Vest, USN, before the Senate Naval Affairs Committee on 11 July 1946, wherein the British experiences with a separate air force are reviewed in detail. I repeat and once again urge the Committee to give full and thorough consideration to the provisions for a separate air force, before legislating into existence an organization, one of whose primary justifications for being, in the light of modern trends of warfare, is the support of the ground and surface forces. I realize that it is very easy to point out the difficulties in legislation; to tear down; to criticize. I would be unmindful, however, of the high privilege which you have accorded me and the organization which I represent, if my efforts were wholly destructive, if we made no effort to offer anything constructive in an endeavor to help the committee in its deliberations on this legislation. I have stated before in this statement and I wish to emphasize by repeating again that RONS is not opposed to unification of the armed services. As a matter of fact, we are overwhelmingly in favor of it. However, we do oppose a unification procedure such as is proposed under the terms of the bill now under consideration, H. R. 2319. We feel, however, that it is possible for the provisions of H. R. 2319 to be readily amended to cure the objections which we have voiced, and the resulting legislation will be such that RONS can fully support it. As a matter of fact, the changes adopted by the Armed Services Committee of the Senate have met several of our objections to that bill. I am, therefore, listing below our specific recommendations. I firmly believe that a bill incorporating these changes will provide a method for the unification which we urgently need, particularly in the light of recent critical developments in the world situation. We would first recommend that all provisions with relation to a separate Department of the Air Force be deleted from this bill. We recommend that the powers of the Secretary of National Defense in relation to the Departments of War and Navy be more strictly limited and defined so that his authority will be definitely that of a coordinator and not that of a super-secretary. We feel that the "Declaration of Policy," which is the preamble to the amended version of S. 758, reported favorably to the Senate, goes a long way toward meeting our objections to that bill. We would recommend, however, that this declaration be formally included within the law and not just a preamble thereto. In this connection, we believe that the National Security Council rather than the Secretary of National Defense should be charged with determining and formulating general policies and programs relating to the national security and the National Defense Establishment and would recommend that section 201 (b) of your bill have added thereto a third paragraph to that effect. The wording of section 102 (a), lines 9 to 13, could then be made more definitive by changing it to read: under the direction of the President, he shall exercise general direction and authority over the National Defense Establishment and all the departments and agencies in accordance with policies and programs established by the National Security Council; he shall supervise and so forth. Mr. HOLIFIELD. In other words, you are taking the dictatorial authority which the Secretary of National Defense apparently has under H. R. 2319 and you are changing that too, you might say, a supervisory authority under the direction of the Board. Mr. BRACKEN. That is right. Mr. HOLIFIELD. The Board directs him in the place of his having the final say-so over and even the authority to overrule the Board? Mr. BRACKEN. That is right, sir. Mr. HOLIFIELD. You may proceed. Mr. BRACKEN. I might also mention at this time that the Senate has also included in the composition of the Board the President himself as a change from the present House bill. The Senate bill provides that the President shall preside at meetings of the National Security Council. Mr. HOLIFIELD. What does the Secretary of the National Defense do then? Mr. BRACKEN. He is a member of the National Security Council only. We also believe that the amended Senate version of the bill has merit in that it provides that the President himself shall preside over the National Security Council. As a further clarification of the powers of the Secretary of National Defense and as a definite precaution against the coercive use of his authority through his control over budget matters we recommend to you section 308 of S. 758. The arguments with respect to this amendment are self-evident from its text and the need for such an amendment is manifest. We believe that the maintenance of the Naval Air Force and of the United States Marine Corps as arms of the Navy is vital to our national defense planning. We urge that the committee include within this bill adequate assurances that their mission will not be altered or diminished. The proposed Executive order to implement this bill, which order has undoubtedly been placed in the record of these hearings, does define the functions of naval aviation and the Marine Corps. This definition, however, is not a part of the law and is subject to change at any time. We recommend that a brief statement definitely indicating congressional intent in this respect be included as a part (b) to section 106 The innocuous part (b) to section 206 of the Senate bill does not satisfactorily insure that the existing mission of these two corps will not be altered or deminished; the amendment should expressly so state. Should the Congress, in its wisdom, determine to provide for a separate air force at this time, we would recommend further amendments to insure that the Naval Air Force and the Marine Corps will have such adequate and necessary representation and recognition on the various boards and councils provided for under this act as will provide a balanced concept of national defense. Specifically we recommend: 1. That Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air be specifically included as members of the War Council. The valuable contribution which each of these men can make in his own field to the deliberations of the Council cannot be questioned. The advice of the Council given without adequate reference to the capabilities of those two branches of the Navy or without proper evaluation of their respective missions would be dangerous to the national defense. 2. That Research and Development Board include, in addition to those members presently designated, a representative of the Naval Air Force and a representative of the Marine Corps in order fully to insure a voice on this tremendously important Board for naval aviation and for the corps specifically charged with readiness for amphibious warfare, the Marine Corps. 