistically speaking, to kill or maim one Viet Cong (or about $7,000). It took only 20,000 bullets to effect an enemy casualty in World War II.

The Library of Congress in 1971 did a survey of costs from the Vietnam War, and came up with these data:

Since intervention began in 1965, over twice the ammunition used during World War II were dropped on Indochina.

Communist casualties amounted to some 715,000, or about 3.5 percent of North Vietnamese population.

Nearly 500,000 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed, or about 2.6% of total population in the South. And over a million additional civilian casualties including about 300,000 killed, were counted.

About 54,000 Americans died, 44,000 in combat. And 150,000 were wounded seriously enough to be hospitalized.

The war produced additional defense spending of over $98 billion. It is estimated to have cost $490 for every American man, woman, and child.

7189 Per Capita Cost in Laos

The total budget for the Kingdom of Laos was a paltry $36.6 million. To fight a war there, the U.S. in fiscal 1971 spent $284.2 million—or $141 for every one of the approximately 2,000,000 men, women and children under government control. (The gross national product totalled only $66 per capita. )

These bizarre statistics were contained in a once-secret staff report released by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after five weeks of haggling with the Administration over declassifying its salient points. The figures became even more bizarre when the cost of air operations—one of the figures still classified, but reliably estimated at $1.4 billion—was included, bringing per capita expenditure up to an incredible $900.

7190 Record Defense Budget

A staggering 146 billion dollars was pledged by the Government in Washington to support America’s far-flung military establishment in the year that began October 1, 1980.

It was a record one-year budget that the taxpayers underwrote for the Pentagon. It comprised about one-fourth of the total federal budget of 616 billion dollars for the year.

In 1967, the U.S. spent $70 billion for defense.

7191 Big Bite Of Taxpayer’s Dollar

Almost 71 cents out of the taxpayer’s dollar will go for military preparation or toward the cost of past conflicts, according to a report from the Friends Committee on National Legislation which has headquarters in Washington. The committee made public the report after an analysis of funds voted by Congress.

7192 Bomb Costs And Missionaries

The cost of making the first atomic bomb was two billion dollars, an amount sufficient to have maintained 10,000 missionaries in the field for a period of 100 years at the rate of two thousand dollars each per year. The amount spent by the United States in World War II would have sustained 1,500,000 missionaries in the field for 100 years at the same rate.

—Moody Monthly

7193 Bomber Costs And School Buildings

President Eisenhower, in a speech urging world disarmament said:

“The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: “A modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

“Two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

“Two fine, fully-equipped hospitals.

“Some 50 miles of concrete highway.

“We pay for a single fighter plane with a half-million bushel of wheat.

“We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.”

—Chicago Daily News

7194 To Kill Or Christianize

It has cost the United States government $1,000,000 and twenty-five lives for every American Indian killed. The average cost of Christianizing one Indian has been $200.

—J. H. Bomberger

7195 UNICEF And Submarine

Colin Rainsbury, field director for Canadian UNICEF, stated that governments now spend more in four days preparing for war than in a year helping their neighbours.

The annual budget of UNICEF, the United Nations’ international children’s fund, is now $75 million. Compare that with the $125 million that is spent to build one modern submarine!

7196 When Should Charges Stop?

After World War I, when Herbert Hoover was chairman of the American Relief Committee for Europe, he received a cable from Adm. Williams S. Sims: “In reference to certain ships operated by the Navy, formerly in Army service and now in service of Food Administration, will it be satisfactory to you to have me determine when charges against Army should cease and charges against Food Administration commence?”

Hoover replied: “Yes—remembering that we are in the business of trying to save the lives of Allied women and children on a budget of $20 million a month, while they are in the killing business, on a budget of $2 billion a month.”

—Lewis L. Strauss

See also: Weapons.