Library of the Marine Corps
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The Department of Defense 1947-1997
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Organization and Leaders
OCT 311997
MARINE CORPS UNIVERSITYUBRMnr ©EPQSCTORIT
Roger R. Trask Alfred Goldberg
Historical Office
Office of the Secretary of Defense
Washington, D.C.
1997
Mfl|Jli)0EPSUMEBSIlYUBM8y
135
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Trask, Roger R.
The Department of Defense, 1947-1997: organization and leaders / Roger R. Trask, Alfred Goldberg, p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. United States. Dept. of Defense — History. 2. United States. Dept. of Defense — Officials and employees — History. I. Goldberg, Alfred, 1918- . II. Title.
UA23-6.T728 1997 97-25776
355.60973— dc21 CIP
Foreword
The past half century has been an age of historic events and forces that have reshaped the world. This constantly changing, unstable world, full of accidents, violence, and the unexpected, at the same time is more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. The United States must be constantly alert, for any change in one part of the world may be viewed as a potential threat to the whole. In such a world, high priority for the nations security is paramount.
During this same half century the evolution of the Department of Defense has been shaped by its response to the volatile dynamics of the domestic and interna- tional scenes. Guided by the policies and decisions of
our civilian and military leaders, the four military services — Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps — and the unified combatant commands that have the ultimate fighting responsibility are the principal guaran- tors of our security. On this fiftieth anniversary of the Department of Defense it is fitting that we recognize our vital military establishment and the men and women of the armed forces who have served us so well and are so deserving of the respect and gratitude of the nation.
Preface
The Department of Defense is the largest U.S. governmental institution and the ultimate protector of the nations survival. In its first 50 years it has engaged in wars in Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf area. It has protected U.S. interests in a host of political and military crises— Berlin, Taiwan, Lebanon, Cuba, Grenada, Panama. It has participated in peacekeeping in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, and other areas. It has rendered humanitarian assistance to nations and peoples around the globe, including the United States. Most important of all, it carried through the U.S. policy of containment successfully during the Cold War, preserving peaceful coexistence with the Soviet bloc through nuclear and conventional military power and thus helping to bring the Cold War to an end. The Department of Defense has been a "can do" institution that has always responded to the varied challenges of its complex mission.
The Department of Defense dates from 17 Septem- ber 1947 when the first secretary of defense, James V. Forrestal, was sworn into office. For the first two years of existence after its creation by the National Security Act of 1947, it was known as the National Military Estab- lishment. The act created a new overall U.S. national security structure, with the National Security Council at the apex and including the National Military Establish- ment, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Resources Board. The National Military Estab- lishment, headed by the secretary of defense, included three military departments — Army, Navy, and Air Force — as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other elements. It is clear that the military establishment received special and detailed attention in this legislation because of its important role in making and executing national security policy. The changes in military organization prescribed
in the act were intended to bring about unification of the armed forces through more centralized direction, stronger cohesion, and greater joint effort and mutual support. Amendments to the act in 1949 changed the name to Department of Defense, thereby establishing it as an executive department. After 50 years this national security structure remains essentially intact.
This volume examines the establishment and devel- opment of the higher organization of the Department of Defense from 1947 to 1997 and the role of the men who exercised top leadership — the secretaries of defense. Many of the inherent problems of the department over the years had to do with organizational relationships that had to be altered by executive or legislative action. This involved particularly the relationship between the secretary of defense and the military services and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Major trends included the increase in centralization of power in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the deployment of all operational forces to the strengthened unified combatant commands, the enlarged role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Staff, the growth in the number of Defense agencies, and some diminution of power and influence of the military services. A constant throughout the years has been the competition between the services for money, weapons, people, and missions. All of these trends and, indeed, the overall functioning of the department, have been greatly affected by the official and personal interplay between the leaders. It is often said that people, not structure, are the determinant of an organization's suc- cess or failure. The experience of the Department of Defense indicates that both able people and sound organizational structure are essential to the effective functioning of an institution.
VI
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
The 20 secretaries of defense between 1947 and 1997, serving as "principal assistant to the President in all matters relating to the Department of Defense," molded events and shaped policies of great national and international consequence. Their records are diverse owing to differences of personality, philosophy, and circumstance, but they have in all instances occupied a position of crucial importance to U.S. national security.
Documentation of the two parts of this volume differs. Part I has reference notes that appear at the end of the volume. Part II is supported by a bibli- ography which lists all of the main sources, notably the Public Statements of the Secretary of Defense for the period 1947-1996.
This study has benefited greatly from the thorough and cogent critiques of successive drafts by Stuart Rochester, Ronald Landa, and John Glennon. They performed an invaluable service with generous patience and forbearance and at full speed. Ronald Landa over-
saw the preparation for publication of all aspects of the work with his usual skill, initiative, and concentration. Ruth Sharma who typed and helped edit the manu- script contributed her accustomed high-quality effort and work to the final product. Alice Cole helped prepare the appendixes and Carolyn Thorne typed them in final form. Walter Poole of the Joint Staff Historical Office reviewed the section on Unified Combatant Commands and suggested needed changes. Kathleen Brassell of the OSD Graphics and Presenta- tion Division advised on the concept of the design of the book and provided assistance in preparation of graphics. For photographs we are indebted to the following: U.S. Senate Historical Office (Pictorial Services), Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Joint Staff Historical Office, Naval Historical Center, and Director of Marine Corps History and Museums. Many pictures came from the collection of the OSD Historical Office.
Roger R. Trask Alfred Goldberg
Contents
I. Organization 1
National Security Act of 1947 4
J 949 Amendments and After 14
Reorganization Plan No. 6 — 1953 21
1958 Reorganization Act 23
The McNamara Years 31
1968-1981 34
The Goldwater-Nichols Act 40
Unified Commands 49
Conclusion 50
II. LEADERS 55
James V. Forrestal (1947-1949) 57
Louis A. Johnson (1949-1950) 61
George C. Marshall (1950-1951) 64
Robert A. Lovett (1951-1953) 67
Charles E. Wilson (1953-1957) 69
Neil H. McElroy (1957-1959) 73
Thomas S. Gates, Jr. (1959-1961) 75
RohertS. McNamara (1961-1968) 78
Clark M. Clifford (1968-1969) 84
Melvin R. Laird (1969-1973) 86
Elliot L. Richardson (January-May 1973) 90
James R. Schlesinger (1973-1975) 91
Donald H. Rumsfeld (1975-1977) 94
Harold Brown (1977-1981) 96
Caspar W. Weinberger (1981-1987) 100
Frank C. Carluca 111 (1987-1989) 106
RichardB. Cheney (1989-1993) Ill
Leslie Aspin (1993-1994) 117
WilliamJ. Perry (1994-1997) 121
WtlliamS. Cohen (1997- ) 127
Conclusion 129
Charts
1. Single Department of Armed Forces Proposed by Special Committee of JCS (Richardson Committee), 23 March 1945 5
2. Organization for National Security, National Security Act of 1947, 30 September 1947 10
3. Office of the Secretary of Defense,
15 September 1948 13
4. Organization for National Security, National Security Act as Amended, 10 August 1949 16
5. Office of the Secretary of Defense,
15 October 1952 19
6. Office of the Secretary of Defense,
22 September 1953 22
7. Department of Defense, April 1959 29
8. Department of Defense, November 1969 36
9. Department of Defense, June 1978 39
10. Department of Defense, August 1989 46
Appendixes
I. The National Security Act of 1947 133
II. Secretaries of Defense and Other Key Officials ... 143
III. Organization Charts, 1996-1997 157
IV. Financial and Manpower Data 165
V. Department of Defense Seal 177
NOTES 179
Select bibliography 183
INDEX 185
I
Organization
Organization
When President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 on 26 July 1947, it signified the nation's awareness that it would have to meet the challenge of a world greatly altered by World War II and its far-reaching consequences. The act not only reorganized the military establishment; it also created a large, more coherent politico-military frame- work for the direction and execution of U.S. national security policy. This structure has endured for half a century, evolving in response to changing domestic and international circumstances. Despite adjustments in both form and substance, the military establish- ment has retained the essential features of the original 1947 structure.
After almost every war the U.S. government has found the wartime military arrangements defective and carried out reforms. Changes following the Spanish- American War and World War I tended toward central- ization that seemed to be characteristic of the experience of most of the great institutions of American society. And always, resistance to this trend from many quarters caused proposed reforms to be compromised and modified. The 1947 legislation was not the first attempt to reshape the military Between 1921 and 1945 some 50 bills had been offered in Congress for reorganizing the two military departments — War and Navy. Only one of these bills, in 1932, reached the floor of the House of Representatives, where it was defeated.1
It required the prolonged, intense, and all-embracing national experience in World War II to give new impe- tus and coherence to the movement for reorganizing the nation's military establishment. The war demon- strated that even though the United States had prevailed, its organization for national security was seriously flawed. Critical issues between the Army and Navy arose over allocation of resources, strategic priorities, and command arrangements, sometimes affecting the responsibility for, and the timing and conduct of military operations. To coordinate the war effort, a vast temporary array of some 75 interservice agencies and
interdepartmental committees came into being. The ad hoc arrangements for directing the conflict worked, but only because the nation's resources were so abun- dant that they could compensate for the mistakes and internal divisions. Waging war on a global scale attested powerfully to the greatly increased complexity of mobilizing and employing the nations material and human resources.2
The disputes between the Army and Navy over command and control of forces in the theaters of operations reinforced the conviction of many close observers that teamwork was the key to victory. The prewar system of voluntary interservice "cooperation" of the sort symbolized by the Pearl Harbor disaster had to give way to centralized control of strategy and operations. Commanders in the field exercised opera- tional control over joint forces — land, sea, and air — in the great campaigns of the war. The joint efforts of unified commands in some areas, particularly Europe, were more impressive than in others — the Pacific — but by the end of the war there was little doubt that unified field commands were integral to an effective military establishment.
The problems and deficiencies revealed were of sufficient magnitude to lead to a broad consensus (the Navy Department was a conspicuous exception) on the need for more integration of foreign, military, and domestic policies at the center of power in Washington. The key lessons of the war were that the American response to the exigencies of a radically different postwar world would require coordination of policy, intelligence, resource allocation, and military operations on an unprecedented scale, and that military prepared- ness in peacetime was indispensable. These perceptions infused the three years of planning and debate that culminated in the National Security Act of 1947. The theme of unification became increasingly dominant in the demands for changes in the organization of the armed forces from 1944 on. What unification meant remained to be defined in practice.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
Having entered two world wars in a quarter of a century unprepared, the nation's leaders recognized before the end of World War II that the United States would have to maintain a peacetime establishment of unprecedented size and cost to carry out the responsi- bilities of the world leadership role that had been thrust upon it. It could not afford to be unprepared in the event of another major conflict.
national Security Act of 1947
The National Security Act of 1947 came into being only after almost three years of sometimes bitter controversy over whether and how to establish unified direction, authority, and control over the armed forces. Serious discussion about reorganization began in Congress and the military departments in 1944 and aroused much public interest. In April and May the House Select Committee on Post- War Military Policy held hearings on a "Proposal to Establish a Single Department of the Armed Forces." War Department officials urged the establishment of a Department of the Armed Forces and submitted a chart outlining its possible organization. Navy representatives urged further study. The committee called for study of the problem by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), who had already established their own committee to look into the advantages and disadvantages of different organi- zational approaches. In April 1945 the JCS group, with only Admiral J. O. Richardson dissenting, recommended the establishment of a single department of the armed forces. The JCS took no formal action on the recom- mendation and forwarded the report to the president on 16 October 1945. 3
With the end of the war and the beginning of an enormous demobilization that would reduce the military services to little more than one-tenth of their peak wartime strengths, the Army and Navy both gave the most serious attention to the future of the military establishment, each pursuing its own preferred concept. The strongest impetus for radical change continued to come from the Army, which consistently supported the establishment of a single department under a secretary of defense, with a chief of staff or military commander, a military high command, and unified service branches for ground, sea, and air warfare.
The Navy countered with its own proposals in the Eberstadt* Report, submitted to Congress on 18 October 1945. This report opposed a single depart- ment, accepted the creation of a separate Air Force,
* Ferdinand Eberstadt was a close associate of Secretary of the Navy James
V Forrestal. t The commanding general of the AAF was a member of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff.
and proposed a larger structure including a national security council and a national security resources board, supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as special agencies for intelligence and research and a munitions board.4
Hearings before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs between 17 October and 17 December 1945 revealed the extent of the differences between the Army and Navy. Spokesmen for the Navy rejected the Army proposal of a single department with three services — Army, Navy, and Air — and supported the Eberstadt plan for organizing national security5
The requirement for a separate Air Force seemed generally acceptable to the services, Congress, and the public. The Army Air Forces (AAF), granted a high degree of autonomy by the Army/ had played an impressive and highly visible role in all theaters of operations during the war. It had organized itself in anticipation of and in preparation for independence after the war. Its peak personnel strength of 2.4 mil- lion in 1945 was 31 percent of the U.S. Army, three- quarters the strength of the Navy, and five times that of the Marine Corps.6
Still, the prospect of an independent and dynamic Air Force, supported by powerful political, industrial, and public constituencies, engendered fear and dismay in the Navy and Marine Corps. Army Air Forces leaders, flush with high expectations, questioned the need for Navy and Marine Corps aviation, the loss of all or a portion of which could reduce the Navy and Marine Corps to appendages of the Army and the Air Force. Moreover, the Army had made clear its position that the Marine Corps should not be permitted to become a second land army, that it should be restricted to duties with the fleet, and have only lightly armed units for shore operations. The Navy and Marine Corps, imbued with great pride in their long histories and their wartime exploits, could not tolerate what they viewed as subordination to the Army and a new Air Force. They mounted and conducted a campaign in which they eventually succeeded in protecting their functions and the composition of their forces. They were not successful in their opposition to a single national military establishment, but the Navy pre- served its position as an equal of the other services within the new structure.
To secure the major objective of a unified military establishment under a secretary of defense, the Army and the Army Air Forces had to yield on the naval avia- tion and Marine Corps issues. Strong congressional and public support for the Navy dictated compromise on roles and missions. Thus, as it turned out, the changes
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Department of Defense 1947-1997
President Harry S. Truman
that occurred on the civil side of the reorganization proved to be more radical and meaningful than those that occurred on the military side.
On 19 December 1945 President Truman sent a message to Congress recommending a single depart- ment of national defense with three coordinate branches — land, sea, and air. He emphasized the need to provide "the strongest means for civilian control of the military" and proposed that there should be a single chief of staff of the department, the position to be rotated among the services. The president became a driving force behind the campaign for reorganization of the national defense. His experience as chairman of the Senate Special Com- mittee to Investigate the National Defense Program dur- ing the war convinced him that the "antiquated defense setup" had to be changed. He spoke of "bureaucratic waste" and "overlapping jurisdictions."7
On 9 April 1946 three members of the Senate Military Affairs Committee introduced a bill that followed many of Truman's recommendations and included a number of the Eberstadt proposals for civil-military coordination. Shortly after, the Naval Affairs Committees of the Senate and the House, which strongly espoused the Navy position on change, coun- tered this proposal. In a letter to the secretary of the Navy, the committees objected that the proposed bill concentrated "too much power in the hands of too few
men," reduced civilian and congressional control over the military, and would empower the executive branch to abolish or emasculate the Marine Corps and transfer vital naval aviation functions to the Army Air Forces. The letter thus spelled out plainly the fears of the Navy and the Marine Corps that in a single depart- ment they would be dominated by the Army and a new and dynamic Air Force.8
Underlying the debate over unification was anticipation of the revolutionary impact on weapons, strategic plans, and national security policies of new military technologies — jet aircraft, missiles, radar, other electronic devices, and especially the atomic bomb. The Army had overseen the development of the bomb and the Army Air Forces had dropped it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Navy participated in the atomic tests at Bikini in 1946. All of the services desired to share in the control and use of nuclear weapons, which promised to have a powerful role in shaping their future, if not immediately, certainly during the next decade. The critical and revolutionary effect of nuclear weapons clearly indicated that control and policymaking must come from the highest govern- ment authority.
