I know the bulk of the Navy did not like the idea of a separate Air Force.

Mr. McCORMACK. I know; but that does not change my opinion that the main controversy was between the Army and Navy as such, or the War Department and the Navy Department as such; and whatever agreements were arrived at, either in the agreement or in this bill, that were satisfactory to the Navy, were the main influence that brought about what you said was a compromise.

Admiral TOWER. I was out in the Pacific when this matter first came up, but it originated within the Army.

This proposed legislation originated within the Army. I think the first bill was known as the General Collins bill.

The Navy has been on the defensive and has succeeded in its efforts to make the bill what we think is a much more workable one.

Mr. McCORMACK. I am very favorable to the Navy and have asked them very pointed questions on that, but I am just pursuing my questions in view of your statement. You said the main "horsepower" behind this compromise was from the Air Force.

On the evidence, I could not go quite as far as that, Admiral, and I do not think you should put yourself in a position in testifying or making a charge unless you had pretty powerful evidence in your own mind to support it.

Admiral TowERS. I do not consider that a charge: I mentioned nothing about lobbying at all. I consider it just a frank statement. Mr. McCORMACK. Of course, "horsepower" covers a broad ground. Admiral TOWERS. I used it advisedly.

Mr. McCORMACK. After World War I, of course, our whole armed forces were impaired seriously as a result of lack of appropriations. Is that correct?

Admiral ToWERS. That is correct.

Mr. McCORMACK. After World War I, as I remember, out of 17 airplane companies, 12 of them had to close their doors.

Admiral TOWERS. I do not remember the exact figures, but I fear we are threatened with something of the same nature now.

Mr. McCORMACK. I just wanted to pursue these two questions to try to have the record show that so far as I am concerned, as one member, I have not seen the Air Force exerting any tremendous pressure on me; that I am approaching this with a completely open mind as well as all other questions, and, I am frank in stating, with the intention of protecting the integrity of the Navy.

Admiral TowERS. I can quote one example.

There appeared in a paper, which is one of a chain of newspapers with a very considerable influence in the United States, on the editorial page and in about the largest type I have ever seen, a long letter from an officer of the Army Air Forces addressed to the head of this organization imploring him to use the power of his papers to put this over. I can give you a copy of that.

Parallel to that was a leading editorial supporting the latter.

Mr. WADSWORTH. That is nothing new in our experience, Admiral. Admiral TOWERS. I know it is nothing new, but it is factual evidence.

We will now recess until 1:30 this afternoon.

(Whereupon, at 12:10 p. m., the hearing was recessed, to reconvene at 1:30 p. m. of the same day.)

AFTER RECESS

The committee reconvened, pursuant to the taking of the recess, Hon. Clare E. Hoffman (chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

to say something further?

Admiral TOWERS. I have nothing further.

Do you wish

Do

Mr. MANASCO. Admiral, I would like to ask you one question. We have had a lot of under-the-table rumors that have come to our attention. You cannot get anybody to make a statement, but I have heard that one of the main reasons for needing a unification bill was that there was so much bickering during the war between the Army and Navy they could not get along, and we almost lost the war. You have been in a position to know something about that. Has that been your experience?

Admiral TowERS. That has not been my experience. I served in Washington as Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics from the outbreak of the war in December 1941 until October 1942. While, of course, there were many disagreements because both sides were trying to get as much as they could of what they needed and the production of the country could not furnish it at that time, we adjusted most of our differences.

My work was particularly with General Arnold. I was General Arnold's opposite number in the naval organization.

Mr. MANASCO. You have seen some of those publications that have been called to our attention.

Admiral TowERS. I have, and I think it is definitely a case in most instances of mountains having been built out of molehills.

I served in the Pacific from October 1942 until just recently, for 4% years. While at times we had minor difficulties out there, as a whole, looking back now, there were no disagreements within the Pacific Area Command that seriously affected the prosecution of the war.

Mr. MANASCo. We have minor difficulties in our own families. That is nothing out of the ordinary.

Admiral TowERS. Frankly, I do not think that the present situation is anything like it has been painted by some people who have spoken on it. I think we are getting along very well.

You always are going to have differences. It has to be expected. That is perfectly natural. The interests at times conflict, and they have to be adjusted.

The CHAIRMAN. The principal difference between the Americans and others is that if we have anything to say we say it, do we not? And we make our fights in the open and settle them that way and then go along together.

Admiral TowERS. That is certainly the proper way. I am not sure that it is always followed.

The CHAIRMAN. By and large, that is the way we do business.

