incorporating these changes. The amendments that we deem necessary and, briefly stated, the reasons therefor are as follows:

A. A new section should be added providing for the restoration of Cabinet rank to the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force

Experience to date clearly shows that Assistant Secretaries of Defense often deal directly with subordinate echelons of officers and civilian officials without due regard to the service Secretaries. It is not realistic to expect an Assistant Secretary of Defense to operate mainly in the role of a staff adviser; instead he will tend to assume the role of an operational executive officer in the field of activity, embracing all three services, assigned to his office. In order to get things accomplished expeditiously and in the interests of efficiency or economy, an Assistant Secretary of Defense will be prone to issue directives in the name of the Secretary of Defense that invade the areas of responsibility and authority of the service Secretaries. This tendency, stimulated by the appointment of six additional Assistant Secretaries of Defense, will erode the prestige of the service Secretaries and, in time, the level of competence of the service Secretaries will be lowered. The surely resulting confusion, and the diffusion of civilian authority, can best be minimized by restoring Cabinet rank to the three service Secretaries.

Moreover, the provision for six additional Assistant Secretaries of Defense will lead to decentralization on a functional basis instead of from the Office of the Secretary of Defense solely through the offices of the three service Secretaries. Not only will the growth of the authority and the prestige of the Assistant Secretaries of Defense be at the expense of the authority and prestige of the three service Secretaries but, more importantly, there may be efforts in the future to administratively and physically merge the activities of the three services assigned to Assistant Secretaries of Defense for coordination. Such functional mergers of components of the Army, Navy, and Air Force would not be in consonance with the wishes of Congress as expressed in the preamble to the National Security Act of 1947 after extensive debate and careful study. Additionally, therefore, the restoration of Cabinet rank for the three service Secretaries is needed as a bulwark against this danger.

We believe that every living former service Secretary is a strong believer in the essentiality of Cabinet rank for the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. We suggest, therefore, that former Secretaries Rovall, Pace, Sullivan, Kimball, Symington, and Finletter be invited to submit their views to your committee on this feature of the reorganization plan.

B. Sections 5 and 6 should be modified by a new section stipulating, in effect, that the Secretary of Defense may not make any transfer of personnel or funds or change the function, role, or mission of any of the services in contravention of specific reservations previously enacted by Congress

The reason for this amendment is self-evident.

It in no way limits the authority of the Secretary of Defense except to restrain him specifically from doing something that the Congress has already decided should not be done.

C. Paragraph (c) of section 1 should be omitted

This paragraph provides that "The selection of the members of the Joint Staff by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and their tenure, shall be subject to the approval of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

The purpose of this deletion is to insure against the building up of a Joint Staff more responsive to the Chairman than to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As a further safeguard against the possibility of the Joint Staff becoming, in time, the Chairman's Staff or a de facto General Staff, we recommend that the Chairman's tenure of office be limited to 2 years except in time of war and that the Chairmanship rotate among the 3 services.

The increased authority and influence of the Chairman resulting from the transfer to him of the "functions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with respect to managing the Joint Staff and the Director thereof," as provided in paragraph (d) of section 1, is fully adequate to enable him to accomplish all of the things enumerated by Rockefeller committee in connection with "organizing the subordinate structure of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Staff in such a way as to help the Secretary of Defense to discharge his total responsibilities.' It should be noted that the Rockefeller committee report (pp. 7 and 8) gives a plausible justification for paragraph (d) but no explanation is given in that report as to why the Chairman needs the vaslly additional power provided in paragraph (c) to properly handle the augmented functions of his office.

The potential dangers in this section of the reorganization plan are discussed in the enclosed memorandum prepared by Mr. Ferdinand Eberstadt, Chairman, Hoover Commission Task Force on National Military Establishment, who has probably spent more time than any other American civilian since World War II in a continuing, objective study of the Department of Defense. Without necessarily endorsing all of Mr. Eberstadt's statements, I commend his thoughtful memorandum to your serious consideration.