The impasse in Congress between the oversight committees caused President Truman, on 13 May 1946, to ask the secretaries of the War and Navy Departments to seek agreement on a plan for the reorganization of the armed forces. In their reply of 31 May, Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson and Secretary of the Navy James Y Forrestal reported that they agreed on 8 of 12 major points. The points still in dispute were, of course, the nub of the matter — a single military department, three coordinate services or three departments, control of aviation, and the functions of the Marine Corps.9
Truman's response to the report on 15 June once again called for a single military department with three coordinate services under it, diminished naval aviation forces, and the status quo for Marine Corps functions. This represented a compromise of sorts, but not to the liking of the Navy. The president sent the correspon- dence to the chairmen of the Senate and House Committees on Military Affairs and Naval Affairs with a request that Congress pass legislation based on the 12 principles he presented. Concurring in part with recommendations of the Navy's Eberstadt report, he endorsed the creation of a council of national defense, a central intelligence agency, a national security resources board, a research and development agency, an organi- zation for military procurement and supply, and a military education and training agency10
Opposition to the president's proposal persisted in the Navy and Marine Corps and in Congress. At
Organization
Secretary oj War Robert P. Patterson
Forrestal's instigation, the Army and Navy agreed in November 1946 to work together to seek recommenda- tions that would break the impasse. Alter two months of intense negotiations, Maj. Gen. Lauris Norstad and Vice Adm. Forrest P. Sherman produced a compromise agreement that Patterson and Forrestal submitted to the White House on 16 January 1947. At the same time, the president prepared a proposed executive order clarifying the roles and missions of the services."
The Patterson-Forrestal agreement that the presi- dent sent to Congress represented a real compromise, thanks chiefly to concessions by the Army. The accord provided for an organization under a secretary of defense to establish "common policies and common programs lor the integrated operation" of the armed forces — this instead of a single department. It called for separately administered departments of the Army, the Navy (including naval aviation and the Marine Corps), and the Air Force, and continuation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff assisted by a joint staff. The agree- ment called also for the creation of a war council headed by the secretary of national defense to consider "matters of broad policy relating to the armed forces." Beyond the defense structure, it asked for a council of national defense, a central intelligence agency, and a national security resources board.12
Consideration of the proposed legislation by Congress lasted six months, during which its provi- sions underwent substantial changes. The House ol Representatives, influenced by arguments of the Navy and Marine Corps, enacted a bill further limiting the authority of the secretary of defense and elevating the status of the military departments. This compromise of diverse viewpoints represented a lowest common denominator. The legislation went to Truman on 26 July; he signed it immediately13
The preamble of the National Security Act of 1947 spoke to the laws general objectives:
In enacting this legislation, it is the intent of Congress to provide a compre- hensive program for the future security of the United States, to provide for the establishment of integrated policies and procedures for the departments, agencies, and functions of the Government relating to the national security; to provide three military departments for the operation and administration of the Army, the Navy (including naval aviation and the United States Marine Corps), and the Air Force, with their assigned combat and service components; to provide for their authori-
Admiral Forrest P. Sherman
Department of defense 1947-1997
Maj. Gen. Lauris Norstad
tative coordination and unified direction under civilian control but not to merge them; to provide for the effective strategic direction of the armed forces and for their operation under unified control and for their integration into an efficient team of land, naval, and air forces.14
This expressed the essence of the compromise that had been struck — a structure that fell somewhere between a centralized system and a loose confederation of military services. It preserved much of the autonomy of the services at the expense of the secretary of defense. Moreover it suited the political interests of Congress. As one observer noted, "Congressmen have traditionally seen their ability to influence defense policy enhanced under a decentralized structure and have feared loss of influence under a more centralized one .... Americas defense establishment has reflected the pluralistic and decentralized nature of America's national govern- mental system."15
The National Security Act, then, represented a compromise not only between the military services but also between Congress and the president: Congress accepted the principle of unification but with what it considered safeguards. It sought to limit the powers
of the executive branch, particularly the secretary of defense, over the new National Military Establishment (NME), and to maintain its own constitutional powers over organization and appropriations for defense. By creating the National Military Establishment instead of an executive department, and by placing three executive departments — Army, Navy, and Air Force — under the secretary of defense, it effectively compromised the latter's position and power. The secretaries of the military departments retained all of their powers and prerogatives subject only to the authority of the secre- tary of defense to exercise "general direction, authority, and control." This deliberately imprecise language reflected the reluctance of Congress to place wide powers in the hands of the secretary of defense and his staff and plagued the first secretary of defense, James Forrestal,* throughout his incumbency, causing him to request changes that became the 1949 amend- ments to the act.
Title I of the act established the machinery for coordinating national security. This included the National Security Council (NSC), chaired by the presi- dent and including the secretaries of state, defense, and the three military departments, and the chairman of the National Security Resources Board (NSRB), which was to oversee industrial and civilian mobili-
President Truman first offered the position of secretary of defense to Secretary of War Patterson, who refused it.
General Alexander A. Vandegrift, Commandant of the Marine Corps, 1944-47, strong opponent of unification
Organization
zation. The NSC was to "advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security so as to enable the military services and the other depart- ments and agencies of the Government to cooperate more effectively in matters involving the national security." The Central Intelligence Agency successor to the Office of Strategic Services and the Central Intelligence Group, under the NSC would provide national security intelligence and coordinate the intel- ligence activities of government agencies; all existing intelligence agencies would continue as before.
Title II dealt with the National Military Establish- ment. It defined the secretary of defense as "the prin- cipal assistant to the President in all matters relating to the national security." His specific responsibilities included establishing "general policies and programs" for the NME; exercising "general direction, authority and control" over the military departments; eliminating "unnecessary duplication or overlapping in the fields of procurement, supply, transportation, storage, health, and research"; and supervising and coordinating the preparation and implementation of annual defense budgets. The act provided legislative sanction for the preparation and submission of a budget for the whole U.S. military establishment. This proved to be the most significant power accorded the secretary of defense in his efforts to bring about greater integration and more efficient operation of the military services.
The act established the new Department of the Air Force and the U.S. Air Force under it, and changed the name of the War Department to Department of the Army The three military departments retained the status of "individual executive departments" and were still largely autonomous with considerable control of their internal affairs. The act named the service secretaries members of the NSC and authorized them to present directly to the president and to the director of the budget any report or recommendation they deemed appropriate, after informing the secretary of defense. The provision reserving to the service secretaries all powers and duties not specifically conferred on the secretary of defense paralleled the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves to the states or to the people all powers not delegated to the federal government by the Consti- tution, nor prohibited by it to the states.
The law placed limitations on the secretary's sup- port staff, permitting him to appoint only three special assistants "to advise and assist him" and prohibiting him from establishing a military staff. Although he could hire
* Admiral William D. Leahy held this position until 1948, after which
it lapsed, t For a discussion of the unified commands, see pp. 49-50.
civilian employees and draw on the military services for staff assistance, the limitations appeared to be — and indeed became — obstacles to the effective control of the new organization. The limitations seemed to be the result of concessions to still the fears of congressmen and others that a "super secretary" might impose a "Prussian-style general staff" on the nation. They also served to mollify opponents of unification in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Congress.
Title II also created a War Council and three other agencies within the NME. The Munitions Board and the Research and Development Board (RDB) were the statutory successors to existing boards. Responsible to the secretary of defense, each had a civilian chairman and military department representatives appointed by the service secretaries. The third agency the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had been in existence since 1942 but now received statutory sanction as the "principal military advisers to the President and the Secretary of Defense." Composed of the chiefs of the military services and the Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief* "if there be one," the JCS remained a committee of equals. There was no provision for a chairman of the JCS, but the act did create a Joint Staff of 100 officers under a military director.
The law required that the Joint Chiefs establish "unified" commands. Such commands had been in exis- tence since 14 December 1946 when President Truman authorized the creation of seven unified commands under the Unified Command Plan (UCP)/ The UCP accorded the Joint Chiefs strategic direction over all elements of the armed forces in each command, and each chief served as "executive agent" with operational command and control over the forces in one or more unified areas. The National Security Act thus provided a statutory basis for the creation of unified commands.
The carefully and cautiously crafted overall organi- zational arrangement reflected the success of the Navy and the Marine Corps and their congressional support- ers in limiting civilian control that they feared might operate to their detriment. The opponents of unifica- tion also succeeded in eliminating any provision for a single chief of staff or commander and a general staff.
Title III was a miscellany. The secretary of defense replaced the secretary of war in the line of presidential succession and the secretary of the Navy was eliminated from succession. It prescribed the salary scale for senior officials and authorized the appropriation of money to further the provisions of the act.16
The National Security Act left many loose ends that were bound to affect the operation of the NME, but it probably represented the best arrangement that could be obtained at the time. It gave the military services
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Organization
11
a higher statutory position in the overall government policymaking hierarchy in recognition of the vital role they played in the development of national policy. It provided them greater entree in peacetime to the high- est levels of government and lent substance to the term "politico-military" The act provided for direct civilian oversight of the military services at a higher level than the military departments but left unclear the extent to which the secretary of defense could exercise effective control over the military. The statute confirmed the principle of unification by cooperation and mutual consent, thus placing a high premium on the persuasive- ness and force of personality of the secretary of defense.
The legislation establishing the National Military Establishment could not of course do more than provide an overall framework of a national security organization. It could prescribe functions, but it could not provide the means of ensuring that they would be carried out as intended. This could come only through actual experi- ence and operation, which would reveal what further changes would be needed to achieve more efficient and effective operation of the military machine.
When Forrestal became the first secretary of defense on 17 September 1947, he faced the formidable task of attempting to create a viable military structure out of the diverse elements specified in the National Security Act. The military services still harbored much of the tradi- tional parochialism and distrust of each other so strongly manifested during the unification debate. Moreover, they had strong differences over the division of appro- priated funds, kinds of military forces needed, roles and missions, and how the new NME should operate. As secretary of the Navy from 1944 to September 1947, Forrestal had initially opposed unification and then helped shape the compromise legislation that he con- sidered the best that he could do for the Navy. Shortly before taking office, Forrestal remarked to his friend Robert Sherwood that "this office will probably be the greatest cemetery for dead cats in history!" Despite this expressed apprehension, he could not have been fully aware of the minefield of resistance and complex problems on which he was entering.17
The institution that Forrestal now headed had an operating budget of more than $10 billion, about a third of the total U.S. budget, and 2.3 million military and civilian personnel. It was by far the largest and costliest government agency. It had worldwide responsibilities and powerful political and economic impact on the domes- tic scene. As one historian of this period commented,
Nothing like it [NME] had ever before existed. As an 'establishment' rather than an executive department, it was a unique and somewhat nebulous entity.
Existing law, tradition, and usage could provide only partial guidance for how the Secretary of Defense should perform his duties. To the extent that this would allow him to develop his own precedents and customs, it afforded him greater freedom of action than he might otherwise have enjoyed. But at the same time, deep-rooted traditions, customs, and interests of the ser- vices could just as easily handicap him and thwart his best intentions and endeavors. 18
The creation of the position of secretary of defense was one of the most innovative and significant changes in the history of the U.S. military establishment and, indeed, of the U.S. government. The secretary of defense eventually became, in effect, the deputy commander in chief, with powers over the military establishment second only to those of the president. With the assistance of his staff and a number of Defense-wide agencies, the secre- tary came to exercise power over a vast global establish- ment that the president would otherwise have had to exercise himself with the help of a greatly enlarged White House staff. Gaining control over the array of proud and sovereign military services in the face of their resistance to centralization of power presented an immediate challenge to the first secretary of defense and remained a never-ending problem for his successors.
Forrestal's NME consisted of the three military departments and the three statutory agencies — the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Munitions Board, and the Research and Development Board. He had to fashion a structure, develop procedures, and create a staff to assist him. This became the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), which was an extension of the secretary himself as the civilian authority in the Department of Defense. It differed from the military services in its broader and more comprehensive responsibilities and authority — chiefly political, budgetary, and international. OSD did not secure statutory sanction until 1986, with the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act.
Forrestal viewed himself more as policymaker than administrator. In describing his plan for OSD, he said that his own personal desire was "to keep it as small as possible, not only for reasons of economy, but because my own concept of this office is that it will be a coordi- nating, a planning, and an integrating rather than an operating office." He intended to use the three statu- tory agencies as staff in their separate spheres. Another statutory body, the War Council, consisting of the secretary of defense, the three service secretaries, and the Joint Chiefs, provided a forum for discussion of policy issues. Forrestal created another advisory body known as the Committee of Four — himself and the
12 Department of Defense 1947-1997
Forrestal and his three special assistants
three service secretaries — which met biweekly to dis- cuss matters more freely without the presence of the military advisers.19
During the 18 months of his incumbency, Forrestal built a supporting staff around his three special assis- tants— Wilfred J. McNeil, Marx Leva, and John H. Ohly — men of exceptionally high ability. One description of these early days reported that Forrestal "had no office, no staff, no organization chart, no manual of proce- dures, no funds, and no detailed plans." By the time he left office, all of these had come to be.20
OSD grew rapidly, increasing from the 45 people Forrestal brought with him from the Navy in September 1947 to 173 by the end of January 1948, and to 347 by the beginning of 1949. Until the coming of the Korean War, the number in the immediate office ranged between 350 and 400 employees, of whom 15 to 20 percent were military "on loan." To this number should be added some 1,200 civilians and military assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the two statutory boards, and other elements, making a total of about 1,600 within the secretary's ambit at the end of 1949. OSD grew as it responded
to substantive problems and issues that were clearly related to policymaking.21
It became apparent to Forrestal and his assistants that OSD could not remain the small policymaking office he had envisaged, and that they could not rely on the military services for a high degree of voluntary cooperation and coordination. All the military services tended to resist or evade OSD control over their activi- ties; their self-interest demanded as much autonomy and freedom of action as possible. Moreover, the continu- ing interservice rivalry had been compounded by the creation of the Air Force, making it even more difficult for Forrestal to get the services to pull together as a team. Effective direction of the NME required an OSD that could deal with these issues.
In his 18 months in office Forrestal could achieve only a few of the organizational changes that he came to see as necessary. He established in 1948 an Office of Civil Defense Planning that lasted little more than a year.22 The Office of Public Information (OPI), on the other hand, became a permanent fixture.
Public relations presented Forrestal with a vexing
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14
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
problem. The "press war" between the services, which flared up every time a major issue arose, and which had been waged loudly, vehemently, and persistently since the end of the war, finally led him to undertake a step that he had hoped to avoid. Upset by the harmful and embarrassing publicity about the services and angered by security leaks, Forrestal decided on 17 March 1949, only days before his departure, to establish an Office of Public Information in OSD. It was to assume responsi- bility for security review and clearance of manuscripts; moreover, "no information of any kind whatsoever relating to performance or capabilities of new weapons or new equipment of any type . . . [would] be released to the public without specific clearance from . . . [OPI]." The military services retained their public information offices, but on a reduced scale. This did not prevent them from waging their press wars through other staff offices, as soon became apparent.23
At the same time he signed the National Security Act in July 1947, President Truman issued Executive Order 9877, which assigned roles and missions to the services. This had been drafted by the Army and Navy and approved by the secretaries of the services. But it soon became evident that the Navy and the Marine Corps had strong objections to language in the order that seemed to impose limitations on their functions, particularly naval aviation and land operations by the Marines. Since assignment of roles and missions obvi- ously could shape the future of all of the services, and particularly the Navy and Marine Corps, by affecting their budgets and the size and composition of forces, the issue brought interservice controversy to a flash point.24
In January 1948 Forrestal sought to have the services, through the Joint Chiefs of Staff, approve a revised executive order prepared in OSD. The chiefs failed to reach agreement on the order or any revision thereof and notified the secretary that their "fundamen- tal disagreements" could "only be resolved by higher authority."25
The need for action on the matter (it was receiving wide public attention as the services, particularly the Air Force and the Navy, sought to enlist support) impelled Forrestal to meet with the Chiefs at Key West, Florida, from 11 to 14 March 1948. He provided guidance for a draft statement of roles and missions by the Chiefs entitled "Functions of the Armed Services and the Joint Chiefs of Staff." After further changes, Forrestal submit- ted the paper to President Truman, who revoked E.O. 9877 on 21 April, thus permitting Forrestal to issue the Functions paper the same day.