Something was said about the approving of the bill of the Intelligence and of it. You stated you were in favor of a strong central Intelligence. Yoy do not mean you want a central group to collect, evaluate, and disseminate that information and so deprive the Army or the Navy or any other force we may have of the opportunity of getting knowledge, do you?

Admiral TOWERS. I would not deprive the Navy or the Army either of its right to carry on certain Intelligence work. I approve of the principle as I understand it; that is, as set up in S. 758.

The CHAIRMAN. When we began these hearings, there seemed to be, comparatively speaking, anyway, no question but that we would have a central Intelligence agency. Then, as we went along, it was discovered or at least some members thought they discovered-that that would tend to do away with the collecting of information by the Army, the Navy, and the State Department and put it all into a group here in Washington-the whole thing.

Then we did not fall in so much with that idea, having just one big central Intelligence agency and depriving the Army, the Navy, and the State Department of their means of getting information.

Admiral TOWERS. There is no question in my mind but what we did not do as well in the prewar period and during the war period on matters of Intelligence as we could have with a more coordinated organization.

I am not qualified to speak authoritatively on the proposed Intelligence set-up, but I know that most of our officers with whom I have talked are satisfied with those provisions contained in the bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions? Mr. Harness? Mr. HARNESS. No questions, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Wilson?

Mr. WILSON. No questions, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. If that is all, we thank you very much.

Mr. Hardy?

Mr. HARDY. Mr. Chairman, I have a letter which was sent to me by Capt. Walter Karig, USNR, dated June 26, 1947, which I should like to insert in the record at this point.

(The letter is as follows:)

Hon. PORTER HARDY, Jr.,

NAVY DEPARTMENT, Washington 25, D. C., June 26, 1947.

House Office Building, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: I am addressing you as the representative of my State on Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments, in reference to H. R. 2319. I was invited to testify on Tuesday, but the entire hearing was consumed by Dr. Bush.

My name is Walter Karig. I live in Fairfax County. Although I am a captain in the United States Naval Reserve, on active duty, I am not professionally or technically a naval officer. My duties are and have been wholly nonmilitary, in the Office of Public Relations. My opinions, which I beg leave to detail to you, are wholly those of a civilian and a newspaperman who has been intimately an observer of government, politics, and, in or out of uniform, the military.

It is my very deep-rooted conviction that H. R. 2319 contains all the elements of a surrender of constitutional civilian authority to the professional military. Dr. Bush told your committee that in his opinion there was no such desire among military men, and nothing in this bill to permit it. I wish to offer what I believe to be sound evidence to the contrary.

Aside from the fact that the new subdivisions of the National Defense Establishment are overloaded with military men or their representatives, and that the most important civilian office (National Security Resources Board) is left a head without body or limbs, there are specific clauses establishing a dominant military heirarchy.

Consider that the single Secretary, whom the bill gives authority over onethird of the national budget and control over the whole defense structure, will be a political appointee, the beneficiary of party patronage, for campaign services rendered. By the statistical record, this man will serve an average of 2.5 years (the average of Secretaries of War) before going back home to tend his neglected

personal affairs. He will be an innocent when he takes office, and he will probably quit it in preference to dying of overwork before he has completed his apprenticeship.

Section 103 says he shall have no military staff, but that he may have military aides and assistants without number. It will be a staff in fact. Who will select them? Few civilians will come to the office with wide enough knowledge of Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel to make a personal choice. They will take who is recommended by the top professionals.

Section 112 establishes a joint staff of 100, headed by a director with unlimited tenure of office. The number is a joker. The Army's General Staff, by law 44 officers, now numbers in the thousands. The personnel of the Joint Staff can expand in proportion, even though only 100 of its members will, for the sake of legality, be staff officers.

The director of the staff has no limit of tenure, and there is no provision for rotation of the office among the several services.

Without

Section 306C conceals the perpetuation of the Army's General Staff. specifically so stating, that is (to my mind) the major accomplishment in the clause. Article 102A already affirms the continuation of the Army and Navy as separate units.

In the Collins merger bill that died with the Seventy-ninth Congress, emphasis was laid on the creation of a single all-service military commander, a Chief of Staff of Army, Navy, and Air Force. Dominant Army sentiment, still freely expressed, has not departed from that concept of the High Command. At the Army's information school at Carlisle Barracks, Pa., student officers are drilled in the belief that they must strive to have a High Command created. (See the text book Evolution of Military Policy in the United States; General Williston B. Palmer, published by the Book Department, Army Information School.)