We believe it is essential that Congress does not accept this reorganization plan without its most careful examination by the Armed Services Committees of the Senate and the House. These committees have intimate knowledge of this subject matter acquired over the years in the course of hearings on scores of legislative proposals affecting the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Moreover, these committees have implied responsibilities in respect to the armed services that are derived from the Constitution itself. Certainly, such significant changes as those contained in Reorganization Plan No. 6 should not be approved perfunctorily as "ready made" legislation in the drafting of which the cognizant committees of Congress have not participated.

Sincerely,

FRANK A. HECHT, President.

[From the New York Times, April 23, 1953]

JOINT CHIEFS CRITICIZED

Held To Have Outgrown Civilian Control-Reorganization Is Urged as a Remedy

(By Hanson W. Baldwin)

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Nation's four top-ranking military men, were the focus of debate in Washington yesterday.

Republican congressional leaders, some of whom have been outspokenly critical of the present Joint Chiefs of Staff, corporately and personally, proposed the appointment of a new standby group of Joint Chiefs immediately, to take office about August 1, and in the meantime to review all strategic plans of the present body.

At the White House, Nelson A. Rockefeller, head of a committee that has been studying Pentagon organization, had an appointment with the President.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff occupy a key role in the perennial problem of determining what kind of a defense the United States needs, how large the armed establishment should be, and how it should be organized. Partly because the work they do is bound to be controversial, and partly because they can provide no simple, easy political answers to the $64 problem of security, the Joint Chiefs have been the target, as a group and as individuals, of criticism from many sources.

INVOLVEMENT IN POLITICS CITED

The reasons for the dissatisfaction with the Joint Chiefs are several: They have grown, as one observer put it, "too big for their breeches"; they have moved into areas where they do not belong. One or more of the Joint Chiefs became involved in political issues in the Navy-Air Force differences, in the MacArthur hearings, in the Korean war controversy, and in other instances.

Public testimony on some of these issues was required by Congress, but in several cases at least one member of the Joint Chiefs made public speeches that had political connotations.

Moreover, due in part to Pentagon organization, and the downgrading of the civilian Secretaries of the individual services-they no longer are of Cabinet rank as they used to be the Joint Chiefs have become more important than the civilians who are supposed to be in authority over them.

And they have assumed command of functions the law never provided—partly because of the lessened check of civilian authority, partly to fill a vacuum, and partly because of the gradual accumulation of Executive orders, Pentagon regulations, and tradition.

The nonvoting Chairman has tended to become, contrary to the intention of the law, the representative of all the services, and often, indeed, of the Pentagon. The Joint Chiefs, with one exception-the Chief of Naval Operations--are men who participated in the bitter service feuds incident to unification, to the MacArthur controversy, and to the Korean war.

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SUGGESTED REMEDIES VIEWED

Inevitably, regardless of the best intentions, interservice suspicion and latent bitterness are still residual in their minds, though perhaps subconsciously. These men have set ideas and fixed opinions.

The Joint Chiefs have become overloaded with unnecessary detail and the administrative procedures and operating methods of the Pentagon are slow and cumbrous.

The remedy for these major faults does not lie in some of the dangerous and absurd suggestions advanced to the Rockefeller Committee. The cure for centralization and overconcentration of authority in military hands does not lie in more centralization or in a military staff for the Secretary of Defense, or in an amorphous "National Military Council" with hazy responsibilities but dangerous authority.

It certainly does not lie in a "Greater General Staff," in a single Chief of Staff, in a Chairman with power of decision, or in the ultimate result of all these-a single military service.

All of these measures are calculated to weaken civilian authority and increase military authority, to destroy any balance of power within the Pentagon, to open anew the scars of old service rivalries, to produce an inflexible and dangerously simplified single concept of strategy and to destroy ultimately the service esprit, pride and specialization that must always be the firm bedrock of any sound military organization.

CIVILIAN AUTHORITY STRESSED

The reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff must, therefore, revert to basic principles that the Unification Act intended but which have come to be bypassed or ignored. The first and foremost of these is the reassertion of civilian authority. Second, at all costs, the Joint Chiefs must remain free of the taint of partisan politics.