The Functions paper delineated both primary and secondary responsibilities of each service, thus giving recognition to the possibilities of collateral or joint efforts.
The primary responsibilities listed simply reaffirmed the basic and mutually acceptable responsibilities of the services. The secondary or collateral missions involved naval aviation and the size and role of the Marine Corps. The Navy disavowed any intention to create a strategic bombing force and was permitted to have a capability to attack inland targets in pursuit of its primary mission. The Marine Corps would not be allowed to grow into a second land army, and its maximum strength was limited to four divisions.26
The Key West Agreement did not really settle the issues between the Air Force and the Navy; mutual suspicion and distrust persisted. The issues of strategic bombardment, strategic targeting, and control of atomic weapons continued to precipitate strong disagreements between the two services. Forrestal's efforts to promote a compromise acceptable to both parties met with little success, and he convened the JCS again for further talks.
At Newport, Rhode Island, from 20 to 22 August, the Chiefs added a supplement to the Functions paper that clarified the term "primary mission" so that the Navy would not be excluded from a role in strategic air operations. The Chiefs also agreed in principle to Forrestal's proposal to establish the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG) to provide technical advice and analysis of new weapons. Impartial technical evalu- ations of weapons by an independent agency within NME might help reduce partisan strife over roles and missions. Forrestal chartered WSEG in December 1948, after studies by the RDB and the JCS.27
1949 Amendments and After
Within a year of taking office Forrestal had become convinced that his original conception of the role of the secretary as coordinator and policymaker had resulted in failure. His inability to exercise effective control over the feuding military services and to resolve the disputes over budgets, weapons, strategic plans, and roles and mis- sions could lead only to the conclusion that the National Security Act would have to be amended to enhance the secretary's authority. He so testified before the Eberstadt Task Force of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (Hoover Commis- sion) in the fall of 1948 and reiterated this conclusion in his First Report at the end of 1948. In February 1949 the Hoover Commission recommended that the secre- tary of defense be granted full authority and accounta- bility for his department, that he have an under secretary and three assistant secretaries, and that he be empow- ered to appoint a chairman to preside over the Joint Chiefs of Staff.28
The administration reviewed proposals for changes
Organization
15
in the NME during the winter of 1948-49. President Truman sent his recommendations to Congress in a message of 5 March 1949. He asked that the NME be converted into an executive department to be known as the Department of Defense, that the secretary of defense be given "appropriate responsibility and authority," and that he be the sole representative of the department on the NSC. Other changes looked to reinforce the author- ity of the secretary of defense over the military depart- ments, the JCS, the Munitions Board, and the RDB.29
Congress responded first to the Hoover Commis- sions recommendations for an under secretary of defense, and the president signed the measure on 2 April, shortly after Louis A. Johnson succeeded Forrestal as secretary of defense. The president named Stephen T. Early to the newly-created position.30
After several months of hearings and discussions, the two houses of Congress reached agreement on amend- ments to the National Security Act, and the president signed the legislation on 10 August 1949. It was too much to expect that Congress would accept all the recom- mendations of the president or the Hoover Commission. But the changes did increase the powers of the secretary and diminish those of the military departments. The legislation created the executive Department of Defense (DoD) in place of the NME and authorized the secretary to exercise "direction, authority, and control" — not quali- fied by the adjective "general" — over the department of defense. It reduced the three subordinate departments from executive or cabinet to military departments and redesignated the under secretary of defense as deputy secretary and the three special assistants as assistant secretaries. The law did not transfer the statutory func- tions of the JCS and the two boards to the secretary, as had been recommended. The amendments provided for a chairman to preside over the Joint Chiefs,, but gave him no vote. The JCS collectively were designated prin- cipal military advisers to the president, NSC, and secre- tary of defense. The amendments prohibited the secretary from establishing a single chief of staff to command the armed forces and from creating a military staff of his own apart from the JCS. The secretaries of the military departments lost their membership in the NSC, but they retained the initiative to present recommendations to Congress after informing the secretary of defense. The military departments were to be "separately administered," and combatant functions were not to be reassigned, transferred, consolidated, or abolished.
A major feature of the amendments was the atten- tion paid to the budget function by the addition of Title IV to the National Security Act. This conferred the title of comptroller on one of the three assistant secretaries of defense and provided for uniform budgetary and
accounting procedures for the military departments. Title IV further reinforced the secretary's power over the military budget and gave him control of apportion- ment of appropriated funds within the department. This permitted him to regulate rates of obligation and expenditure by the services. Wilfred J. McNeil, special assistant to Forrestal since 1947, became comptroller and served until 1959. He played a major role in bring- ing about the enactment of Title IV and in implementing its provisions.31
It should be borne in mind that Congress is an integral part of the national security structure and exercises great powers over the defense establishment. During these postwar years Congress made significant modifications in its own structure that were certainly influenced by the fundamental change in the national military establishment and the overall organization for national security. No doubt committees also saw a need to provide more and better oversight of the armed forces, particularly of the appropriation process, if they were to carry out their constitutional responsibility.
The power of the purse has always resided in Congress; it represents its ultimate weapon in dealing with the executive branch. The enormous and urgent requirements of the war, however, had created great pressures on the legislative branch and caused it to virtually suspend its use of the power. This acute war- time experience, on top of the dramatic expansion of government during the New Deal years in the 1930s, provided the motivation Congress needed to carry out self-reform that had long been advocated or contem- plated. Not least among the spurs to action was the recognition that the greatly enlarged and more power- ful executive branch presented a challenge that the legislative branch would have to face if it hoped to fulfill its proper constitutional role.
After more than a year deliberating changes, Con- gress passed the Legislative Reorganization Act in August 1946. The act was "clearly intended to improve the lawmaking function of Congress by consolidating and centralizing legislative powers," thus permitting "party leaders ... to exercise a tighter control and more effi- ciently bring forth a cohesive legislative program." It reduced the number of standing committees from 33 to 15 in the Senate and from 48 to 19 in the House. The Military Affairs and Naval Affairs Committees of both chambers merged into Armed Services Committees — a significant change because it meant that a single committee in each chamber would have jurisdiction over all legislative measures pertaining to the common defense and the armed forces. This change anticipated the National Security Act of 1947 and the submission of a unitary budget for the whole defense establishment.
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Organization
17
The Appropriations Committees in the House and Senate did not merge their separate subcommittees for the Army and Navy until 1949, in time for the subcom- mittees to consider the first unitary budget — for fiscal year 1950 — submitted by Defense, which included the Air Force as a separate service. The change completed a congressional structure that complemented the Armed Services Committees and the Department of Defense, thus providing Congress with an overall review of the total defense budget for the first time.32
The Key West and Newport Agreements had not really settled the issue over strategic bombardment and control of nuclear weapons. The wrangling came into sharper focus as the competition for diminishing funds became more intense. After 1947, therefore, competition for the defense dollar was one of the major facts of mili- tary life in Washington.
At the heart of the differences between the Air Force and the Navy still lay the issue of strategic air power. The Air Force, having retreated from its effort to secure control of all military aviation, saw the Navy's acquisi- tion of large carrier task forces as an attempt to share the strategic air mission and thereby diminish the Air Force role. Moreover, it did not consider the carriers capable of accomplishing long-range missions. Navy strategists challenged the capabilities of the long-range bomber, particularly the new B-36, and, on occasion, the very concept of strategic bombing itself and even the effec- tiveness of the atomic bomb. The real competition was for money to purchase and employ expensive weapons, which had to be justified in terms of missions. Secretary Louis Johnson acknowledged that it was "primarily over the apportionment of funds that disagreements among the services arise."
The aggressive campaign for a large Air Force and the necessary funds, led by Secretary W Stuart Symington, created a near-siege mentality in the Navy, anxious to find weapons and missions that would permit it to remain on equal terms with the Army and Air Force. The Air Force and the Navy each sought to make its case by attacking the other.
The fight between the two services became more acute and more open after the peremptory cancellation by Secretary Johnson on 23 April 1949 of the Navy's supercarrier, the United States. A majority of the Joint Chiefs had recommended cancellation; Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Louis Denfeld had, of course, dis- sented. Construction of this ship carried with it some of the Navy's highest hopes for its future. Navy Secretary John Sullivan resigned in protest, and Navy partisans intensified their attacks on the Air Force's new B-36 bomber. Anonymous documents circulating in the press in the following months alleged that corruption
Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan
had been involved in the selection of the bomber and that it did not have the performance characteristics claimed by the Air Force. The House Committee on Armed Services investigated the B-36 corruption charges in August and after extensive hearings dismissed them as utterly without credence.
Further hearings by the committee in October 1949 examined the merits of the B-36 and strategic air operations. Uniformed Navy leaders, in airing their frustrations and fears, presented what was essentially an indictment of strategic bombing as serving no use- ful purpose and being morally wrong. The B-36 was a mistake, they argued, and the supercarrier was a neces- sary and vital weapon for the future. It was also the Navy's hope for maintenance of a large aviation capability. Within the Navy, aviators headed by Vice Adm. Arthur W Radford asserted leadership and dominated the strategy in the battle against the Air Force that came to be known as the "Revolt of the Admirals."
The Air Force case in refutation of the Navy criti- cisms convinced the majority of the committee. JCS Chairman General Omar N. Bradley pointed out that in spite of its criticism of the effectiveness of both strategic air power and the atomic bomb, the Navy had been arguing right along that it "should be permitted to use the atomic bomb, both strategically and tactically." Bradley offered his opinion that the real issue was a
18
Department of Defense 1947-1997
refusal by the Navy "in spirit as well as deed" to accept unification. An immediate outcome of the hearings was the dismissal of Admiral Denfeld, who had taken a position in direct opposition to the testimony of Secre- tary of the Navy Francis Matthews, thereby losing the confidence of the president as well.
The final committee report, which appeared on 1 March 1950, criticized all parties to the controversy but did not address the substantive issues. It did not recommend reinstatement of the supercarrier, but it deplored "the manner of cancellation." Many members of the committee condemned Denfeld's dismissal as a reprisal for his testimony. The report had little to say on the matter of roles and missions and reached no decision on the relative merits of the supercarrier and the B-36. The hearings permitted a public airing of interservice differences and perhaps thereby provided an outlet for frustration, particularly for the Navy, that might otherwise have had more explosive effects.33
Between 1947 and the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, Secretaries Forrestal and Johnson sought to provide themselves with a staff organization that could meet their increasing responsibilities. The statu- tory boards had prescribed functions. For other matters the secretaries resorted to the establishment of non- statutory agencies — a personnel policies board, a civil- ian components policy board, and an office of medical services. The Military Liaison Committee (MLC) was a statutory body, created by the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 as part of the military rather than as an agency of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The committee served as the AECs principal adviser on the military application of atomic energy. It came under the secre- tary of defense, who replaced the military chairman with a civilian in 1948.34
Although an OSD staff agency and the main connec- tion between the secretary of defense and the military services, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were in practice advisers to the president, NSC, State Department, and Congress on a wide range of national security matters. The National Security Act gave them responsibility for strategic direc- tion of the armed forces, preparation of strategic and joint logistic plans, formulation of joint training policies for the armed forces, review of major requirements, and establishment of unified commands. The 1949 amend- ments increased the Joint Staff from 100 officers to 210, drawn in approximately equal number from each ser- vice. From September 1947 to November 1949 the JCS had nine different members.35
General Bradley became chairman of the JCS in August 1949. He had limited powers in the JCS organi- zation, but he had responsibilities to the president and the secretary, and the influence he might exercise would
General Omar N. Bradley
depend on his relationship with his superiors and with his peers in the JCS.36
Both Forrestal and Johnson wanted a close rela- tionship with the JCS, but the conflicting outlooks — the secretaries seeking to further unification and broker interservice differences, and the services resisting the growth of secretarial power and disagreeing among themselves — impaired the relationship and served to diminish the power and influence of the JCS. Still, the Chiefs were an indispensable part of the national security structure because, by providing the professional military judgment, they lent greater credibility to the whole process. The dual role of the Chiefs as members of the JCS and as heads of their services placed them in an inherently awkward position when considering issues; generally, allegiance to service prevailed. A later Army chief of staff, General Maxwell D. Taylor, described the dilemma faced by chiefs in reporting to Congress:
The hearings on the defense budget are usually the most difficult for the Chiefs, as they raise inevitably the issue of their divided responsibility toward the Executive and Legislative branches of the government .... Very shortly a Chief of Staff will find himself in the position either of appearing to oppose his civilian superiors or of withholding facts from the
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20
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
Congress. Personally, I have found no way of coping with the situation other than by replying frankly to questions and letting the chips fall where they may.37
As part of the national security structure, the Defense Department functioned within a larger frame- work. Forrestal and Johnson had to play active, grow- ing, and highly visible personal roles in these external relationships, particularly with the president, NSC, and State Department. These relationships at the highest levels of government helped determine how influential Defense could be in the making of national policy and in securing its requirements. The two secretaries partici- pated actively in the work and deliberations of the NSC, but the council did not achieve the influence in policy- making that Forrestal had hoped for.38
The role of the secretary of defense in foreign affairs visibly increased as changes on the international scene increasingly involved the Defense Department. The presence of U.S. military forces in most parts of the world, especially in Germany, Japan, and Korea, the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, and the large-scale foreign military aid program moved Defense into the foreground of U.S. foreign affairs. Participation in international bodies such as NATO and direct talks with foreign governments on a variety of matters required that Defense maintain a close relationship with the State Department. The extensive range of business with State included such matters as overseas occupation duties; foreign military assistance; atomic energy issues; foreign economic affairs; export controls; regulation of armaments; and refueling, over- flight, and base rights in foreign countries. All this required an elaborate network of associations between departments in this jointly-shared area of national security policy. OSD developed a staff office for international security affairs that eventually came to be referred to as the "Little State Department." The military services also had to create substantial staffs to handle these matters.39
The National Security Resources Board, another major element of the national security structure, had the responsibility "to advise the president concerning the coordination of military, industrial, and civilian mobilization in the event of war." The board never achieved the status of an independent operating agency and became little more than an advisory staff. The Munitions Board, an established operating agency within DoD, disputed the responsibilities of the NSRB in matters concerning Defense and contributed in some measure to the NSRB's decline. The lack of an explicit mission, the indifference of the president, and the absence of a full-time chairman during much of its existence contributed to the decline and eventual
demise of the board in 1953. 40
The National Security Act had recognized the importance of the intelligence function in national security by establishing the Central Intelligence Agency. That agency, too, had growing pains but survived to play the role intended for it as the central organization for collection, collation, and analysis of intelligence. This required a close, if sometimes adversarial, relationship between Defense and the CIA, for the military services had extensive intelligence organizations that constituted a major part of the intelligence community. At the OSD level, development of a capacity to oversee the intelli- gence functions of the military services proceeded slowly. For many years, the secretary and his staff were chiefly consumers rather than policymakers or directors of intelligence.41
The coming of the Korean War in 1950 greatly relieved budget pressures on the military services, thereby permitting them to fight the war rather than each other. In Washington the issues that had been raised by unification became muted, but controversies between the services did come to the surface in Korea, chiefly over the question of control and use of the vari- ous service air elements in the theater. It was now a matter of jour services (the Marines were a service de facto by this time) contending for position, status, and recognition. The reluctance of the services to yield control of their own forces to a commander from another service has been a constant since World War II. Yielding command and control of U.S. forces to an inter- national command headed by a non-American has encountered even greater opposition from both mili- tary and political partisans.
