Mr. MANASCO. If we are going to call all these scientists before us, I think they will all have us scared to death and we might decide we did not need an Army and Navy if they are going to destroy us by push-button warfare. I do not think we have reached that time or ever will.

The only way this world is going to be destroyed is by fire and brimstone according to the Bible, and I do not believe there is anything we can do to stop that.

I hope the committee does not call in all these scientists. I have heard some of these atomic scientists. Each one of them had a different idea.

Some of them said we will be able to destroy the whole face of the globe with one explosion. If that happens, we do not need national defense.

Do you not think that one of the most important things that can grow out of any so-called unification, merger, or coordination is the fact that we have all our economy, both military and civilian, tied in to fight total warfare?

Do you not think that is the important thing, and legislation to be finally decided upon should have such a provision if we ever get into another emergency, and if it does not end like some of our dire predictors say, then we will have an opportunity to start some kind of offense by having the entire economy organized. •

Mr. BRACKEN. I think that is the importance of your research and development board, to get integrated into the national-defense organization the best brains in the country on complete total war readiness.

Mr. MANASCO. And all this waste and unnecessary supplies at the beachhead can be traced back to the fact that we did not have many men in the Army and the Navy before the war, we did not have trained personnel.

You cannot take a man out of the field or law office and make a trained person.

Along this line you would also advocate universal military training, I assume?

The CHAIRMAN. You do not propose to put that in this bill?
Mr. MANASCo. I have no further questions.

Mr. LATHAM. I want to make a very brief statement.

Those who are most strongly in favor of this measure are most strongly against the writing of details in this bill, and that is what you are doing when you set up a separate air force, is writing details in this bill, because what you are doing is selecting one instrument or tool of war, like the airplane, tank, or submarine.

You take the airplane. You say this is going to have the major part in the next war, therefore, I say you should speak to Dr. Bush or someone like him and find out if the airplane as we know it today, is going to require that status in the military setup.

Mr. HARNESS. I hope the gentleman will not misunderstand me. I want to write as many details in as we can without limiting the activities of these men who are going to defend us.

Mr. LATHAM. I understand your position completely but in effect you are writing in details and you are limiting when you take one instrument of war, which is the airplane, as against the guided missile,

or the homing missile, which is the thing of the future, and you say that is the way we will fight the next war, and this is what I think you are doing to a great extent when you say the airplane will have onethird of the defense picture and the airplane as we know it today. You are limiting, not extending the present set-up.

The CHAIRMAN. We will have to adjourn, gentlemen.

We cannot hold a session this afternoon.

You will all receive notice, I hope, Monday morning early, maybe Saturday, as to next week's program. We will continue the hearings through the week.

(Thereupon, at 12:10 p. m., an adjournment was taken, to reconvene at the call of the chair.)

NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF 1947

TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1947

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON EXPENDITURES IN
THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met at 10 a. m., pursuant to adjournment, in room 1501 of the New House Office Building, Hon. Clare E. Hoffman (chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

We will hear from Gen. Merritt A. Edson this morning.

Mr. LATHAM. Mr. Chairman, before General Edson starts his testimony, I would like to inform the committee that General Edson is in no sense of the word an armchair general. He is the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross, two of the highest awards which it is the privilege of this country to bestow for valor on the battlefield.

Mr. BENDER. Proceed, General.

STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. MERRITT A. EDSON, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS, WASHINGTON, D. C.

General EDSON. I have a statement which has been prepared and I think is before you.

At the outset, I wish to make it entirely clear that I am not here as a representative of either the Navy Department or the Marine Corps. My position is entirely an individual one, although I believe that my personal views on this legislation are in agreement with those of a large number of officers of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Forces.

During the past 18 months I have been in a position to observe the unification problem develop, and I have formed certain views not only on the problem as a whole, but on this legislation in particular.

I am not opposed to the principle of unification. I believe urgent need exists for bringing closer together all the departments and agencies of Government concerned with our national security; for unification of our foreign policies, our military policies, and our economic policies. I believe that legislative sanction should be given to certain proven joint agencies which have developed within the military establishment during the recent war. But I also believe that such unification must be achieved under positive civilian control, and that Congress must exercise the greatest of care lest it enact legislation which may permit military or authoritarian forces at some future date to dominate our Government.

453

H. R. 2319 essays, on its face, to achieve these ends; I do not believe that it does. The bill as it stands before you is said to be a compromise, a compromise of the most delicate balance. So delicate, you have repeatedly been told by those who drafted the measure, that should you change a proviso, alter a line, or amend a phrase, the whole structure comes tumbling down.