Once they are used to further the objectives of any party they have lost their objective utility and they are imperiling the Armed Forces. Their role must be advisory and not one of command. And new faces are needed in the top posts, and new minds and new ideas, freed of some of the prejudices and commitments of the past.

If organizational reforms adhere to these principles some of the necessary changes should not be too difficult. The Chiefs of Staff, now members of the Armed Forces Policy Council (the Chiefs of Staff and civilian Secretaries in the Pentagon) should become as the Joint Chiefs of Staff-advisers to that group, rather than members of it:

The service Secretaries should see, as a matter of routine, all Joint Chiefs papers, and a military department rather than a single Chief of Staff should be named as executive agent to carry out plans mapped by the Joint Chiefs.

The post of chairman of the Joint Chiefs should, perhaps, be abolished, rather than strengthened. It has taken on duties and prerogatives and prestige never intended, and it has had little compensating countervalue.

Numerous other lesser changes may be desirable, but the main modification needed in Pentagon organization is in will and intent. The goal must be civilian control, decentralization, simplification, and cooperation.

[From the New York Times, May 3, 1953]

SHAKEUP IN PENTAGON REPRESENTS COMPROMISE

Top Civilians Get More Authority but Many of the Old Problems Remain (By Hanson W. Baldwin)

President Eisenhower sent to Congress last week a plan to reorganize the biggest business of the Government-defense.

The President's plan the fourth modification of Pentagon organization s'nce the war-was neither drastic nor revolutionary; in fact, the White House message specifically praised the "fundamental structure of the Department of Defense" as sound. The latest modifications, intended to strengthen civilian control over the armed services, improve administrative efficiency, and reduce the workload on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rejected the most radical suggestions that had been advanced in the past and paid at least lipservice to decentralization. There were,

however, a number of proposals-one in particular-which in the eyes of some service officers contained hidden "jokers.'

The newest plans for the Pentagon centered, as expected, around the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

Two important statutory boards-the Munitions Board, concerned with procurement, and the Research and Development Board, concerned with new weapons and two less important agencies, the Defense Supply Management Agency and the Director of Installations-all appendages of the Secretary of Defense's office are to be abolished. The Research and Development Board and the Munitions Board, from top members and secretariat to the lowestechelon committees, are organized on the committee system, with Army, Navy, and Air Force equally represented, but with civilian chairmen who have power of decision.

Many organizational experts have felt there were too many committees in the Defense Department and not enough control. The recommended abolition of these top-level boards and agencies was not, therefore, unexpected. The President suggested the replacement of these boards by the addition of six Assistant Secretaries and a General Counsel (ranking with the Assistant Secretaries) to the Secretary of Defense.

ENLARGEMENT OF OFFICE

This recommendation, if approved, will make the Office of the Secretary of Defense something of a Hydra-headed monster, with a Deputy Secretary (outranking the service Secretaries) and 10 assistant Secretaries (there are already 3) under the Secretary. Each of these, of course, will have numerous assistants; each, as one observer put it, is certain to be a constellation, not merely a star, so that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is certain to be a large one. The President estimated nevertheless, that the elimination of the board and committee system and its replacement by assistants to the Secretary would save 500 employees in the Secretary's office.

The Assistant Secretaries, as envisaged, would be the heads of "staff units" in the Secretary's office; some critics immediately termed them a "civilian general staff." The resemblance between the duties of these new assistants, as described by the President, and the duties of the Army's General Staff officers is, indeed, startling. Mr. Eisenhower said the new assistants would establish "systems *** for obtaining complete and accurate information to support recommendations to the Secretary," but "without imposing themselves in the direct lines of responsibility and authority between the Secretary of Defense and the Secretaries of the three military departments."

The staff officer often is tempted (and not infrequently yields to the temptation) to interpose himself between the officer he advises and lower commands; that is, he intervenes in administration and operation. This, unquestionably, will be one of the dangers of the new system; it would seem, too, that a total of 10 Assistant Secretaries of Defense is a somewhat excessive number.

JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

The President's plans for improving our "strategic planning" as concentrated in the Joint Chiefs of Staff revolved, ostensibly, about relieving the three members of the Joint Chiefs, who are also chiefs of their respective services (there is also a Chairman without any single service responsibilities) of their burden of overwork and of "time-consuming details of minor importance."