The pressures of the Korean War discouraged the initiation of any major changes in DoD organization, but OSD made modest progress toward integration of functions in some non-controversial areas. In July 1952 legislation established in OSD the director of installa- tions with wide powers over facilities and construction activities. An early Defense agency prototype came into existence also in 1952 with the establishment of the Defense Supply Management Agency to develop and administer cataloging and standardization programs for DoD. Other functions integrated at the OSD level included technical information, parachute testing, and use of commercial transportation in the United States. Finally, of great significance for the intelligence commu- nity President Truman established in 1952 the National Security Agency, under the direction of the secretary of defense, to coordinate communications intelligence and signals security42
In response to technological development rather than any war pressure, Secretary of Defense George C.
Organization
21
Marshall acted under his own authority to appoint in October 1950 the director of guided missiles to advise the secretary in directing and coordinating the research, development, and production of guided missiles. The new office succeeded in accelerating guided missile programs of the services, but it could not put an end to interservice disputes over the potential missions of this promising new weapon.43
One other development during the war, in 1952, the result of congressional action, authorized the Com- mandant of the Marine Corps to sit with the Joint Chiefs of Staff when they considered matters pertaining to the Corps. A milestone along the path to eventual accep- tance of the Marine Corps as the fourth service and full membership of the commandant in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it was a remarkable achievement, earned by the dogged persistence and unwavering belief of its leaders in the unique qualities and contributions of the Corps.44
REORGANIZATION PLAN NO. 6 — 195345
The Eisenhower administration came into office in January 1953, before the Korean War had ended, determined to bring about further changes in DoD. The new president had criticized DoD during the election campaign in 1952 and called for greater unification. He had strong and firmly-held views on the need for greater civilian control of the military establishment. Congressional critics had pointed particularly to flaws in the organization and management of supply. In a letter to President Truman, outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett offered pragmatic and thoughtful recommendations for dealing with what he considered a defective organization. He believed that the secretary's powers over the military services and the JCS should be made more explicit and that the secretary should have a military staff in OSD to help him. He also implied that the Munitions Board and the Research and Development Board should be abolished and their functions transferred to the secretary His thoughts about the JCS revealed his dissatisfaction with the existing organization, and he suggested a number of changes designed to give the secretary greater flexibility and authority in dealing with the chiefs.46
President Eisenhower, who had been thinking along the same lines, reacted favorably to Lovett s proposals, as did the new secretary of defense, Charles E. Wilson. In February 1953 Wilson appointed a committee, of which Nelson A. Rockefeller was chairman and Lovett a member, to review DoD organization. The three major problems addressed by the committee were the same ones discussed in 1949: (1) the powers of the secretary; (2) the inflexible board structure; and (3) the functions
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff organization. A strong con- sensus emerged for clarifying the authority of the secre- tary of defense over all elements of DoD. As for the boards, their difficulties in functioning effectively made it a foregone conclusion that they would have to go. But the JCS problem was different; there was much dissatis- faction with their performance, but also recognition that opposition to radical adjustments would be strong. The major change placed the service secretaries in the chain of command to the unified commands in order to resolve the awkward situation by which the service secretary, who had administrative responsibilities, could be bypassed in such matters by his subordinate military chief in deal- ing with a unified command. Problems of this nature had arisen and revealed the ambiguity of the arrangement.4'
After receiving the committee's report, derived largely from the extensive testimony of former officials, civilian and military, Eisenhower acted promptly in sub- mitting to Congress on 30 April a message on reorgani- zation of DoD, along with Reorganization Plan No. 6. He had sounded out congressional sentiment and found that a reorganization plan would be the most expedi- tious way to bring about change and that the proposed plan would be acceptable.48
Congress accepted Reorganization Plan No. 6, and it became effective on 30 June 1953. The plan abolished the Research and Development Board, Munitions Board, Defense Supply Management Agency and Office of the Director of Installations and invested their functions in the secretary of defense. It provided for nine assistant secretaries of defense instead of three and made the OSD general counsel a statutory position. It gave the secretary authority to prescribe the functions of the new positions as well as those of any other Defense agency or employee. To reinforce the secretary's authority, the president noti- fied Congress in his message that "no function in any part of the Department of Defense, or in any of its com- ponent agencies, should be performed independent of the direction, authority, and control of the Secretary of Defense." This was considered necessary because of chal- lenges to the authority of the secretary of defense by service secretaries and the Joint Chiefs, who claimed to have statutory authority for some of their functions outside the secretary's jurisdiction. The plan conferred on the JCS chairman management of the Joint Staff and approval of selection of its members, but it still did not accord him a vote in the JCS. The secretary of defense received approval authority for appointment of the Joint Staff director, a key position.49
Eisenhower notified Congress of his intention to make two additional significant changes. The Ke Agreement would be revised to designate military depart ment secretaries rather than service chiefs as executive
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Organization 23
agents for unified commands, thus eliminating the authority of the Joint Chiefs to name one of their own number as an executive agent, and placing the service secretaries in the chain of command. The second change gave civilian officials responsibility for writing the effi- ciency reports of military assigned to OSD. These adjust- ments represented significant steps toward Eisenhower's goal of enhancing civil authority over the military, especially the concentration of more power in the secretary of defense.50
1958 REORGANIZATION ACT
The 1953 reorganization represented only a small part of the change that Eisenhower wanted to make in DoD; it was a quick fix. In the years that followed, the president made clear his continuing dissatisfaction with Defense and his intention to seek further changes.51
Others also called for reorganization of the depart- ment. In 1955 the Hoover Commission recommended changes in DoD to improve economy and efficiency, but only a few adjustments followed, notably the merger of the assistant secretaries for research and development and for applications engineering and the establishment of the Defense Science Board. In 1956 Congress com- pleted a task begun in 1948 — codifying all laws relating to the military establishment under Titles 10 and 32, United States Code.
Eisenhower continued to express his desire for changes in DoD, and particularly in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who, he said, could not develop "corporate judg- ment" on major problems. In May 1956 he spoke of seeking a reorganization of Defense in the coming year, particularly to strengthen the positions of the secretary of defense and the JCS chairman. Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, on the other hand, did not see a need for fundamental changes.
Friction between the services also irritated Eisenhower and confirmed his view of the need for more control over them. The rapid progress in guided missile development had created fierce competition between the services. Dis- putes between the Army and the Air Force intensified as competing missiles approached the testing and deploy- ment stages. By agreement in 1954 the Army received responsibility for surface-to-air missiles with a range less than 50 miles; the Air Force, for such missiles with longer ranges. The Army could develop and use surface- to-surface missiles within the zone of Army combat operations. The Air Force had sole responsibility for those of intercontinental range — 5,000 miles or more.
Surface-to-surface ballistic missiles for intermedi- ate-range use (IRBMs) became a problem in 1955 when development of 1,500-mile-range missiles accelerated
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
greatly. In 1956 the Army and Air Force fought in public the usual battle over turf, and OSD, the service secretar- ies, and JCS engaged in the usual protracted discussions, negotiations, and studies. Secretary Wilson issued a memorandum on 26 November 1956 that addressed a number of roles and missions issues. Although current statements of roles and missions did not require changes, new weapons and strategic concepts created a need for "clarification and clearer interpretation." The memoran- dum announced decisions on missile development and use and on Army aviation.52
Although Wilson intended that his memorandum dispose of the issues over missiles and aviation, sharp differences between the Army and the Air Force over their respective responsibilities for tactical air support of the Army persisted. On occasion in the past they had been able to reach agreement on the subject themselves, but this time it became necessary for Wilson to step in again. He issued on 18 March 1957 DoD Directive 5160.22, "Clarification of Roles and Missions of the Army and the Air Force Regarding Use of Aircraft," which superseded previous agreements and directives. Once again, it placed limitations on Army aviation.33
The question of Defense organization became a major public issue in October 1957. 54 The Soviet Sputnik shocked the nation and ignited a firestorm of criticism and argument about technology, budgets, and DoD.
24
Department of Defense 1947-1997
These developments presented the president with both the need and the opportunity to take action. On 1 1 October he asked his new secretary of defense, Neil H. McElroy, to examine the Defense structure with a view to making changes. In discussions with his civilian and military advisers, the president continued to press for reorganization of DoD. The Bureau of the Budget (BoB) offered proposals for reorganization as did the presi- dent's Security Resources Panel (Gaither* Committee) that was considering broader questions. The director of BoB and the chairman of the President's Committee on Government Organization, Nelson A. Rockefeller, urged the president in November to send a reorgani- zation proposal to Congress early in 1958. McElroy accepted their suggestion to set up a study group to examine the subject.
The Senate Preparedness Subcommittee inquired into matters of organization in hearings held in Novem- ber and December 1957. Testimony from DoD officials, including the Joint Chiefs, did not reveal any firm views except for opposition by Secretary of the Navy Thomas S. Gates and Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh A. Burke to further centralization. The subcommittees conclusions, released in January 1958, included a general recommen- dation for reorganization but offered no particulars.
Early in the congressional session in 1958 it became evident that much sentiment for Defense reorganization existed, particularly more centralized control at the top for military research and development. A number of bills to this end were introduced. McElroy had already taken steps in this direction, establishing the position of director of guided missiles* on 15 November 1957 and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) on 7 February 1958. ARPA was to handle selected space projects as well as other advanced projects assigned to the secretary. Most space projects passed to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), created later in the year.
In Congress members partial to the Navy opposed centralization. Admiral Burke in a public speech de- nounced "public pressures toward centralization and authoritarianism in defense" and defended the JCS. The battle of public opinion was waged in newspapers and journals through surrogates of the services, chiefly of the Navy and Air Force.
Eisenhower moved to the forefront of the battle in his State of the Union address on 9 January 1958 when he listed Defense reorganization as the first of a number of matters on which action was "imperative." He set forth the objectives to be accomplished: "real unity" in
* H. Rowan Gaither was chairman of the panel.
t The position of the same name established in 1951 went out of existence in 1953.
military activities; clear subordination of the military to civilian authority; better integration of resources; sim- plification of scientific and industrial effort; and an end to interservice arguments.
Under pressure to follow the president's lead, McElroy announced the appointment on 2 1 January of an advisory group of civilians and military leaders to develop a reor- ganization plan. He appointed Charles A. Coolidge, a former assistant secretary of defense, as his special assis- tant to work with the panel. There followed a period of two months of intensive activity in which the president, members of the White House staff, McElroy and other DoD officials, and representatives of BoB participated in discussions with the advisory group. The group sought the views of some 60 outsiders in person or in writing. These included all former secretaries and deputy secre- taries of defense, former JCS members, former service secretaries, former unified commanders, military "elder statesmen," prominent members of Congress, and business executives.
While the Coolidge panel worked, two committees in the House of Representatives held hearings in January and February that related to Defense organization. In both houses influential members introduced bills that would have diminished OSD while enhancing the status of the JCS. These were direct challenges to the admini- stration's position. Both bills gave way eventually to the legislation proposed by the administration in April, by which time sentiment favorable to the president's views had emerged.
The Coolidge panel, very much in accord with Eisenhower's outlook, took strong positions on central- ization in a series of drafts of the proposed legislation. McElroy agreed with them on the main lines of thought: increased power for the secretary of defense; a stronger JCS chairman with more control over the Joint Staff; elimination of executive agents from the chain of com- mand; designation of the JCS as the secretary's military staff; and an enlarged and integrated Joint Staff. The panel opposed the creation of a single service. Although it favored downgrading the service secretaries to deputy or under secretaries of defense, it understood that such a move would arouse much resistance from the services and Congress. Research and development needed to be centralized to achieve maximum results from resources. The matter of appropriations — how to give the secre- tary more flexibility in handling funds — also had to be carefully presented to Congress, always jealous of its appropriations prerogatives. Something had to be done to make the JCS organization more responsive and effective, but it was difficult to make a choice among possible alternatives. Finally, there was no need for
Organization
25
change in the unified commands except to ensure that the commanders had full operational control over all of their assigned forces.
Some of these issues the president intended to resolve through executive action as he had in 1953. He drafted a message to Congress that would set forth the objective of the proposed changes and methods of attaining them. Objections from the service secretaries brought about changes pertaining to the breadth of the legal authority of the secretary of defense and the authority to be given the assistant secretaries to issue instructions to the services. The revised draft that went back to the White House underwent a complete rewrite there without much change of substance. At a meeting between the president and legislative leaders on 1 April, McElroy and Coolidge described their proposals, which encountered no strong objections.
Eisenhower sent the message to Congress on 3 April 1958. In forceful language he affirmed the principles on which his recommendations rested.
First, separate ground, sea and air warfare is gone forever. If ever again we should be involved in war, we will fight it in all elements, with all services, as one single concentrated effort. Peacetime preparatory and organizational activity must conform to this fact. Strategic and tactical planning must be completely unified, combat forces organized into unified commands, each equipped with the most efficient weapons systems that science can develop, singly led and pre- pared to fight as one, regardless of service. The accomplishment of this result is the basic function of the Secretary of Defense, advised and assisted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and operating under the supervision of the Commander-in-Chief.
Additionally, Secretary of Defense authority, especially in respect to the development of new weapons, must be clear and direct, and flexible in the man- agement of funds. Prompt decisions and elimination of wasteful activity must be primary goals.
He then put forward six broad objectives, with prescriptions for action on each one, as follows:
1 . We must organize our fighting forces into operational commands that are truly unified, each assigned a mission in full accord with our over-all military objectives.
2. We must clear command channels so that orders will proceed directly to unified com- mands from the Commander-in-Chief and Secretary of Defense.
3. We must strengthen the military staff in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in order to provide the Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of Defense with the pro- fessional assistance they need for strategic planning and for operational direction of the unified commands.
4. We must continue the three military depart- ments as agencies within the Department of Defense to administer a wide range of functions.
5. We must reorganize the research and develop- ment function of the Department in order to make the best use of our scientific and tech- nological resources.
6. We must remove all doubts as to the full authority of the Secretary of Defense.
Eisenhowers proposals for carrying out these aims all pointed toward greater centralization and control from the top. The unified commanders would have full authority over their commands; executive agents would be eliminated from command channels; the JCS would serve as the secretary's staff in exercising direction of the unified commands and would perform no duties independent of the secretary's direction; the Joint Staff would have to be larger and stronger; the chiefs of ser- vices should be authorized to delegate a "major portion" of their service responsibilities in order to spend more time on their JCS duties; the secretary of defense should have "complete and unchallengeable" control over research and development, with the assistance of a director of research and development; the secretary of defense should have "adequate authority and flexibility" in handling funds, and authority to transfer, reassign, abolish, or consolidate functions of departments; the president would henceforth consider for nomination to the two highest ranks only those recommended by the JCS, and he proposed that the secretary have the authority to transfer officers between services.
Congressional reaction was mixed, much of it nega- tive. Criticism centered on command arrangements, the status of the service secretaries, and how appropriations might be handled. Supporters of the services took pre- dictable positions — Army and Air Force in favor and Navy and Marine Corps against. To allay Navy fears and make certain of their support, the president met with Navy Secretary Gates and Admiral Burke, who accepted most of the proposals but expressed their concern about
26
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
attitudes of others in the Navy, and particularly among the Marines, who were described as "emotional."
After at least seven drafts, the president settled several points at issue and sent the bill to Congress on 16 April, accompanied by a letter to Speaker Sam Rayburn. Eisenhower pointed out that the bill did not mention changes in appropriations of funds; the flexi- bility he desired in use of the funds could be met by changes in the 1960 budget format.
