convert to Assistant Secretaries 3 existing positions, 1 of them statutory and 1 formerly filled by an Assistant Secretary.

Let me state at the outset that all of the proposed new Assistant Secretaries will be staff advisers to the Secretary of Defense. They will not sit in the chain of command, that chain runs directly from the Secretary of Defense to the Secretaries of the military departments without any intervening obstacles. In their own areas, of course, he may delegate to the Assistant Secretaries certain duties, but it is our hope that it will be through teamwork and not by directives that they accomplish for him what he wants done.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY (COMPTROLLER)

There is by law now an Assistant Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and we intend that that position should be continued. There are additional responsibilities which we hope that Office can undertake. We want to make that official truly our financial officer to help us improve our financial management of our vast enterprise.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY (MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL)

We now have an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Personnel. We plan that he will continue under the reorganization with the same responsibilities. We will add certain other minor but necessary responsibilities to his office, by transferring the requirement for domestic security and for the internal administration of the immediate Office of the Secretary of Defense to his office, and by eliminating separate administrative groups which were placed in the Munitions Board and the Research and Development Board. This official will continue to be the principal manpower adviser to the Secretary of Defense and he will continue to have the responsibility for being the channel through which the statutory Reserve Forces Policy Board reaches the Secretary of Defense on matters of reserve policy.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY (INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS)

The third Assistant Secretary now authorized by law was assigned early in 1953 to the field of international security affairs, as a transfer from the area of law and legislation where it had theretofore been utilized. When we arrived, we found it necessary to have an Assistant Secretary for International Security Matters because of the enormous responsibilities, both financial and diplomatic, which fall to the Department of Defense in international matters. This official manages for the Secretary of Defense all Department of Defense responsibilities concerning NATO, foreign aid, base rights, occupied areas, and treaties, and must have certain precedence and diplomatic prestige in dealing with representatives of foreign nations both here and abroad. We tried to accomplish this for him by making him an Assistant Secretary. Prior to so designating this official, we secured the approval of the Secretary of State to be sure that there would be no concern that a division of responsibility in foreign affairs between Defense and State would result.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY (SUPPLY AND LOGISTICS)

As to the Munitions Board, we have found the Board system and the committee structure which has resulted therefrom to be too cumbersome, and we have found it impossible under that system satisfactorily to manage the supply and logistic responsibilities of the Department of Defense. We have found that the committee system makes much larger demands for personnel than does any other type system. Therefore, we propose the abolition of the Munitions Board and the substitution therefor of an Assistant Secretary for Supply and Logistics. We expect him to work in the areas of production planning, production, procurement, distribution and traffic, and transportation. Concurrently, we propose to delegate back to the services those operational matters which have become the duty of the Munitions Board over the past few years, and we hope thereby to convert this unit into a leadership group which will recommend policy and see that it is carried out on important matters of supply and logistics. The statutory Defense Supply Management Agency also would be abolished by the Reorganization Plan, and the responsibilities therefor will be assigned to this Assistant Secretary. We feel that in properly utilizing him we will be able also to improve supply management, cataloging, and allied matters.

The Assistant Secretary for Supply and Logistics will be assigned the responsibility of recommending modernization of the entire system of supply. He, of course, will work closely with the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force who are studying these same problems in their respective services right now.

What we hope to accomplish by this reorganization is a means of pinpointing responsibility so that, whether it be in the Office of the Secretary or in one of the military departments, there can be a clear point to which all can look, to an official who has authority and who will be clearly responsible.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY (RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT)

In the age of science in which we live, there is nothing of more importance than that research in all matters of concern to the Military Establishment should continue to keep us in the lead in the development of new weapons and new machines. To do this, we feel that we must improve the supervision of the research and development program of all of the services.

In our recent studies of this problem, we found that the complicated board system was hindering rather than helping research and was proving to be a frustrating obstacle both to the services and to the scientists and engineers on whom we must depend.

For example, the number of committees which had grown up in the Research and Development Board was nothing short of astounding. There actually were people whose only duties were attending committee meetings. The situation is a result of the committee system. We want to change that system so that we can bring into line with our needs and the Nation's capacity to produce, the research which is under way.

We hope, in substituting an Assistant Secretary for Research and Development for the present Research and Development Board, to

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establish an official whose primary duties will be concerned with evaluations of integrated programs of military research and development designed to secure the best possible weapons. We will expect him to identify, analyze, and act on behalf of the Secretary to correct deficiencies, gaps, and duplications. He will be expected to collaborate with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to establish research and development priorities, and to assist the Joint Staff in utilizing the best scientific progress in its studies.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY (APPLICATIONS ENGINEERING)

Closely allied to the field of research is the problem of production of that which is decided upon, the end result of the research without which not much is realized by the expenditure of research funds. In this highly technical field we feel considerable improvement can be made.

Often designs developed in research activities are not suited to the most efficient production methods, whereas reasonable modifications in specifications can save the essential functional advantage resulting from important research discoveries while at the same time adapting the unit to faster, cheaper, and more efficient production. This we want to encourage as a healthy objective.

Heretofore there has been a large gap in the Department of Defense between research planning and production. There has been no official or agency charged with the responsibility of attempting to adapt the new weapons and other military products resulting from military research to the existing tools and manufacturing facilities of the country. We wish to establish such an area of responsibility, an Assistant Secretary for Applications Engineering.