3. In a number of places throughout the bill, purely through inadvertance, I believe, desirable recognition of the Marine Corps has not been given. I refer specifically to the composition of the Joint Staff and to the qualifications for the Director of Central Intelligence. I do not believe it is the intention of the Congress to exclude Marines from Membership on the Joint Staff of some 100 officers nor can it be the intention of the Congress to disqualify an officer of the Marine Corps from acting as Director of Central Intelligence. This bill, with these proposed admendments, would be a commendable step in the direction of unification. However, unification at the working level, and not only at the command level, is where the real contribution of unification will be felt. It is here where the overlapping services will be dovetailed, it is here where the economies of unification will be manifested. We feel that the Congress should be assured that, step by step, this real unification is taking place through the organization set up by this bill; we feel that Congress will wish to be kept advised of the actual implementation of this bill, of the further legislation needed to remove duplication of facilities and services now existing. To insure this, we recommend that there be included in this legislation provision for the appointment of a commission composed primarily of Reserve officers, who can study all such questions dispassionately and without prejudice, to make continuing studies of unification and report their findings and recommendations to the Secretary of National Defense who shall forward them to the Congress with his own recommendations. Mr. LATHAM (presiding). Thank you, Mr. Bracken. We will now suspend until 2 o'clock. (Thereupon, at 12:10 p. m., an adjournment was taken until Thursday, June 12, 1947, at 10 a. m.) NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF 1947 THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1947 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 10 a. m., pursuant to adjournment, in room 1501 of the New House Office Building, Hon. Clare E. Hoffman (chariman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. At this time Mr. Bracken will resume his statement. STATEMENT OF JOHN P. BRACKEN, PRESIDENT, RESERVE OFFICERS OF THE NAVAL SERVICES, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. BRACKEN. If I might, sir, review what I stated yesterday, I completed my statement, which I can very briefly review, and then will be happy to answer any questions. The CHAIRMAN. I do not think it is necessary to review it if it is in the record. Mr. BRACKEN. All right, sir. It is in the record and I am ready to answer any questions that may clarify the statement. The CHAIRMAN. We will reverse the order. Mr. Judd, have you any questions? Mr. JUDD. I have no questions at this time. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Holifield? Mr. HOLIFIELD. You made quite a point, Mr. Bracken, about the exorbitant amount of power that was given the Secretary of National Defense. Do you think he is given any more power than the President has at this particular time? Mr. BRACKEN. No, sir; I do not think he is. Mr. HOLIFIELD. In fact, he is given less, because he must go to the President for approval of his policies and he must be subject to the President or subject to appeal to the President from any one of the secretaries. Mr. BRACKEN. That is correct. Mr. HOLIFIELD. So it seems to me that your contention on that point was a little bit weak. Mr. BRACKEN. The point that was made on that is that the PresiIdent himself is an elected official of the Government. 419 Mr. HOLIFIELD. That is true, but he still remains an elected official, and he still has control over the Secretary of National Defense, and he is still available for appeal from the Secretary of War, the Secretary of Navy or Air Force in case of disagreement. Mr. BRACKEN. Yes. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Now, throughout your report there seems to be a general stressing of the importance of each service as such. It seems to me that the really important thing to the people of the Nation is the over-all national defense, and whether that defense comes through a large percent of one arm and a small percent of another or not, as long as we are defended that is the main point. Mr. BRACKEN. That is correct. Mr. HOLIFIELD. And it does seem to me rather than maintaining the sanctity of any special arm of our defense and freezing such, as Mr. Maas suggests, to put in the legislative provision to provide that the corps should not be below a certain amount, and so forth, that it would be much better to leave that amount flexible to your war council and security council, your general staff, your Secretary of National Defense and the President to raise and lower in accordance with the strategic needs of the particular moment. Mr. BRACKEN. I think you are entirely correct in that, sir. In fact, that is what we are trying to stress here, that national defense is not the job of just the Army, not the job of just the Navy and not just the job of the Marine Corps; it is the job of all these people, each in their own sphere, to contribute to it. It is our feeling that the Secretary of National Defense being the figurehead of the defense establishment, if he happens to be a Navy man with a Navy background, without giving other appreciation to the contribution of the Army and Air Corps, he will say our defense is primarily Navy. He will be interested primarily in Navy. I want to do as you suggest, give this national security council on which all of these groups will be represented the right to establish policies and let your Secretary of National Defense carry out the policies which have been established by the National Security Council. Mr. HOLIFIELD. I am inclined to go along with you on that particular point. I believe the Secretary of National Defense should be subject to the advice of the staff, but I believe that he should have the power where there is a difference of opinion between the different arms of the services, to settle it, subject, of course, to appeal. Mr. BRACKEN. Somebody has to. He is the logical one to do it, but we must actually distinguish between the power as a planner, planning logistics and administering these departments, and his power in operations. No one will disagree with the fact that one man has to make decisions in the field, one man has to make the immediate decisions of war, but the Secretary of National Defense is more a planner, planning what shall be done in the future. I do not agree, for example, with Mr. Maas, that we should set up, as the Germans did, a staff corps to do the planning. I do not think in wartime you can have any group sitting fack in Washington telling the man in the field what his next move is to be and that is what Ï feel the Secretary of National Defense might develop into. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Passing that point, on page 6 of your testimony, you refer to the creation of two new executive department. It seems to me that only the Department of Air Force is created there. |