At a press conference the same day Eisenhower spoke to the subject of military officers who did not publicly support the bill. He drew a distinction between public speeches and congressional testimony. In keeping with established procedures, officers had an "absolute duty" to express real convictions in congressional testi- mony, but they were not entitled to give public speeches that amounted to "propagandizing." This was a matter of great concern to Eisenhower. He was infuriated, and would continue to be, by high-ranking officers who took or appeared to be taking issue with policy established by the president and the secretary of defense. Indeed, a year later he seriously contemplated dismissing a chief of staff and the commander of a specified command who took public positions of which he disapproved.* His commitment to civilian control over the military was consistently absolute during his presidency He was fully aware, of course, that there would be a congressional and public debate over the proposed legislation and that Congress would undoubtedly make changes in it.
In Congress some members voiced the usual cliches in opposition to centralization of authority in Defense. Rep. Carl Vinson, chairman of the House Armed Ser- vices Committee, attacked the bill as tending toward a "Prussian-type supreme command" and called it an "open invitation to the concept of the man-on-horse- back." Eisenhower joined the issue immediately, point- ing out that there was general ignorance of what the "Prussian general staff really had been. The White House and OSD orchestrated a campaign to enlist the support of veterans, business, and other influential groups.
Congressional consideration of the bill consumed more than three months. The issues that emerged during early committee hearings centered on how much power the secretary needed, the rights of the service secretar- ies, and the JCS and the chain of command. The specter of a "Prussian general staff" arose again and had to be exorcised, this time by JCS Chairman General Nathan F. Twining, who explained that it was more myth than fact. As was predictable, the members of the JCS failed to agree on the bill. Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell
* Air Force Chief of Staff General Thomas D. White and SAC Commander General Thomas S. Power. A specified command was composed of forces from a single service only.
D. Taylor and Air Force Chief of Staff General Thomas D. White supported the measure. Admiral Burke endorsed the objectives but had reservations about the language. Marine Corps Commandant General Randolph McC. Pate saw no need for some of the provisions and expressed fears for the future of the Corps if the secretary had power to transfer or abolish functions of the services.
After hearing testimony from OSD civilian officials, the House Armed Services Committee drafted legislation that made changes in the bill submitted by the adminis- tration. These were intended to place some limitation on the secretary's powers in relation to the military depart- ments and the functions of the services. The bill also retained the right of service secretaries and JCS mem- bers to appeal to Congress after first informing the secretary of defense. It limited the Joint Staff to 400 officers and forbade it to organize as an armed forces general staff or to exercise executive authority.
Eisenhower accepted the House bill with two crucial exceptions. He did not want the secretary of defense to have to exercise control through the depart- mental secretaries, and he opposed limitations on the authority to transfer functions. Moreover, he did not want the service heads to have the right of appeal to Congress. The House committee did not accept the presidents proposed amendments and reported out their bill on 22 May. It affirmed congressional respon- sibility for the armed forces stating that Congress would not "abdicate or renounce its constitutional responsibilities relating to the national security."
Friends and opponents of the legislation lobbied vigorously with a wide array of constituencies. The Association of the United States Army and the Air Force Association supported the president, while the Navy League opposed, and retired Marine Corps Comman- dant General Clifton B. Cates urged a fight against the entire plan. The bill passed the House on 12 June by a vote of 402 to 1, after efforts to amend it as the presi- dent wished had failed. One significant amendment was added. This authorized the secretary of defense to establish common supply activities — the single-manager system.
In the Senate, as in the House, leading senators asserted forcefully the constitutional authority of Con- gress over defense matters. In the hearings that followed, McElroy and other OSD officials sought to have the House bill revised to accommodate the president's con- cerns. After further testimony from witnesses on both sides of issues, the Senate Armed Services Committee reported a bill with some changes from the House bill. The most important gave either house of Congress a period of time to negate transfers in service functions proposed by the secretary of defense. Other changes
Organization
27
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gave the right of appeal to JCS members but not to service secretaries, and accorded the National Guard a statutory basis.
The House-Senate conference committee presented on 23 July a bill almost identical to the Senate bill except that it gave the service secretaries the right of appeal to Congress. The president announced his acceptance of the measure, and it passed both houses on 23 July without change. Eisenhower signed it on 6 August.55
The Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 gave the president most of what he had asked for, moving further in the direction of centralization and unification. What emerged from the long process of executive and legisla- tive deliberation and negotiation were the following provisions: strengthening the authority of the secretary of defense, including greater control over the service departments; elevating the status of JCS chairman and eliminating the prohibition on his having a vote in JCS decisions; almost doubling the size of the Joint Staff; prescribing the establishment of unified and specified commands by the president; stipulating the number of assistant secretaries; and creating the position of director of defense research and engineering. The president had lost on two matters on which he held strong feelings — the right of appeal by service secretaries and JCS mem- bers to Congress and the procedure for transferring military functions. It now remained to implement the terms of the act.
Even prior to the passage of the act Secretary McElroy had made many of the changes that the president had indicated in his message to Congress. He directed that promotion to general and lieutenant general be at the recommendation of the secretary of defense rather than the service secretaries and that completion of a tour of duty with a joint or interallied staff be required for pro- motions beyond the rank of colonel (or Navy captain). Changes within OSD focused on the abolition of depart- mental committees, a recurring exercise; eventually 199 of some 300 DoD committees were dissolved.
JCS internal organization changes began in April also, calling for restructuring the Joint Staff along con- ventional lines, with directorates — J-l through J-6 — replacing existing groups or committees. A new J-3 (operations) responded to new JCS responsibilities deriving from the abolition of the executive agent sys- tem. Admiral Burke and General Pate opposed this plan as converting the Joint Staff into the kind of supreme general staff they feared, but they came around after the new act provided for the Joint Staff to operate as a conventional staff. The Joint Chiefs approved the change and it went into effect on 15 August. Subsequently the JCS took over staff direction of the unified and specified commands from the departmental executive agents, leaving the departments to provide administrative and logistical support for the commands. The Unified Com- mand Plan was rewritten to instruct the commander to communicate directly with the JCS on strategic and logistic planning matters, direction of forces, and conduct of combat operations.
The president had made it clear that he expected the service chiefs to delegate some of their service responsi- bilities to their deputies as authorized by the law. Burke led the way on 28 July, and Taylor and White followed suit soon after.
The act stipulated that commanders of unified and specified commands would have "full operational com- mand" of forces assigned to them. The House committee included a definition of the term in its report but not in the legislation. In January 1959 McElroy asked the JCS to formulate a definition. The Chiefs submitted a defini- tion close to the House report version: "Those functions of command over assigned forces involving the composi- tion of subordinate forces, the assignment of tasks, the designation of objectives, the over-all control of assigned resources, and the full authoritative direction necessary to accomplish the mission." The president approved this definition on 30 January. Over the years this term — full operational command — as rendered by the JCS, grew by accretions that tended to refine the meaning, and eventually other terms, most recently "combatant command," replaced it.
28
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
The new act made it necessary to revise the basic directives — 5100.1 and 5158.1 — that provided general guidance for the military establishment. Issued in 1953 and 1954, respectively by Secretary Wilson, they set forth the functions of the armed forces and the JCS and pre- scribed modes of operation for the JCS and their relation- ship with OSD staff agencies. Bringing these directives into conformance with the 1958 Reorganization Act proved difficult and time-consuming because of the need for precise language that would gain consensus of the interested parties, particularly the JCS and the services, which sought to retain as much initiative as possible and to achieve as much freedom as possible from OSD authority.
Most of the matters at issue pertained to the relation- ship of the JCS to OSD, particularly whether the JCS was part of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The JCS made clear that they did not see themselves as a staff element of OSD. Moreover, they wanted "directives and requests" to the JCS from OSD assistant secretaries to be approved by the secretary or deputy secretary of defense. They made clear to the president that they did not want to be under the direction of assistant secretaries of defense. Up to this time the JCS had been included in OSD, and the question then became whether they should be removed from OSD, which had no statutory existence at this time and was therefore only what the secretary said it was. It was understood that the secretary had the legal power to place the JCS within OSD. Although the president and OSD officials strongly favored retaining the JCS as a part of OSD, Eisenhower accepted a compromise offered by the Joint Chiefs. This scheme placed the JCS under the secretary of defense as a separate entity from OSD and affirmed their separate access to the president. Eisenhower insisted that the direct responsibility of the JCS to the secretary under this arrangement should be clear and that the need for close coordination between OSD and the JCS be distinctly recognized.
After receiving White House approval, McElroy issued the two implementing directives — 5100.1 (functions) and 5158.1 (JCS organization and rela- tionships)— on 31 December 1958. These directives established the broad structural framework in accor- dance with the Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 and the presidents order. Directive 5100.1 stated expli- citly that "the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, though separately identified and organized, function in full coordination and cooperation in accordance with . . . [DoD Directive 5158.1]." Moreover, "the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, as a group, are directly responsible to the Secretary of Defense for the functions assigned to them." The mili- tary departments, "separately organized," were to "function under the direction, authority, and control" of the secre- tary of defense. Orders to the military departments would come through the department secretaries from the secretary of defense or from authority delegated in writing by the secretary of defense. The chain of com- mand was to run from the president to the secretary of defense and through the Joint Chiefs to the unified commanders. The commanders would have full opera- tional command over the forces assigned to them.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Staff con- stituted the immediate military staff of the secretary of defense. The JCS were the principal military advisers to the president, the NSC, and the secretary of defense. Directive 5100.1 spelled out the functions of the JCS and of the military departments and the military ser- vices. Directive 5158.1 specified that "the duties of the chiefs of the military services as members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shall take precedence over all of their other duties" and that they should delegate service duties to their vice chiefs. It enjoined the JCS to main- tain full and effective cooperation with OSD. The direc- tive resolved the sticky question of issuing orders to the JCS by requiring that "responsible officers" of OSD have specifically delegated authority from the secretary of defense. The authority of the JCS chairman was mar- ginally enhanced; he received responsibility for organ- izing and managing the Joint Staff and appointing the director of the Joint Staff with the approval of the secretary of defense.
Drafting of the charters, issued as DoD directives, of the seven assistant secretaries,* the director of defense research and engineering, and the general counsel, also occasioned differences between OSD and the JCS and the military departments. All parties, jealous of their prerogatives and anxious to obtain as much authority as possible, engaged in disputes over language in certain charters — particularly that for the Office of International Security Affairs (ISA). Such words as "establish," "supervise," "monitor," "coordi- nate," and "develop" became bones of contention between opposing parties. Mutually satisfactory lan- guage concerning the responsibilities of ISA and the JCS for the military assistance program came only after more than two months of debate.
A charter for the new Office of Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) had to await the appointment of the new director, Herbert E York, on 24 December 1958. DDR&E would supervise all research and engineering activities in DoD, including programs
* There were eight assistant secretaries when the 1958 act was passed.
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30
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
to meet military requirements, assignment of responsi- bility for developing weapons, and centralized manage- ment of research activities as directed by the secretary of defense. Challenges to the charter by the services were minimal, and it was issued on 10 February 1959. It abolished the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Engineering and transferred its functions and personnel to DDR&E.
The reorganization required expansion of the com- bined personnel strength of OSD and JCS from 2,176 on 30 September 1957 to 2,773 as of 30 June 1959. The increase derived largely from the growth of the Joint Staff and its support personnel and the establishment of DDR&E on a larger scale than its predecessor organization.
President Eisenhower was clearly the driving force behind the 1958 reorganization. He achieved a substan- tial measure of success in getting much of the change that he had proposed. To his role as chief executive and commander in chief he added the most impressive credentials of military experience. He paid especially close attention to Defense problems and expressed his views vehemently Still, Congress had the last say on the legislation and refused to give the president some of the important changes that he had asked for, especially by limiting the power of the secretary of defense to trans- fer functions and requiring the secretary to exercise con- trol through the departmental secretaries. On these issues, Congress responded to the concerns of the services and their supporters and would not yield. It would be almost three decades before these and other reorganization matters would be revisited in Congress.
It fell to Thomas S. Gates, Jr., who succeeded McElroy as secretary of defense in December 1959, to take fur- ther constructive actions that affected DoD organization and operations. Gates thought the 1958 law had been beneficial, he saw no need for further statutory changes until the reorganization had been "thoroughly digested," and he believed that "the Secretary of Defense has great power and the administrative ability to do a great many things." Accordingly he used his authority to further implement the Defense Reorganization Act of 1958. Like Forrestal, his Navy-colored perspective on DoD changed strikingly once he became secretary of defense.56
On the same day he took office, 2 December 1959, Gates directed that all line officers would have to serve a tour of duty with a joint, combined, or OSD staff before they could be considered for promotion to general or flag officer rank. Gates initiated the practice of sitting often with the Joint Chiefs in order to reach more timely decisions. This went beyond the practice of previous secretaries, who had attended JCS meetings only occa- sionally. Indeed, Gates or his deputy, James H. Douglas, did make final decisions on a number of important
issues at these meetings.57
Two JCS "splits" were of particular importance and difficulty. They involved the related matters of control of the Polaris submarine forces and unified control of strategic targeting — the salient issues in the continuing struggle between the Air Force and Navy over strategic air operations. The Polaris missile submarine introduced a new dimension of strategic operations and gave the Navy promise of a major role in such operations. The Air Force viewed the new development as a threat to its primacy in planning, targeting, and directing strategic air operations. It pushed for centralized control of all strategic air assets, including the Polaris submarines.58
Coordinating strategic targeting to permit the most efficient and effective use of nuclear weapons caused a running dispute between the services as the number of targets and the number of commands increased. Target- ing was, of course, intimately related to the conflicting strategies adhered to by the services — the Air Force's maximum deterrent force vs. the minimum deterrent advocated by the Army and Navy. The advent of the Navy's Polaris as a strategic deterrent weapon in compe- tition with strategic bombers intensified the debate over deterrent strategy. The Joint Chiefs split on the issue. The Air Force proposed a "Unified Strategic Command" with two components — Air Force land-based weapons and the Navy's Polaris force. The Navy objected and wanted Polaris placed under unified commanders with naval forces.
The central questions were development of target lists, a single operational plan, and control of the strik- ing forces. Burke opposed an overall strategic force command and a single operational plan, insisting that strategic targeting should be a JCS responsibility. The differences between the Chiefs during 1959-60 over whether targeting should emphasize urban/industrial or military targets delayed the preparation of the annual short-term and mid-term strategic plans.
Eisenhower and Gates agreed on the need to have a mixed force that could attack and destroy both military and urban/industrial targets. For two months, from May to July 1960, Gates met repeatedly with the Joint Chiefs in a vain effort to secure agreement on strategic target- ing. In a meeting with the president on 6 July he pro- posed that the Strategic Air Command (SAC) have responsibility for strategic targeting and for preparation of a single operational plan, acting as the agent of JCS, and that its staff for this purpose be augmented by the other services. Eisenhower fully supported Gates's recom- mendations. Fearing a leak, Gates held the decision closely and presented his draft directive to the JCS on 10 August. He later recalled that "the Navy wouldn't agree on it. The others agreed."
Organization
31
The directive established a National Strategic Target List (NSTL) and a Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) to be prepared under the direction of the commander in chief of SAC, who, for this function, was designated director of strategic target planning (DSTP). Directly responsible to the JCS, he would have no command authority and would have a deputy from another ser- vice and a staff drawn from all the services.
At a meeting the next day with the president, attended by Gates, Douglas, and Twining, Burke expressed strenu- ous opposition to the directive. He accepted integrated target planning but adamantly disputed the desirability of a single operational plan. The president rejected Burke's arguments and approved Gates's recommendation.
Burke later told Gates that he did not agree "one damn bit" with the decision but that he would support it. Gates thought that the new procedure would per- mit the JCS to bring SAC, a specified command, more firmly under control. The deputy DSTP would, of course, come from the Navy. The secretary issued the implementing directive on 16 August, and the JCS approved the organization of the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff with the commander in chief of SAC as the director.