H. R. 2319 does not prohibit the creation of the equivalent of a single Chief of Staff. It practically invites it, however innocently, in section 111 (b-3) unless an amendment is adopted specifically prohibiting the creation of the continental United States as a single strategic area except in itme of stated emergency.

More as a matter of curiosity than complaint, I question the constitutionality of the bill because (a) the Constitution says the President shall be "Commander in Chief of the Army and the Navy," which leaves the proposed coequal Air Force free of Presidential authority; (b) the Constitution says there shall be an Army and a Navy, and unless it is amended to include an Air Corps that body is technically both illegal and lawless, and (c) the Constitution forbids appropriating money to the Army for use beyond a 2-year limit, which makes the merged budget apparently impossible under the law. I repeat, these are questions not asked in complaint. I strongly believe in an integrated national defense; I personally favor the establishment of a National Security Council, a Central Intelligence Agency, and a National Security Resources Board having personnel and power to which the Munitions Board and Research and Development Board are subordinate. But the single Secretary, so vested with powers no individual except an elected President ever wielded, and so subjected to pressure from magnified military authority, is a creation Í view with horror that is not inspired by imagination but by the practical and practicable results of the bill if it becomes law.

Respectfully,

WALTER KARIG, Captain, United States Naval Reserve.

JUNE 28, 1947.

Capt. WALTER KARIG,

Navy Department, Washington 25, D. C.

DEAR CAPTAIN KARIG: I appreciate having your letter of June 26 in which you have submitted certain views concerning the pending unification bill.

It is regretted that lack of time made it necessary for the committee to close hearings on this bill, but I sincerely hope that an opportunity will be afforded for you to appear and express in person some of your opinions. In any event, I shall seek to have your letter inserted in the hearings.

Permit me to again express my appreciation for your communication.

Sincerely yours,

PORTER HARDY, Jr.

STATEMENT OF CAPT. WALTER KARIG, USNR, NAVY

DEPARTMENT. WASHINGTON, D. C.

Captain KARIG. You may judge from my identification of myself, that I am much more fluent behind a typewriter than I am orally. I am also a little bit fiery from just having been subjected to a full course of shots for tropical duty in the Pacific. If I mop my brow occasionally, gentlemen, it is not from terror.

I am very grateful for the opportunity of being heard. I am especially grateful for the fact that the hearings were continued even beyond the date originally suggested for the termination, although I am still distressed that they are to be ended so soon, because the Navy is a widely scattered service.

The testimony of naval officers, and I am still excluding myself from that category, is not organized. They must testify as individuals expressing their own personal beliefs based upon their own experiences.

I would like to echo the question asked by Admiral Ofstie: Why the precipitous hurry in concluding these hearings when, for example, last year before the Seventy-ninth Congress the Collins plan bill was offered, radically different as it is from this one, with the same sense of emergency that if it were not adopted before the close of the session, all sorts of calamities would overtake us.

I do not think the urgency has become any more projected.

I disqualified myself from any testimony on the technical military aspects of this bill, although after listening to the discussions around the table here in the 2 days I have attended these sessions, I have come to a layman's conclusion that perhaps we should retain a twodepartmental structure, because inevitably the Army Air Forces will take over the Army Ground Forces.

The reading of my letter has much more eloquently presented to you the testimony I wish to offer. If there are any questions, I would be glad to try and answer them.

Mr. HARDY. Mr. Chairman, I might suggest we take it step by step and amplify it if you would like.

Captain KARIG. I say

It is my very deep-rooted conviction that H. R. 2319 contains all the elements of a surrender of constitutional civilian authority to the professional military.

That is, I think, elaborated as far as I can in the body of the letter. Dr. Bush, whose testimony, incidentally, was fascinating to listen to, seemed to gloss over that possibility and dismissed it completely. He said there was no such thing. Perhaps there is not. However, there is still a strong feeling as one can find from reading magazines, interviews, and newspaper accounts. I do not want to recall to the committee something which has been testified to before, but I think Admiral Zacharias told you of the oration made by a General Armstrong in Norfolk, Va., in which he promised the Marine Corps, which he described in terms I do not think are quite repeatable here, would be taken over, intact, together with most of the Navy by the Army Air Forces.

The fourth paragraph reads:

Aside from the fact that the new subdivisions of the National Defense Establishment are overloaded with military men or their representatives, and that the most important civilian office (National Security Resources Board) is left a head without body or limbs, there are specific clauses establishing a dominant military hierarchy.