The President in effect urged that the power now vested in the Joint Chiefs of Staff to appoint the director of the Joint Staff (which serves the Joint Chiefs) be transferred to the Secretary of Defense, and that the selection of the 210 officers authorized for the Joint Staff, drawn in approximately equal numbers from Army, Navy (including Marines), and Air Force, now vested in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, be subject to approval of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The reorganization plan also makes the Chairman responsible for managing the Joint Staff. This seemingly innocuous proposal is one which is certain to breed much angry discussion in Congress, for, by appointive control of personnel, it puts under one man-the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-the power to influence greatly the strategic plans and the "force levels" or service budgets which the Joint Chiefs are called upon to prepare. It very considerably increases the powers of the Chair

man of the Joint Chiefs, and there already has been some criticism that this office, by virtue of its military seniority, has assumed powers, prestige, and functions it was never intended to have.

INCREASED POWER

General of the Army Omar N. Bradley, the present incumbent, has indeed been described in a friendly magazine article as "an unofficial Superchief of Staff, a reluctant man on horseback." It is precisely this "man on horseback" single Chief of Staff concept that has aroused most of the service and Congressional fears during all the postwar discussion of military organization. The present proposal, though far from the "Greater General Staff, single Chief of Staff idea," is a definite step toward more power for a single military officer. It tends to "boxin" the Joint Chiefs of Staff between a chairman, superior to them in rank and prestige, and a staff ostensibly serving them, but actually selected by their superior chairman. Because of this increase in powerth is proposal will be hotly debated.

INCREASED CIVILIAN CONTROL

The rest of the President's proposed reforms in the Pentagon do not require legislation, and are for the most part not controversial. By Executive or other order, they are intended to promote decentralization and increase civilian control, and one in particular, the designation by the Secretary of Defense instead of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of a military department, instead of the military head of that department, as an executive agent for a unified overseas command, will put the individual service Secretaries back into the chain of command and will increase their prestige.

The recommendations are conspicuous for what they do not propose, as well as for what they do propose. Suggestions of many who believe in decentralization-among them former Secretary of the Air Force Thomas K. Finletter-that the service Secretaries should again be made Cabinet-rank officers and Members of the National Security Council, and should rank immediately after the Secretary of Defense instead of below his Deputy, were ignored.

So, too, was a suggestion that the Chiefs of Staff should be made advisers to, instead of members of, the Armed Forces Policy Council at the Pentagon, thus clearly raising the service Secretaries in authority and prestige.

Also ignored was a suggestion for abolition of the office of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Perhaps even more important was the fact that no scientific body inside or outside the Pentagon has been proposed to replace the Research and Development Board.

[From the Evening Star, May 1, 1953]

UNCONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSE PLAN-CONGRESS, IT IS EXPECTED, WILL REJECT REORGANIZATION PROPOSAL BECAUSE IT DELEGATES AUTHORITY THAT CAN'T BE DELEGATED

(By David Lawrence)

President Eisenhower has just taken a look at the last 100 days of the Truman administration and also at the hodgepodge of commitments left him as a legacy from several other 100-day periods in the last few years when irresponsible, reckless, and spendthrift government was rapidly driving the American economic system to the edge of bankruptcy.

"It has been the purpose of this administration," says Mr. Eisenhower, "ever since it took office, finding itself confronted with a crazy quilt of promises, commitments, and contracts, to bring American military logic and American economic logic into joint strong harness.

"No more glaring illustration of the lack of balance between the military logic and the economic logic could possibly be found than the situation that existed when we took office. On the one hand, we found our allies deploring our unfulfilled defense promises. On the other hand, we found there was a total carryover of $81 billion in appropriated funds, largely committed, for which cash must be provided from revenues in future fiscal years, over and above the normal annual cost of government. It's just as if the late administration had gone to the store and ordered $81 billion of goods, which we've got to pay for as they're delivered, in addition to paying the regular household running expenses."

Small wonder that the President, even though he sees an $8.5 billion saving