Although the services and some of the unified commanders continued to voice disagreements over procedures and the substance of the target list and the SIOP, the JCS approved both in December 1960. This marked an important advance in the direction of cen- tralized control over a crucial element of the military establishment. As Robert J. Watson has observed, "From a practical standpoint, the coalescence of separate plans into a single document, subject to periodic review by the secretary of defense, greatly simplified the secretary's task in directly influencing strategy, a fact that Gates's successors were to exploit to advantage."59
The 1958 act prompted other moves toward con- solidation of DoD-wide functions in the form of Defense agencies. The first of these, the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA), was the successor to the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP), which had been in existence since 1947 and responsible to the service chiefs. Its mission was to provide atomic weapon tech- nical, logistical, and training services to the armed forces and to oversee DoD participation in AEC tests of nuclear weapons. The JCS wanted to retain control of the func- tion, but Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald A. Quarles established DASA at the secretarial level on 1 May 1959 with a broad mission encompassing all of DoD. The existence of DASA may have lent weight to Gates's arguments in 1960 for greater coordination of strate- gic targeting and planning.60
The high cost and the steadily growing size and
Admiral Arleigh A. Burke
number of communications networks invited attention to them as objects for consolidation. Pressures came from the White House and Congress. The JCS proposed to combine long-haul facilities under their control. The services could not agree on the management of a joint military communications network, and Gates decided on an agency directly responsible to the secretary of defense. He established the Defense Communications Agency (DCA) on 12 May 1960 to supervise and con- trol the worldwide Defense Communications System. He assuaged the Joint Chiefs by prescribing that the DCA would report to him through the JCS.
The matter of better integration of intelligence func- tions received serious study during the last year of the Eisenhower administration. The JCS and an interagency group headed by a CIA representative prepared reports reviewing requirements and recommending changes, but they came too late in the day for the administration to act on them. It remained for the next secretary, Robert S. McNamara, to complete the work begun by Gates.61
THE MCNAMARA YEARS
National security and the performance of the Defense Department became major issues in the presidential elec- tion of 1960 between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. During the campaign, on 14 September, Kennedy appointed a committee of six civilians headed by Sen.
32
Department of Defense 1947-1997
W. Stuart Symington, who had been secretary of the Air Force under Truman, to study the administration and management of the Department of Defense and to make recommendations for change. The report, presented on 5 December, proposed a radical reorganization of the military establishment. It asserted that the Department of Defense was "still patterned primarily on a design conceived in the light of lessons learned in World War II, which are now largely obsolete." The major recom- mendations of the committee entailed changes far greater than any given consideration before or after. In addition to centralizing full powers in OSD, it provided for all appropriations to be made to OSD rather than to the mil- itary services. It abolished the separate military depart- ments but retained the military services with chiefs reporting directly to the secretary of defense. The Joint Chiefs of Staff would be superseded by a military advisory council chosen from retired senior officers and presided over by a chairman of the joint military staff who would be the principal military adviser to the president and the secretary of defense. Military forces would be placed under four unified commands — strategic, tactical, con- tinental defense, and reserve and civil defense. The com- mittee also wanted to abolish all of the assistant secretaries of defense and concentrate OSD functions in two under secretary positions, for administration and for weapon systems. Perhaps in response to hopes for arms control raised during the Eisenhower administration, Symington added a special assistant to the secretary of defense for arms control, declaring hopefully that it might be "the most important job in government in the coming years with the exception of the presidency."62
Harsh criticism of and resistance to the plan was predictable. Too many powerful constituencies faced being abolished or diminished by the changes; they would not tolerate the notion. There was little support from Con- gress, which could not be expected to allow loosening of the purse strings on behalf of the secretary of defense. The president-elect said only that he would take the Symington committee recommendations under advise- ment and never moved beyond that neutral position.
The new secretary of defense, Robert S. McNamara, early decided that he had enough power under the 1958 act to make changes in DoD and moved quickly in the direction of further centralization of functions without reference to the Symington committee recommendations, other than to mention the need to study them more closely. He explained his approach some years later: "It seemed to me, when I took office . . . that the principal problem standing in the way of efficient management of the Department's resources was not lack of management authority — the National Security Act provides the Secre- tary of Defense a full measure of power — but rather the
absence of the management tools needed to make sound decisions on the really crucial issues of national security"63
McNamaras organizational and functional innova- tions began even before the Kennedy administration took office. At a meeting with his future team of top DoD officials, McNamara told them that he wanted to "integrate the Service Secretaries into the Defense operation as an arm of the Secretary of Defense rather than have the Service Secretaries function only as an advocate of their own military Department."64 The role of the service secretaries had become more ambiguous after the 1949 amendments to the National Security Act and the reorganizations of the 1950s further diminished their stature in the military establishment. McNamaras desire to attach them more firmly to the secretary of defense placed them in an even more awkward position in relation to their military services than they already found themselves. It may not have been coincidental that no less than 10 service secretaries held office under McNamara. Some of them plainly felt that their free- dom of action had been unduly curtailed and that their relationship with their military subordinates was being compromised. Still, much depended on the individual secretary's force of character and personality; some fared better than others.
At the very beginning of his tenure McNamara directed his general counsel, Cyrus Vance, to review exist- ing practices and plan necessary changes. On 8 March he asked Vance to "review the activities of the total mili- tary establishment and identify those operations which can be organized to serve all services," and to "under- take a comprehensive study of alternative long-range organizational structures for DoD."65 The changes that resulted from the recommendations of these studies served notice of the continuing and accelerated drive towards greater centralization of the Department of Defense — an inherent tendency present from the begin- ning that generally encountered opposition from the military services.
In his search for consolidation or unification of functions, McNamara pursued a course already set by his predecessor, Thomas Gates — establishment of DoD agencies.66 In August 1961 McNamara established the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which began func- tioning on 1 October. The groundwork for this agency had been prepared by Gates the previous year when he initiated studies looking toward consolidation of the DoD intelligence functions. No doubt the Bay of Pigs fiasco early in 1961 hastened the creation of DIA and enabled OSD to counter objections on the usual grounds by the services and Congress. Although McNamara's order transferred most of the military service intelli- gence resources to the new agency, all of the services
Organization
33
retained intelligence organizations of considerable size, presumably to carry out missions peculiar to the individual service and more of a tactical than a strategic nature.
The supply function offered a natural target for consolidators seeking cost reductions and more effi- cient field operations. The common supply elements of the military services — petroleum, automotive, clothing textiles, and medical — together added up to a large per- centage of DoD expenditures. McNamara established the Defense Supply Agency in August 1961; when it became operational on 1 January 1962, it also took over responsibility for the Armed Forces Supply Sup- port Center, the Military Management Agency, and the Consolidated Surplus Sales Offices.
Still another agency, activated by McNamara in March 1961, the Defense Communications Agency (DCA), had been established by Secretary Gates the previous year.67 McNamara in June 1965 established the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) with the mission of lowering operating costs for DoD and its contractors by providing consistent advice to contrac- tors, instituting uniform procedures, and exercising close contract supervision. DCAA became the seventh Defense agency, joining the National Security Agency (1952), Advanced Research Projects Agency (1958), Defense Atomic Support Agency (1959), Defense Communications Agency and the two other agen- cies established in 1961 by McNamara.68
By the late 1950s military space research and development had become a bone of contention between the military services. They all had space-related systems under development and viewed space operations as integral to their future missions. Although the estab- lishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Admini- stration (NASA) in 1958 had circumscribed the military authority for space research, the military role remained a large and active one, and collaboration between the civilian and military space programs was imperative.
President Kennedy asked the secretary of defense to examine the military role in space and the military space budget. Acting speedily, McNamara issued DoD Direc- tive 5160.32 on 6 March 1961, giving the Air Force, which already had 90 percent of all military space fund- ing, responsibility for space development programs or projects. While the directive gave the Air Force a large measure of authority over the military space program, OSD would still retain overall control through the powers accorded the director of defense research and engineering. Quick to follow up on this directive, the Air Force reorganized its research and logistical organi- zation, consolidating all research, development, and procurement of space and aircraft weapon systems under
a new command — the Air Force Systems Command.
McNamara s decision dismayed the other services, particularly the Army, which had a flourishing missile and space program. The Army feared the loss or reduc- tion of its missile and space programs and found it dif- ficult to accept the change in spite of Air Force efforts to reassure the other services that it would meet their requirements. Army and Navy officers spoke against the directive in hearings before the House Space Committee, but OSD prevailed.
A function unsought by McNamara and OSD and regarded with disinterest by the JCS was thrust upon them when President Kennedy ordered DoD to assume responsibility for civil defense in July 1961. Worsening relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, further affected by the growing ICBM threat and the crisis over Berlin, had revived governmental and public concern about civil defense. In September McNamara appointed an assistant secretary for the new function, and extensive plans and programs were developed. As the problems and costs of proposed programs under- went close scrutiny in Congress and elsewhere and public concern abated, the civil defense function diminished rapidly in scale and status. In 1964 the Office of Civil Defense was transferred to the Department of the Army where it existed on a much smaller scale and with much less visibility.69
To accommodate the need to create the position of assistant secretary of defense for civil defense and to lend more stature to the position of deputy director of research and engineering by also designating him as an assistant secretary, OSD merged four assistant secretary positions into two in 1961. It combined the offices of the ASD (Manpower and Reserves) and the ASD (Health and Medical) into the ASD (Manpower); ASD (Supply and Logistics) and ASD (Properties and Installations) were merged into ASD (Installations and Logistics). In July 1964 when the civil defense function moved to the Army, McNamara established the new position of ASD (Administration) To elevate systems analysis to a higher level, the secretary abolished the position of assistant secretary for research and engineering and assigned the assistant secretary position to systems analysis in September 1965. Finally, because of congressional action to give reserve affairs statutory sanction in the OSD organization, ASD (Manpower) was redesignated ASD (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) in 1968. 70
McNamaras disposition to bring greater centraliza- tion to DoD extended to the military forces. In 1961 he placed the U.S. Army's Strategic Army Corps and the Air Force's Tactical Air Command under a new joint combat command created for the purpose — the U.S. Strike Com- mand, with some 170,000 personnel. A year later, on
34
Department of Defense 1947-1997
1 October 1962, the secretary established the National Military Command System (NMCS) consisting of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) in the Pentagon, an underground alternate center, and the National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP). This created a more coherent and centralized system than the three military service global systems that had existed before. It provided the president, the secretary of defense, and the JCS with information needed to exercise swifter and more effective strategic and opera- tional direction of the fighting forces in the unified and specified commands. This development was the first step in the evolution of a World-Wide Military Com- mand and Control System (WWMCCS) that gradually took shape during the 1960s.71
A major innovation by McNamara, the institution of the Planning-Programming-Budgeting System (PPBS), had long-term effects on management and consequently on organization throughout DoD. The intent of PPBS, inaugurated in DoD in 1961 by Charles J. Hitch, the OSD comptroller, was to provide a more thorough, analytical, and systematic way for the administration to make critical independent national security decisions with particular reference to force structure, weapon systems, and costs. At the OSD level, as previously noted, McNamara eventually elevated the function to assistant secretary rank with the title Systems Analysis. The military services found themselves under tighter constraints and more searching examination of the financial implications of alternative programs than they had yet experienced, and they reacted ambivalently. Resentful of what they considered intrusion on their traditional prerogatives, they also recognized the need to adapt to the new initiative. Accordingly they took steps to acquire their own capability to perform the PPBS functions, educating a whole generation of officers in the necessary disciplines. As a result, OSD and the military services attained a high level of sophisticated analysis and skill in dealing with the important issues of Defense management.72
McNamaras organizational innovations occurred during his first two years in office. Much of the change he wanted, such as PPBS, could be effected without statutory reorganizations. Like his predecessors, he made organizational adjustments as functions rose or fell in importance or as new functions mandated by Congress or initiated by him had to be accommodated at high staff level. He greatly enlarged the civilian staff of OSD to meet the demands on the department.
One other development of the McNamara period also had long-term consequences — the growing partici- pation of the secretary in international affairs. By the 1960s the scale and incidence of DoD participation
in international matters had become so visible that the Pentagon was universally recognizable as a symbol and the center of the U.S. military establishment. In all the great international concerns of the 1960s — Berlin, Cuba, NATO, nuclear strategy, arms control, military assis- tance, and, above all, Vietnam — McNamara and DoD played a prominent and highly conspicuous role in the making of national security policy. The Office of the Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs (ISA), headed by a succession of able men beginning with Paul Nitze, grew in size and stature during the 1960s and came to be regarded as a policymaking rival to the State Department. ISA provided the secretary with the expertise he needed to support his positions on policy. Although secretaries who succeeded McNamara may not have exercised as great influence over foreign policy as he did, they have always had a role to play through their influence with the president, in the NSC, or with the State Department. The policy func- tion in OSD has grown in stature within the national security establishment. The extent of its influence depends on the assertiveness and leadership of the secretary of defense.73
1968-1981
The pace of change that had occurred in the early years of McNamaras tenure slowed markedly under his successors. His immediate successor, Clark Clifford, dur- ing his brief time in office, less than 11 months, was too preoccupied with the Vietnam War to pay attention to the department's organization.
As previous administrations had done at the outset of their terms or even before taking office — Eisenhower in 1953 and Kennedy in 1960 — the Nixon administra- tion commissioned a study of Defense organization. In July 1969 President Nixon and Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird, both supporters of a strong defense, appointed a Blue Ribbon Defense Panel of 16 business and professional leaders to study the organization and functioning of the Department of Defense.
After almost a year of study the panel presented a 237-page report on 1 July 1970 that contained 113 recommendations, of which 15 pertained to organiza- tion. The recommended changes were almost as radical as those of the Symington committee a decade earlier and similar in some respects. Their effect was to further extend the direct control of the secretary of defense over the military establishment and diminish the ."tature of the JCS and the military services, but not the service secretaries and the military departments. The major recommendation affecting OSD organization grouped the functions of DoD into three categories headed by
Organization
35
deputy secretaries of defense — military operations (including operational command, intelligence, and com- munications); management of personnel and material resources; and evaluation functions (including financial controls, testing of weapons, analysis of costs, and effectiveness of force structures). For each of the major functions in the three new deputy secretariats there would be an assistant secretary. The report called for an operational staff in OSD under a senior military officer in place of the JCS military staff and the mili- tary operations staffs of the services. It also called for concentration of all military forces into three unified commands — Strategic Command, Tactical Command, and Logistics Command — under the full control of their commanders and with component commanders serving as deputies. Other proposals required extensive changes in the organization of OSD, JCS, and the military depart- ments. Observing that all of the military headquarters staffs in Washington were excessive, the panel recom- mended a limitation of 2,000 on the combined depart- mental and military headquarters staffs; it recommended the same limitation for OSD.74
The organizational recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Defense Panel fared little better than had those of the Symington committee. Not a single major recom- mendation was adopted. Since the National Security Act of 1947, change in the defense establishment had been incremental. Even the 1958 reorganization had incor- porated only limited requirements for organizational changes thanks to resistance by Congress, JCS, and the military departments. The panel's proposals encountered similar opposition from the same quarters and devel- oped no strong support in either the White House or OSD. Neither Nixon nor Laird evinced the strong commitment to reform that had impelled Eisenhower to push so hard for the 1958 Defense reorganization.