We will expect this official and his small organization to evaluate all proposed new production; to cooperate and consult with responsible officials of the military departments in evaluating proposed new weapons systems as to their utility and feasibility for production; and, in consultation with the Assistant Secretary for Research and Development, generally to work for improvement in this long-neglected area.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY (FACILITIES AND INSTALLATIONS)

The plan proposes the elimination of the Director of installations established by statute in 1952. We plan to assign to one of the new Assistant Secretaries the entire responsibility for facilities, real property, installations, public works, and family housing, and for the development of sound long-range maintenance programs to care for the country's great investment in buildings, shops, posts, airfields, bases, ports, and all the many other types of expensive facilities constructed in past years. We must get for the Secretary good advice on how best to utilize what we have, and how best to plan for what we need.

This official will be responsible for seeing that construction programs of the armed services are fully justified as to need, effective as to intended purpose, and economical as to type of building and location; for seeing that construction standards for all types of facilities are developed and enforced; and for assuring that adequate family housing for armed services personnel is provided.

(ASSISTANT SECRETARY LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS)

The plan also proposes to divide the area which formerly was known as law legislation, and which, prior to 1953, was headed by an Assistant Secretary with a General Counsel as his principal assistant, into 2 new areas: 1 for legislative affairs to be headed by an Assistant Secretary and the other to be known hereafter as the General Counsel. It was only because of the immediate need for the creation of the position of an Assistant Secretary for International Security Matters that it was decided to transfer the position from its former assignment-law and legislation. When it was so transferred, it was planned to ask the Congress for another position to be utilized in the legislative area.

Since arriving at the Pentagon we have discovered that there are between three and four hundred people scattered throughout the Department whose sole assignment has to do with legislation, liaison, congressional hearings and investigations, and the servicing of congressional requests. It is extremely difficult to accomplish the proper sort of service unless it is possible to tie together this servicing under a responsible official of stature.

To give the Congress better service, to reduce the numbers of people assigned to these duties throughout the Department, and to make available a skilled professional assistant able to assist the Secretary of Defense in the companion fields of congressional relations and legislative matters, we believe that an Assistant Secretary is necessary, and, if the reorganization plan is approved, we contemplate that we will appoint such an official, and will have a central office established to assist the Congress and the Secretary with these problems.

GENERAL COUNSEL

Heretofore there has existed in the Office of the Secretary of Defense an official known as the General Counsel, but there has always been a problem as to definitive legal opinions because of the fact that within the Department of Defense there are many separate individuals giving legal service to separate offices, and the existing General Counsel's office in the Department has had assignments and responsibilities of very limited scope. To establish an official with the rank and pay of an Assistant Secretary and state clearly that he is the chief legal officer of the Department will do much to make it possible for those who deal with the Department and for those who work in the Department to have one focal point where authoritative legal decisions can be made. We feel that this official should be a statutory officer appointed by the President with rank equivalent to an Assistant Secretary in order to make it possible to attract a man of the caliber which these responsibilities should have.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY (HEALTH AND MEDICINE)

Finally, we are planning that there be an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health and Medicine. Heretofore we have had an official known as the Chairman of the Armed Forces Medical Policy Council, a civilian physician whose responsibilities have gone to the problems of combat support, hospitalization, health, medicine, military medical research, nutrition, and all of the varied matters which

face the military medical service. It seems logical to us that an Assistant Secretary would give rank and prestige to the sort of medical man we wish to attract, and will make it possible for us to do a better job of caring for the health of our men and women in uniform.

ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY (ATOMIC ENERGY)

There presently is a Chairman of the Military Liaison Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission. That position was established by the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. We propose in this plan no change in his rank, status, or title, but have already designated that official as an Assistant to the Secretary for Atomic Energy, so that in addition to acting as Chairman of this independent committee he can feel that he also is on the staff of the Secretary of Defense.

So that there can be no possibility of divided responsibility on Atomic Energy matters, it is our intention that this post of Assistant to the Secretary for Atomic Energy will always be filled by the same individual who holds the post of Chairman of the Military Liaison Committee.

Thus, the reorganization plan provides for six additional Assistant Secretaries and a General Counsel of equivalent rank. Three of these Assistant Secretaries will be assigned the duties of the 2 boardsbased on a redistribution of staff functions-2 who will be utilized to replace individual officials who presently hold other titles, and 1 will be assigned to a position formerly but no longer filled by an Assistant Secretary. The new Assistant Secretary positions and the General Counsel post are required in order to make it possible to bring executives of the highest type into the Government service and to permit them to operate effectively and with less personnel than at present.

The Defense Department today is one of the largest utilizers of manpower in the world, it is the greatest engineering organization in the world, it is the greatest technical organization in the world, and it is the most expensive organization in the world. There is nothing which it needs as much as good management. American business has learned in the last 50 years that there is nothing as cheap for any great organization to purchase as good management.

We strongly urge that you authorize, by approving the reorganization plan, the appointment of these additional Assistant Secretaries to assist us in managing this mammoth business enterprise.

In the President's message he also made reference to the fact that the Secretary of Defense is initiating a request to the Secretaries of the military departments to examine the internal organizations of their departments for the purpose of making such reorganizations as their examinations might prove necessary. We do not yet have their reports and recommendations, but from informal conversations we have had with Secretaries Stevens, Anderson, and Talbot, we are satisfied that they are making progress toward modernizing the systems in their departments and each of them tells us that very shortly they will have concrete recommendations to make.

THE JOINT STAFF AND THE DIRECTOR

Section 1 (b) of the plan proposes that the appointment of the Director of the Joint Staff shall hereafter be subject to the approval of the Secretary of Defense. In examining the reasons for this change,

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