sentatives of the three of us, have already laid before your committee documents, for example, such as the joint letter which Secretary Patterson and I sent to the President under date of January 16, 1947, and which the President transmitted to Congress under date of January 18. The specific language which bears most directly on this matter is found in section 102 (a), and reads as follows: * * shall exercise direction, "The Secretary of National Defense authority, and control over such departments * Provided, That the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force, under the direction of the Secretary of National Defense, shall be administered as individual units by their respective Secretaries: And provided further, That nothing herein contained shall prevent the Secretary of any such department from presenting to the President, after first so informing the Secretary of National Defense, any report or recommendation relating to his department which he may deem necesary." I think that the autonomy of the Navy is safeguarded in two ways by the language I have just quoted. In the first place, the Navy Department is to be administered as an individual unit by its own Secretary. In the second place, the Secretary of the Navy, with regard to any matter "which he may deem necessary," has the right of direct access to the President. Senator Byrd questioned whether the first of these two safeguards has any meaning, in view of the fact that the Navy Department, even though administered as an individual unit, is nevertheless "under the direction of the Secretary of National Defense." I believe that some light can be shed on this aspect of the matter by a consideration of the joint letter which Secretary Patterson and I sent to the President on January 16. The bill before you represents, as you know, the recasting in statutory form of the agreements contained in the letter of January 16. In that letter, Secretary Patterson and I emphasized that each Department "shall be under a Secretary and, under the over-all direction of the Secretary of National Defense, shall be administered as an individual unit." This is substantially the same language that now appears in section 102 (a)-though the language of 102 (a), as I have already mentioned, represents a recasting of this language in statutory form. Thus, the vital word "over-all," which Secretary Patterson and I used in our letter to describe the type of direction the Secretary of National Defense would be expected to exercise, does not appear in the statute, for the very good reason that it is not what the lawyers call "a word of art." layman's language, however, "over-all direction" continues to be the most apt description of the concept contained in the bill before you. In I will review briefly the other sections of the bill which I have mentioned as bearing explicitly on this matter. They are: Section 103-which, by prohibiting the Secretary of National Defense from establishing a military staff, goes a long way toward assuring the morale and autonomy of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. * * Section 106 (a)-which, by defining the Navy as including "the entire operating forces of the United States Navy (including naval aviation) and the United States Marine Corps", meets many objections that were raised when earlier bills on the subject were under discussion. (In this connection, I should also like to point out that the proposed Executive order which Secretary Patterson and I attached to our letter of January 16 goes into considerable detail on the functions of naval aviation and the Marine Corps.) Section 107 (b)-which, by amending section 158 of the Revised Statutes to include the Department of the Air Force, sets forth what are the executive departments of the Government. The Air Force, along with the Army and Navy Departments, are stated to be Departments, and the statutory provisions for their administration as Departments are preserved. This bill, therefore, retains the legislative existence of the Departments, differing in this major respect from the Thomas bill, S. 888. S. 888, in section 108, abolishes the two existing Departments and provides that the functions, powers and duties of the various offices of those Departments shall be vested in, and imposed upon, the Secretary of Common Defense, who may in turn delegate those functions, powers, and duties to such officials as he sees fit. The Thomas bill, in other words, denies the existence of the Departments-an existence which is so carefully preserved in S. 758. Section 201 (a) which, by establishing a National Security Council numbering among its members the Secretaries of State, National Defense, Army, Navy, and Air, provides the proper forum in which the Secretary of the Navy can best make an effective contribution to what section 201 (a) describes as "the integration of foreign and military policies." As I said at the outset, these are the explicit provisions, and it is my opinion that they, as well as the bill in its entirety, fully support the testimony which I gave on Tuesday. I would like to add, in closing, that I have dealt in this letter with only one phase of the bill, a phase on which the Navy has, as you know, strong convictions. I have made no effort, in this letter, to deal with the manifold and important responsibilities which this bill assigns-and properly assigns to the Secretary of National Defense. I would not like for anything which I have said to be construed as a statement that this bill provides for a strong Navy Department and a weak Secretary of National Defense-for nothing could be further from the truth than that. The truth of the matter is that the bill is, as I pointed out in my testimony, a compromise, and out of this compromise has emerged what the President has described as a "thoroughly practical and workable plan." I think that this compromise has adequately safeguarded naval morale and autonomy, while at the same time providing for that integration of national effort which is indispensable to the waging of successful war. Sincerely yours, JAMES FORRESTAL. THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, Hon. CHAN