A final report issued by DoD in February 1975 revealed that only three of the lesser recommendations for reorganization had come to pass. Another 9 of the total of 15 were listed as "recommendations on which the Depart- ments actions were consistent with the panel's objectives, but which might differ on details and procedures." This spared the embarrassment of using the term "rejected" as was done with the remaining recommendations.75
The three proposals accepted provided for an enhanced role for public affairs, a joint map service, and a net assessment office to develop net assessments of current and projected United States and foreign mili- tary capabilities. The chief outcome was the establishment of the Defense Mapping Agency in January 1972. The net assessment office, established by directive in Decem- ber 1971, did not come into existence until Secretary James Schlesinger appointed a director in 1973. There
does not seem to have been any appreciable change in the public affairs function. Laird and his immediate suc- cessors did not accept the most important of the panel's recommendations — those pertaining to the realignment of DoD functions under three deputy secretaries and the changes in the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The indis- position during these years to make large changes, even those originally solicited by the secretary of defense, no doubt resulted from political obstacles in Congress and the military services during a time of Vietnam exigencies and declining budgets.76
A few further changes did emerge, perhaps as a con- sequence of the Blue Ribbon Panel report. Laird established additional Defense agencies in 1971-72: the Defense Security Assistance Agency, the Defense Civil Prepared- ness Agency (transferred from the Department of the Army), and the Defense Investigative Service. At Laird's request Congress authorized a second deputy secretary of defense in 1972, but the secretary did not fill the position.77
OSD instituted a number of changes at its own initi- ative. In May 1969 Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard established the Defense Systems Acquisition Review Council (DSARC), which has since existed under a number of other names. The DSARC advised the secretary of defense on the defense acquisition process from the beginning of contract definition by the military services through full scale development and finally to production. The council initially consisted of the director of defense research and engineering and the assistant secretaries of defense for installations and logistics, systems analysis, and comptroller.78
By congressional authorization, the number of assis- tant secretaries of defense was increased to eight in November 1969 and to nine in December 1971. These changes permitted the appointment of assistant secretaries for health and environment and for telecommunications. In addition, Laird appointed an assistant secretary for intelligence, replacing the assistant secretary for admin- istration, who was redesignated deputy assistant secre- tary and placed under the ASD/Comptroller.79 Frequent changes in the assistant secretary positions became a normal occurrence as the status of particular functions rose or fell as circumstances and the wishes of the secretaries dictated.
The three secretaries who followed Laird — Elliot L. Richardson, James R. Schlesinger, and Donald H. Rumsfeld — during the four years 1973-77 seemed to have little time or inclination for organizational change. In 1976 Rumsfeld disestablished the Weapons Systems Evalua- tion Group, which had been performing critical evalua- tions for OSD and the JCS since 1948. He also trans- ferred control of the Defense Intelligence Agency from the JCS to OSD. A number of other lesser adjustments
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Organization
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occurred, the chief one in the status of systems analysis, which had its name changed to program analysis and evaluation, as it rode up and down the organizational ladder three times in three years. In December 1975, Rumsfeld filled the second deputy secretary of defense position, which had remained vacant since its creation in 1972. The incumbent confined his function to coordinating intelligence activities in DoD. The posi- tion was abolished in October 1977. 80
When Secretary Harold Brown came into office in January 1977, he had behind him almost eight years of experience in DoD — as director of defense research and engineering and as secretary of the Air Force. He brought with him ideas for streamlining the organization of the department. He felt that the secretary, with 29 major DoD offices and 8 unified and specified commands reporting to him, had to exercise too broad a span of con- trol to manage effectively. Both OSD and the military department headquarters were too large and engaged in many activities that could be handled at lesser levels of organization. The weapon system acquisition process
The weapons systems and related procurement policy function of installations and logistics were transferred to the director of research and engineering.
and research and engineering needed closer integration. And top management needed to pay more attention to NATO, a chief cornerstone of U.S. containment policy81
In search of consolidation of functions and better coordination in his staff, Brown early initiated a series of major changes. In March 1977 he eliminated the posi- tions of assistant secretary for intelligence and director of telecommunications and command and control sys- tems and merged the function into the assistant secretary for communications, command, control, and intelli- gence— known as C3I. In another important merger of functions he combined the office of the assistant secre- tary for manpower and reserve affairs and the office of the assistant secretary for installations and logistics.* This created the very large office of the assistant secretary for manpower, reserve affairs, and logistics (MRA&L). In a change affecting the Joint Chiefs of Staff, legislation initiated in the House of Representatives and approved by President Carter in October 1978 made the comman- dant of the Marine Corps a full member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; since 1952 he had sat with the Joint Chiefs only for consideration of Marine Corps matters. This marked the end of a long campaign by the Marine Corps to
38
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
achieve recognition as a fourth armed service.82
After receiving congressional approval of a Defense Reorganization Order that had the effect of reducing the number of assistant secretary positions from nine to seven, in April 1977 Brown asked for legislation to eliminate the second deputy secretary and create two under secre- taries— one for research and engineering and one for policy. When the law, PL 95-140, came into effect in October 1977, Brown described the reorganization as intended to "eliminate confusion regarding the distribu- tion of authority immediately below the Secretarial level. It will also clarify the role of the remaining Deputy Secretary as the single principal assistant and alter ego to the Secretary in all areas of Defense management."83
These changes obviously derived from Brown's desire to group functions so that he could deal with fewer than the 37 entities that he encountered on taking office. Thus the under secretary for research and engineering — USD(R&E) — had under him the ASD(C3I), the assistant to the secretary for atomic energy, and four Defense agencies. The under secretary for policy, who had the ASD(ISA) and the director of net assessment assigned to him, had responsibility for political-military affairs, arms limitation negotiations, and integration of DoD plans and policies with overall national security policies. Brown further reduced the number of officials reporting to him by assigning supervisory responsibility for the Defense agencies to under secretaries and assistant secretaries. (See chart 9) The secretary did make an important fur- ther change that added to his staff. Acting on his strong belief in the importance of NATO, in 1977 he appointed an adviser for NATO affairs who reported directly to him.84
Whether these organizational adjustments secured the advantages for Brown and the department that he hoped for is not certain. He still had to deal, either directly or on paper, with assistant secretaries and other officials who did not report to the two under secretaries. And even subordinates of the under secretaries would some- times go directly to the secretary, on occasion bypassing their immediate superiors. Nevertheless, on balance, Brown probably believed that he had come out ahead.
To reduce OSD numbers and to consolidate admin- istrative and operating support, essentially housekeeping and other services for OSD, Brown created the Washington Headquarters Services (WHS) in October 1977, transfer- ring hundreds of people from OSD into WHS. This field activity, as it was categorized, had responsibility for large- scale administrative and operational support to a sizable number of DoD activities in the National Capitol Region.85
From his previous experience in DoD, Brown had acquired an understanding and appreciation of the role of the PPBS process initiated under McNamara, but he wanted to make changes in it. He felt that the various
OSD offices that issued guidance documents needed better coordination and correlation of the documents with each other and with the JCS strategic plans, that there were too many repetitive reviews, and that too many changes occurring late in the budgeting cycle affected the programming and budgeting phases adversely.
Brown introduced a number of new features into the system to help achieve his objectives. The president and the secretary of defense would enter into the PPBS process early and remain involved in it. The services and JCS would expand their roles to provide information early and to participate in decisionmaking throughout. A consolidated guidance would replace the several guid- ance papers extant. The JCS would prepare a strategic planning document considering the views of the unified commanders and prepare still other documents to assist in OSD reviews. Although Brown declared that he intended the changes to enhance the role of the JCS and the mili- tary departments, there were those who did not believe that this would be the result. Among them was Graham Claytor, secretary of the Navy from 1977 to 1979 and deputy secretary of defense from 1979 to 1981. Claytor, from a broader perspective than the PPBS alone, offered the opinion on leaving office that OSD exercised too much centralized control and that it should yield more powers to the military departments and services.86
At the instigation of the White House, which mani- fested a keen interest in departmental organization and administration, Brown initiated in November 1977 a study of Defense organization that eventually produced five reports that examined and made recommendations for change in the major elements of DoD. The last of the five studies was not completed until 1980, and no final consolidated report making proposals for change was prepared. Brown attempted no significant adjustments on the basis of these reports.
The main conclusions of the reports had a sharp critical tone. The JCS performance, still inadequate in most respects, had to be improved. The unified commands were weak and the component commands too strong. Too much layering of management and too much cen- tralizing of authority in OSD needed to be corrected. Imprecise lines of authority, responsibility, and account- ability and submergence of differences of opinion deprived the secretary of defense and the president of the full knowledge needed for informed decisionmaking. More- over, the Defense agencies received inadequate supervision and responded insufficiently to the needs of the operat- ing forces. And the combat training was defective and too much compartmented by the services.87
This extensive litany of criticism echoed the find- ings of examinations of Defense organization and opera- tions during previous decades. Lovett, Eisenhower,
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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
McElroy, and McNamara had all expressed discontent with the performance of the Joint Chiefs in many aspects of their proceedings. Only Eisenhower had been able to take some ameliorative measures, and these had required congressional approval. At best, it seemed that studies of DoD even by high-level panels resulted in only minor organizational and operational changes. Once again, it would require congressional action to bring about changes that would have a significant impact on the department.
THE GOLDWATER-NICHOLS ACT
Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, while presiding over a large buildup of the armed forces beginning in 1981, held to the belief that the organization of DoD was sound and required little or no change. Such changes as he himself made during his tenure were chiefly in OSD. Other and much more important changes resulted from action by Congress at its own initiative.
Weinberger described his organizational approach as "a proper balance between centralized policy formula- tion and decentralized program execution." He brought the service secretaries and the Joint Chiefs of Staff increasingly into consultations on policy and strength- ened the role of the service secretaries by making them members of the Defense Review Board (DRB), a key decisionmaking body established by his predecessor, Harold Brown, in 1979. Under the chairmanship of the deputy secretary of defense the board played a major role in preparing the DoD budget submission and in direct- ing the OSD review of the Program Objectives Memoranda (POMs) and budget requests. Weinberger maintained close relations with the JCS chairman and the other JCS members, holding frequent meetings with them.88
Deputy Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci under- took the active day-to-day management of the depart- ment while Weinberger engaged in the many external activities — relations with the White House, especially the president, and with Congress, the public, interna- tional bodies such as NATO, and foreign countries. Carlucci brought about changes intended to improve the PPBS process and acquisition procedures.89
Congress displayed continuing concern about oversight in DoD and took steps to create offices for the purpose. Early on, in April 1981, Weinberger had established the office of the assistant to the secretary of defense for review and oversight "to provide a single official charged with oversight of ongoing efforts to detect waste, fraud, and abuse of DoD operations." This move did not accord with congressional notions of independent oversight, since the new office was directly responsible to the secretary. In September 1982, therefore, Congress, against the wishes of the secretary,
enacted legislation creating the position of inspector general in the Department of Defense as an independent and objective official to supervise and initiate audits, investigations, and inspections of DoD programs and operations. The inspector general was to be responsible for keeping Congress and the secretary of defense fully informed on all matters relating to problems and defi- ciencies in Defense and the need for corrective action.90
In the same vein, and again contrary to the depart- ment's preference, Congress established the Office of Operational Test and Evaluation with responsibility for field testing weapons and evaluating the results. The department had sought to make the case that the under secretary for research and engineering was already carrying out this function satisfactorily and that no separate office was needed, but Congress imposed its will in September 1983. Unhappy at the result and taking his time to respond, Weinberger did not estab- lish the office until February 1984 and did not appoint a director until early 1985. 91
Weinberger made a number of changes in the OSD organizational structure, particularly the addition of four assistant secretaries and a reshuffling of functions between some of the assistant secretaries. One signifi- cant change, to accommodate a new appointee, Richard N. Perle, transferred responsibility for handling Euro- pean, NATO, and Soviet Union matters from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (ISA) to the new Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy (ISP). Congress enacted explicit statutory authority for two existing positions — the assistant secretary for reserve affairs and the assistant secretary for command, control, communications, and intelligence. With congressional sanction other assistant secretary positions were created, raising the total number of assistant secretaries from 7 to 1 1 . The net result of these changes was a great widening of Weinberger's span of control. By September 1985 as many as 42 officials, including the individual members of the JCS, might report to the secretary.92
A strong impulse for reorganization and reform had been intensifying in Congress and elsewhere for a number of years before 1985. Dissatisfaction with the performance of DoD surfaced from many sources and for a host of reasons — some legitimate, some driven by politics or bureaucratic infighting; persistent, the criticisms could not be ignored.
After the Vietnam War, as had occurred after pre- vious wars, the armed forces reduced their strength to the point where it was alleged that they were "hollow" forces, lacking in weapons, equipment, and readiness. President Carter and Secretary Brown began to reverse this downward trend in the last year or two of their
Organization 41
administration, but it remained for President Reagan and Weinberger, beginning in 1981, to carry through the rebuilding process. Huge increases in Defense spending for weapons and supplies focused attention on procure- ment practices and deficiencies and led to demands for reform of the procurement system and subsequently of other elements of the DoD organization. The rapidly mounting cost of defense as part of the overall budget and the soaring deficit created strong interest in and increasing demand for greater efficiency in DoD. "Horror stories" about excessive expenditures for weapons and equipment embarrassed the department and fueled the demands for reform from Congress, which placed the whole Defense structure under scrutiny. The House of Representatives, in 1982 and for several years following, passed a JCS reform bill on which the Senate took no action. The absence of any serious efforts at Defense reform in the Senate was generally ascribed to the unwillingness of the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Tower, regarded as a strong Navy adherent, to take any steps toward change. But the momentum for reform gained steadily93
The Joint Chiefs of Staff remained a major target of complaint. Dissatisfaction with the JCS had existed from the beginning in 1947. Secretaries of defense and other officials and outside critics had often pointed to the ineffectiveness of the JCS organization in making deci- sions and providing support to the secretary of defense. In the 1980s the impetus for reform came from a num- ber of converging circumstances. Criticism of the com- mand structure, particularly the JCS and the unified commands, intensified and came from military leaders as well as others. In 1981-82 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General David C. Jones severely criticized the JCS as inade- quate and ineffective in discharging their functions. Army Chief of Staff Edward C. Meyer proposed far-reaching changes to overcome JCS deficiencies. Other JCS mem- bers, the Navy and Marine Corps chiefs, defended the existing organization. Analyses and criticism multiplied rapidly as the shortcomings that characterized such recent military operations as Desert One (Iran), Lebanon, and Grenada became public knowledge.94
An especially telling critique in February 1985 came from a study sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Entitled Toward A More Effective Defense, it had the endorsement of six former secretaries of defense — McNamara, Clifford, Laird, Richardson, Schlesinger, and Brown. They pointed particularly to the need to strengthen joint military institutions and to improve the quality of military advice. These were familiar refrains, but with the passage of the years the need for improvement seemed to have become more urgent.
General David C. Jones
The main recommendations of the CSIS study centered on defense planning and military advice, pro- gram execution, resource allocation, and congressional oversight. The chairman of the JCS should be the prin- cipal adviser to the president, NSC, and secretary of defense, and the under secretary for policy should have a broader role. The budget should be on a biennial basis, the PPBS process streamlined, and the unified commanders should have greater authority. The study recommended creation of a third under secretary of defense position to oversee programs for readiness and sustainability of forces in the field. Finally, it called for reductions in the size of OSD, the civilian and military staffs of the military departments, and the staffs of the relevant congressional committees and agencies. The CSIS study echoed many of the themes of previous studies of DoD organization. It succeeded in clearly posing basic questions and issues pertaining to Defense organization and operations and making balanced suggestions for change. The study gained the atten- tion of Congress, DoD, and the informed public.95
As early as June 1983 the Senate Armed Services Committee had asked its staff to prepare a comprehen- sive study of the organization and functioning of the Department of Defense. The study received little encour- agement and support until the departure of chairman John Tower at the end of 1984. His successor, Sen. Barry Goldwater, a strong advocate of DoD reform, ordered a
42
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
full-scale effort on the study under the direction of staff assistant James R. Locher III. The ranking minority mem- ber of the committee, Sen. Sam Nunn, worked closely with Goldwater throughout the legislative process leading to the passage of a bill in 1986, adding considerable political weight to the bipartisan pro-reform forces. When completed in October 1985, the 600-page study entitled Defense Organization: The Need for Change, offered a comprehensive assessment, addressing issues of civil- ian control of the military, OSD, JCS, unified and speci- fied commands, military departments, PPBS, acquisition, and congressional review and oversight. It announced in the first sentence of the Executive Summary that it was "critical of the current organization and decision-making procedures of the Department of Defense (DoD) and of the Congress." The report made 91 specific recommen- dations, many of them sweeping, such as replacing the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a Joint Military Advisory Council composed of four-star officers, other than chiefs of staff, on their last tour of duty.