This legislation has meant all things to all men. To Mr. Forrestal and Admiral Nimitz, the concept of the Secretary of National Security was that of a top manager, a coordinator, and an umpire. To Mr. Patteron, Mr. Royall, and General Eisenhower, interpretation of the identical wording has conveyed the image of an all-powerful, alldeciding, almost dictatorial executive of very great powers.

There can be no actual compromise between two positions so widely at variance, and language which can be taken to support either is no language for an act of Congress. For if the fine-drawn compromise which is implicit in every proviso of this bill should finally become law, that in itself will be a continuing incentive to attempt to upset it from either side, and the doubtful language and thinking of the law might well become a battlefield for service politicians.

It is said to be a measure unifying the armed services; it is said to be a ratification of tried wartime practices; it is said to relate solely to rather technical military matters.

In some sense it may be a measure of unification, though I for one am unable to see how, under the name of unification, one can justify the creation of still another department of the Military Establishment. In fact, the only way in which this bill achieves unification is that it confers upon the single Secretary such power that all talk of departmental autonomy is in actuality beside the mark. If this is not the case, then, by authorizing a truly autonomous third department, the measure would seem divisive rather than unifying.

It is true that some parts of the bill do effectively ratify sound wartime practice. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Research and Development Board, and the Joint Army and Navy Munitions Board certainly are of value and should be recognized in law.

What is not generally recognized, however, is that this measure extends in scope far beyond matters which are "merely military." In its various potentials, H. R. 2319 reaches into almost very field of Government and every walk of private life.

It concentrates power over approximately one-third of the National Budget in the hands of a single man, the Secretary of National Security, who is in fact a spokesman for the military, at the head of a single, merged military establishment.

It sets up machinery for economic controls which may well draft your labor, tell your publishers what to print, shift your workmen from State to State, and make or break your industries according to the extent that they are willing to play ball with those whose power stems from this law.

It opens the door toward a potential gestapo or NKVD in the Central Intelligence Agency, and then invites its domination by the military. It establishes what is in effect a permanent national general staff of the most Prussian character, and sweeps away every past limitation which the Congress has wisely laid about our General Staffs.

It surrenders control of the foreign policy of the United States to a bloc of individuals within the proposed National Security Council

who are captive and beholden to the Military Establishment-the Defense Secretaries who, civilian though they are, must always be responsive to the thinking and planning of the career Joint Staff.

These are not technical, military matters, gentlemen. This bill is not a reorganization of the armed services, but a reorganization of government itself.

Secretary Forrestal has testified before you that this bill represents a compromise between two theories. One of these theories is that a total war is best met by concentration of authority in the hands of a few individuals; that there should be set up a single departmentthe Germans would say "Fuhrung," I believe-of all the armed forces; that there should be a permanent national General Staff over all the armed forces, in other words, an over-all high command, an "oberkommando" as the Prussians called it; that the services themselves should be reorganized into three divisions or branches rigidly corresponding to the three so-called basic media of land, sea, and air; and that under such an organization every operation must be a joint operation, directed and controlled by the high command.

Opposed to that theory is the one which believes that in days of total war, in which all the people are involved, there should be an increase of civilian control over the armed forces rather than a decrease; one which notes the inescapable historic parallel between the centralization of armed forces under a single high command or a national general staff, as was the case in Germany, Italy, and France under Napoleon, and the corresponding rise of totalitarian governments; and one which believes that in the constitutional governments which have survived, such as our own and England, there exists always a proper balance between the armed forces themselves, as well as between them and the civil governments of which they are the proper servants. Within the framework of such a concept it is also historically true that there have been armies, navies, and air forces, each largely self-sustaining, each capable of bearing its weight as such, and each capable of conducting independent operations.

My personal opinion is that these two theories cannot be compromised, either within the narrow realm of military affairs or in the broader field of government.

One theory believes that the military, in time of war (if not when preparing for war) should control the nation. The other believes that control of the military must always remain with civilians.

The first theory points directly toward authoritarian dictatorship; the second, toward maintenance of constitutional government and free principles.

I consider that this bill is weighted heavily in favor of the first theory not only in content but in structure, and that even as amended, S. 758, the Senate bill, likewise so points.

We must remember that H. R. 2319 was drafted by military men. It is only natural that, under such circumstances, undue weight has been attached to the importance of the military within the national security structure. This is clearly evident in the title of the bill itself; in the fact that title I, the preeminent part of the bill, concerns itself only with the Military Establishment; and that the civilian agencies of national security, which in a constitutional government such as ours should predominate, have been relegated to second place in title II.