GURNEY, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR SENATOR: In the course of my recent testimony before your committee, Senator Tydings asked me to submit a brief written statement of my views on whether or not the Secretaries of War, Navy, and Air should attend meetings of the President's Cabinet. You will recall that in the process of answering questions on this subject I pointed out that the subject of who shall attend Cabinet meetings is a matter which is of primary concern to the President-since those who attend Cabinet meetings do so at the President's invitation, and for the purpose of serving as his personal advisers. It is my view, therefore, that the pending legislation is properly silent on the subject in question. Senator Tydings also requested that I state my views on attendance at Cabinet meetings in time of war. For the reasons set out above, I do not feel that this is a matter which should be spelled out in the statute-and it is my belief that this should be the case both in time of war and in time of peace. Moreover, it is my view that the National Security Council-provided for by section 201 of the pending legislation-is the proper forum for the top-level wartime coordination which is, as Senator Tydings so forcefully pointed out at the hearings, absolutely indispensable to the waging of successful war. The fact that the National Security Council has for its members the Secretaries of War, Navy, and Air, together with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of National Defense, and the Chairman of the National Security Resources Board, is, to my way of thinking, a major step forward. Sincerely yours, JAMES FORRESTAL. The CHAIRMAN. We are now glad to hear you, Mr. Secretary. STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT P. PATTERSON, SECRETARY OF WAR Secretary PATTERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a formal statement, and I will read it if the committee pleases, and of course. be glad to answer questions. I give unqualified support to the bill to unify the armed forces, S. 758. I might say that I was present during the statement and testimony of Secretary Forrestal, and I concur in everything that he said, including of course the fine tribute that he paid to the foot soldiers. I served myself in the Infantry for 3 years, and I am appreciative of any praise given them. In discussing the provisions of the bill, I thought it might be of aid to have a chart showing the structure and the chart is here, and with the committees leave, I will refer to that from time to time. The CHAIRMAN. The chart in front of us, Mr. Secretary, is the same as in the last page of your prepared statement? Secretary PATTERSON. Yes, sir. It is the same as the chart at the end of the formal statement. The bill creates a National Defense Establishment, consisting of the Department of the Army, Department of the Navy and Department of the Air Forces. That is all on that chart except the top boxes under the President, and it is indicated by a bracket at the side of the page, with National Defense Establishment on it. The head of the National Defense Establishment is the Secretary of National Defense with the power and duty, first, to establish policies and programs for the National Defense Establishment and for the departments and agencies in it; second, to exercise direction, control, and authority over such departments and agencies; third, to supervise preparation of budget estimates by the departments and agencies, to determine the budget estimates of the National Defense Establishment for submission to the Bureau of the Budget and to supervise and control the budget program of the National Defense Establishment. Now, if we can have this other chart, these duties appear on this chart that I have prepared here. The proviso is made that the three departments shall be administered as individual units by their respective secretaries, under direction of the Secretary of National Defense; also that the secretary of any of the three departments may present any report or recommendation to the President. I might say that I agree with the statement by Secretary Forrestal that the direction referred to here, the direction of the Secretary of National Defense, is general direction, and not detailed direction. I think that that is clearly shown by the structure of the sentence which says, "shall be administered as individual units by the respective secretaries, under the direction of the Secretary of National Defense." I have read Secretary Forrestal's letter that you referred to a few minutes ago, and I agee with the contents of that letter. The name of the War Department is changed to the Department of the Army. The Department of the Navy is to retain the Marine Corps and naval aviation. The new Department of the Air Force is to be headed by a Secretary and is to embody the United States Air Force, commanded by a chief of staff. All personnel, property, and functions pertinent to the present Army Air Forces are to be tranferred to the United States Air Force. Within the National Defense Establishment four joint agencies are provided, all of them to be under direction of the Secretary of National Defense. They are the four agencies shown on the line just under, "Secretary of National Defense." First, there is to be a War Council, with the Secretary of National Defense as Chairman with power of decision, and with the Secretaries and military chiefs of the three Departments as members. That War Council is similar to the War Council in the War Department now provided by the National Defense Act of 1920, which consists of a Secretary of War, the Under Secretary of War, and the Chief of Staff. Second, there is to be the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the duties of preparing strategic plans, preparing joint logistic plans, establishing unified commands in strategic areas, making plans for joint training, and reviewing material and personnel requirements of the military forces, in accordance with strategic and logistic plans. That is this box here on the chart. Under the Joint Chiefs of Staff there is to be a Joint Staff, not to exceed 100 officers, drawn in equal numbers from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. That is, of course, like the present Joint Chiefs of Staff, created by Executive order and not by law. It will be an improvement, because the duties will be defined and at the present time, the line between the powers of the Secretaries, the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, and the powers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a very hard line indeed to draw. I have also been of the view that matters that did not pertain to the Joint Chiefs of Staff got before them and other matters that should have come before them did not come before them, because the matter now rests largely upon custom and practice. Under this act there is written definition of the functions. Third, there is a third joint agency, the Munitions Board, with a chairman from civilian life appointed by the Secretary of National Defense, with the duty of planning for industrial mobilization, of recommending assignment of procurement responsibilities with the aim of single procurement authority to cover technical equipment and common-use items, and of determining priorities between military procurement programs. This agency is to replace the present Joint Army-Navy Munitions Board. The functions of this Munitions Board under the bill do not differ in substance from the powers of the present Munitions Board. Fourth, there is the Research and Development Board set up in the National Defense Establishment, to prepare an integrated program of research and development for military purposes and to formulate policy on matters involving outside agencies in the research and development field. This agency will replace the present Joint Research and Development Board of the War Department and Navy Department. That Board is a board that is set up by joint agreement of the two Secretaries, and it began to function about a year ago. Dr. Vannevar Bush is the Chairman of it. In addition to the National Defense Establishment, the bill creates a National Security Council. Referring to the chart, if I may, that is up in the top box there at the left, right under the President. That National Security Council is made up of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of National Defense, the Secretaries of Army, Navy, and Air Force, the Chairman of the National Security Resources Board and such other members as the President may appoint. The function of the Council shall be to advise the President on integration of foreign and military policies and to enable the military services and other agencies to cooperate more effectively in matters relative to national defense. That council takes the place of the present socalled Committee of Three, which exists just by joint agreement of the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy at the present time. It has been operative for some time. It also takes the place of what they call the State, War, and Navy Coordinating Committee, composed of the Assistant Secretaries, which meets with regularity on stated days and has a small staff. Under the Council is the Central Intelligence Agency, headed by a director appointed by the President. This is to take the place of the existing Central Intelligence Group, which was created by Executive order of the President about a year ago, under an agency called the National Intelligence Authority, made up of the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy and the Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief. The bill also provides for a National Security Resources Board, which is in the upper right-hand box there, with a chairman and the heads of executive departments or agencies designated by the President. The function of the Board is to advise the President on policies concerning industrial and civilian mobilization, on programs for effective use in time of war of natural and industrial resources for military and civilian needs, on policies for creating reserves of critical materials, and similar matters. I might say that that Board is for planning purposes only, advisory to the President, and it is on the planning level like the War Production Board of the last war. Of course, it is restricted only to planning and policies and not to actual operations, in time of peace. From this brief outline of the bill, it will be seen that the heart of it is the creation of a single establishment, the National Defense Establishment, to be made up of the Departments of Army, Navy, and Air Force and to be directed by a Secretary of National Defense, with broad power to establish policies and programs for all agencies in the Establishment, to exercise direction, authority and control over them, and to set up the budget estimates of the Establishment on a unified basis. The Secretary, as I see it, is to be an executive but not an administrator. I have in mind a distinction between those two terms. It may not be in everyone's mind the same way, but as I see it, the Secretary of National Defense is to be responsible for over-all programs and for comprehensive over-all planning but is not to attend to details or matters of administration. It is also important to note that the bill, in addition to establishing the Defense Establishment, makes provision for two other agencies. Those are the two up at the top. They are the National Security Council, and under it the Central Intelligence Agency, which is to integrate foreign policy and military policy and which is to succeed a less formal organization of the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy already in existence; and the National Security Resources Board, an advisory group to study problems of industrial and civilian mobilization. I will next trace the developments that led to the preparation of this measure. In general, they are in four stages. The first is this: As the war wore on, the impression became widespread that our national defense structure stood in need of reorganization. In April and May 1944 a special committee of the House of Representatives, |