The study contained a large menu of possible changes and therefore provided only "a starting point for inquiry by the Committee on Armed Services." It recommended establishing three under secretary positions in OSD; giving a variety of powers to the chairman of the Joint Military Advisory Council, especially that of principal adviser to the secretary of defense on operational matters; removing the service component commanders from the operational chain of command; and creating the position of assistant secretary of defense for strategic planning. Finally, it recommended fully integrating the secretariats and the military headquarters staffs in the Departments of the Army and Air Force and partially integrating the secretariat and military headquarters in the Department of the Navy. The Department of the Navy was treated differently because of its dual-service structure.96
This study, although prepared for a congressional committee by its own staff, did not fare much better than its many predecessor studies that examined DoD organization. It received much attention but only a few of its recommendations, dealing chiefly with personnel management and the chain of command, survived the congressional debates the next year and were enacted in law in some modified form.
Before Congress could act, the widespread concern about the management of the department caused Presi- dent Reagan in 1985 to establish a commission "to study defense management policies and procedures, including the budget process, the procurement system, legislative oversight, and the organizational and operational arrange- ments, both formal and informal, among the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Unified and Specified Command
Senator Barry M. Goldwater
system, the Military Departments, and the Congress." The president and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger established the President's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management reluctantly. The chairman of the commission was David Packard, a former deputy secretary of defense.97
A rising tide of congressional and public inquiry into and criticism of DoD had played no small part in impelling the administration to establish the Packard Commission. While the commission did its work, Con- gress moved to effect reforms also. Secretary Weinberger, who did not consider the commission necessary, believed that he could meet the requirement for reforms by execu- tive action and did not request Congress to make changes. This time, in a departure from previous practice, the initiative and the demand for further changes came from the legislative branch rather than the executive.98
President Reagan, taking an increasingly favorable attitude toward the commission, moved quickly to respond to its recommendations. He issued Executive Order 12526 in April 1986 implementing a number of the proposals made in the commissions interim report in February. These included changes in national security planning and budgeting, improvements in communica- tion between the secretary of defense and the JCS chair- man and the combatant commanders, increases in the authority of the combatant commanders, and most of the changes pertaining to acquisition organization and
Organization
43
procedures that could be made by executive action. Other changes would require statutory sanction. Following up with a special message to Congress on 24 April, Reagan enunciated general principles of Defense organization, defined special relationships between the president and the secretary of defense and the JCS chairman, and asked for congressional support for Defense reform. He asked also for two-year Defense budgets and multi-year procurement."
The commission issued an interim report on 28 February 1986 followed in June by the final report that included little more than a page on military organization and command but made significant recommendations. It called for designating the JCS chairman as the "principal uniformed military adviser to the President, the National Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense," placing the Joint Staff under his exclusive direction and remov- ing the statutory limit on the number of officers on the staff. It recommended establishment of a vice chairman who would be a sixth member of the JCS. The report proposed strengthening the powers of the unified com- manders and revising the Unified Command Plan to permit greater flexibility in delineating the command areas. It recommended creation of a single unified command for land, sea, and air transportation.100
On the procurement or acquisition side of DoD, its other major concern, the commission recommended statutory creation of an under secretary of defense for acquisition at a level equivalent to that of the deputy secretary. He would "set overall policy for procurement, and research and development (R&D), [and] supervise the performance of the entire acquisition system . . . ." To complement the under secretary, the military depart- ments should each establish a comparable senior position to be occupied by a top-level civilian presidential appoin- tee. Other recommended changes were intended to stream- line the acquisition process and cut through red tape.101
Following up on the recommendations of the Packard Commission, Congress completed action to reform procurement and related functions. In the Military Reform Act of 1 July 1986, it created the posi- tion of under secretary for acquisition at the same pay grade as the deputy secretary of defense and gave him authority over the departmental secretaries in acquisi- tion matters. This created another potentially powerful centralizing executive in OSD. The act also created an acquisition executive for each of the military departments and program executives for each major weapon program.102
Before the end of 1985 it became apparent that com- mittees in both the House of Representatives and the Senate would introduce legislation on reform of DoD in the coming 1986 session. Secretary Weinberger, still
Senator Sam Nunn
opposed to congressionally-mandated changes, notified Goldwater that he was prepared to accept a number of the changes being considered, notably some pertaining to the JCS chairman. Consistent with their positions since 1945, the Navy and the Marine Corps worked to prevent passage of the legislation or to dilute it. Oppo- nents of reform, chiefly the Department of the Navy and its secretary, John Lehman, through sympathetic mem- bers of the Senate committee, offered 87 amendments intended to water down the thrust of the bill, but these had little success. In May 1986 the Senate approved the bill by a vote of 95 to 0. Concurrently the recommen- dations of the Packard Commission embodied in the Military Reform Act of 1 July 1986 were moving through Congress and the two bills no doubt interacted to influ- ence members of Congress to favor reform of DoD. Moreover, the support of the White House for reform undercut the efforts of OSD and Navy opponents. The House passed its bill on reform in August by a vote of 382 to 17, and in the ensuing House-Senate conference to resolve differences between the two bills, the House had little trouble prevailing on provisions that tended to strengthen the reforms. Both houses passed the Goldwater-Nichols bill in September.103
Thus, the Goldwater-Nichols* Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (PL 99-433, 1 October 1986)
After Sen. Barry Goldwater (Arizona) and Rep. Bill Nichols (Alabama).
44
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
represented the culmination of the preceding several years of debate, hearings, and public discussions on the management of the Defense establishment. Like every prior legislative or executive reorganization of the Defense Department it was the product of compromise — between the Senate and the House, which had different versions of the legislation, between DoD and Congress, and between the services. It was a greatly modified statute that emerged from the legislative mill — one that discarded most of the more radical ideas originally con- sidered by the Senate Armed Services Committee — but it clearly reflected the strong sentiment in Congress for change. It also endorsed the main organizational recom- mendations of the Packard Commission.104
The act reiterated the intent of Congress to strengthen civilian authority in DoD, to improve military advice to higher authority, to increase the stature and authority of unified commanders, and to improve joint officer management policies. It prescribed structural changes intended to help institutionalize functional and opera- tional adjustments.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense had been in existence since 1947 but had never been established by statute. It had been an extension of the secretary himself, deriving legislative sanction only for the principal offi- cials down to assistant secretaries. Now, in 1986, the Goldwater-Nichols Act formally established the Office of the Secretary of Defense and prescribed its composition. Its function was to assist the secretary in discharging his duties and responsibilities. As in previous organizational legislation, the act forbade the establishment of a mili- tary staff in OSD although it permitted the assignment of military officers to OSD.105
The emphasis on change centered on the military command structure. The act provided for a stronger and more active JCS chairman who would be the principal adviser to the president, NSC, and secretary of defense. It increased his powers in relation to the JCS, gave him full authority over a strengthened Joint Staff, and control over development of joint doctrine. Although designated the highest-ranking officer, the chairman could not exer- cise military command over the JCS or the armed forces. The law required that not less than once every three years the chairman submit to the president or the secre- tary of defense "a report containing such recommen- dations for changes in the assignment of functions (or roles and missions) to the armed forces as the Chairman considers necessary to achieve maximum effectiveness of the armed forces." To assist the chairman and act in his place when necessary, the act created the position of vice chairman of the JCS with rank second only to the chairman's. This increased the membership to six, but the vice chairman had a vote only when acting as chair-
Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman, Jr.
man. As the manager of the Joint Staff, the chairman could select its director and officers and prescribe its duties. Once again Congress manifested its opposition to a general staff by specifying that the "Joint Staff shall not operate or be organized as an overall Armed Forces General Staff and shall have no executive authority." The act limited the size of the staff to its then 1,627 military and civilian personnel.106
The Goldwater-Nichols Act clarified the chain of command from the president to the secretary of defense to the unified commanders. The commanders in chief of the unified commands came directly under the secretary — the chairman and the JCS were not in the command chain. The act authorized the secretary to use the chair- man as his channel of communication to the unified commanders, and this has generally been the practice. The emphasis on the primacy of the secretary of defense in the military establishment reiterated a major theme of all major Defense Department organizational legislation since 1949 and clearly reflected the intent of Congress.107
Goldwater-Nichols significantly increased the author- ity, responsibilities, and powers of the combatant (unified) commander in giving direction to subordinate commands, prescribing the chain of command, employing forces within his command, assigning command functions, and coordinating and approving administration and support to carry out missions. Congress stipulated that "the Secre- tary of Defense shall ensure that a commander of a
Organization
45
combatant command has sufficient authority, direction, and control over the commands and forces assigned to the command to exercise effective command." Moreover, separate budget proposals for such activities of the com- batant commanders, as might be determined by the secretary of defense after consultation with the chair- man, should be included in the annual DoD budget.108
In 1996, civilian and military leaders, including a combatant commander, believed that the legislation had facilitated greater jointness in the unified commands, including jointness in training and operations. They also felt that the CINCs had acquired more direct input to planning and programming in Washington. At the same time the CINCs dealt directly with service chiefs when they thought necessary and appropriate. Thus there continued between the DoD entities a complex inter- action whose extent and nature depended often on per- sonal outlooks and relationships among the principals.109
In its pursuit of greater jointness in the military establishment, to emphasize the importance of duty on joint staffs and to ensure the assignment of highly capable officers to joint staffs, the act gave extensive treatment to joint officer personnel policy — Title IV. This established management policies for joint specialty officers, promotion policy objectives and procedures, education prescriptions, length of joint duty assign- ments, and joint duty assignments as prerequisites for promotion to general or flag officer rank. To some, perhaps many, of the military leaders of the services and commanders this appeared to be excessive micro- management by Congress, imposing burdensome procedures on them. They would have preferred more general prescriptions and procedures.110
In Title III, the act increased OSD oversight of the Defense agencies and Defense field activities. It speci- fied that the secretary of defense should assign respon- sibility for the overall supervision of each Defense agency and each DoD field activity to a civilian officer in OSD or to the chairman of theJCS. The Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency were excepted from this provision.111
The statute prescribed uniformity in the respon- sibilities of the service secretaries to the secretary of defense and also directed that in each of the services the secretaries and chiefs would have the same basic responsibilities and reporting relationships. Title V delineated in detail the responsibilities and functions of the chiefs and their staffs. It also enumerated the responsibilities of the secretaries and assigned them "sole responsibility" for certain functions. By giving the secretaries authority to make changes in organizational arrangements between their own secretariat staffs and the military staffs, including transfer of functions and
personnel from the military staff to the secretariat, it was expected that duplication between the two staffs would be reduced. The major change seemed to be the consoli- dation of the acquisition and financial functions under the secretaries, both within their departments and in relation to the secretary of defense. Although the organ- izational changes that ensued did not occur without some friction, they did seem to have the effect of enhanc- ing the stature of the service secretaries. In 1995 the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces concluded that the existence of two or more staffs in each department did not make for efficiency and recom- mended a single integrated staff of civilians and military. Resistance to such a merger of staffs was strong, espe- cially on the part of the military staffs. Moreover, it would require statutory authorization to bring it about.112
The Goldwater-Nichols act clearly intended to clarify command lines and the division of responsibi- lities among the armed services by transferring more authority from the services to the JCS chairman, the combatant commanders, and the departmental secretar- ies. The law repeatedly enjoined the secretary of defense to see to it that the various provisions were carried out.
The armed services were perceived as the central core of the military establishment and as the chief opponents of changes in organizational and command arrangements, which they generally viewed as threats to their roles and authority in DoD. Their presence at the seat of power in Washington and the strong staff resources they had at their disposal enabled them to exercise influence in Con- gress, OSD, and the Joint Staff. The unified commanders, by contrast, most of them far removed from Washington, dependent on staffs supplied by and with strong ties to the services, could not hope to compete with the ser- vices for power without strong support from the secre- tary of defense and, after Goldwater-Nichols, from the JCS chairman. With the increased powers accorded him under the act, the chairman could become a major control center in DoD and help to effect the desired changes. The relationship between the secretary and the chairman also took on an added dimension of importance with the increased authority of the latter. Still, the chairman's closest military colleagues were the other members of the JCS, and he could not help but be influenced by them and have to take into account their positions on issues. Although more than the first among equals in the JCS, a pragmatic chairman had to remain aware that both as a corporate body and individually the chiefs were, after him, still the highest ranking and most influential military leaders.
Legislation mandating change cannot foresee con- tingencies that might delay or obstruct implementation of its provisions. The printed document is not immedi-
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47
ately self-fulfilling; it is a blueprint rather than a detailed prescription, dependent on the will and the competence of those charged with making it work. In an institution as gigantic as the Department of Defense change cannot come swiftly, except in time of war. Thus, the various changes required by Goldwater-Nichols and related legislation proceeded at an uneven pace, most of them slowly, carefully, and generally thoughtfully. The crea- tion of an under secretary of defense for acquisition and counterparts in the military departments proceeded quickly but not without difficulties. The reform that would take the longest to have the desired result would no doubt be the creation of joint staffs in the JCS and unified commands that would be able to transcend military service bias.
The accretion and exercise of his new powers by the chairman of the JCS proceeded cautiously under Admiral William J. Crowe, chairman until October 1989, and more expeditiously and vigorously under General Colin L. Powell, who served until October 1993. Aug- menting the role of the unified commanders required adjustments that often proved difficult or took time to implement. The commanders themselves, who were, after all, members of one service or another, may some- times have found themselves in ambivalent situations. The secretaries of defense, especially Secretary Weinberger, were cautious in effecting changes in the command structure. Secretary Richard B. Cheney generally agreed with the changes recommended by General Powell. The unified commanders had been given an opportunity to participate in the budget process since the early 1980s, but it remained difficult to determine to what extent their requirements should be accommodated as against those of the services.
As always, while the changes in organization and functions were significant in themselves and brought about adjustments, the extent, speed, and effectiveness of change depended on the people charged with its imple- mentation. They, in turn, had to contend with the real- ities of shifting relations between huge institutions of long-standing tradition, jealous of their prerogatives and fearful of the consequences of change. This is not uncommon in large bureaucratic institutions, but the Department of Defense was unique in its great size, its diverse and powerful components, and the complex civil-military relationship.
The changes set in motion by Goldwater-Nichols gradually achieved many of the effects intended by Con- gress for the JCS. The pace quickened greatly under General Powell, who exercised his powers with much assurance and forcefulness. He established beyond doubt the role of the chairman as the ranking officer of the armed forces. The Gulf War afforded him the opportunity
to employ powers that gave him some of the appearance, if not the responsibility, of exercising overall command, a function that he did not possess in law. His organiza- tional achievements had to do principally with the unified commands and the creation of a Joint Staff that empha- sized jointness — the concept that informed much of his thinking and actions. The Joint Staff, subject to the chairman as never before, and much less subject to the pull of service interest, is regarded as having reached a level of joint thinking and behavior that generally transcends service loyalties. Because it is looking more like a general staff, it may encounter more criticism and opposition in the future. In spite of the support this trend toward joint behavior has enjoyed, the possibility of a reaction by those fearful of militarism and a more unitary military establishment is always present.
The creation of the position of vice chairman of the JCS was also a significant development that pointed to further adjustments in relationships among the top echelon of the military. As the second-ranking member of the Joint Chiefs, the vice chairman constitutes another power center in the JCS for control and change and further diminishes the role of the service chiefs.113
The vice chairman's role took on increased stature from his chairmanship of the Joint Resources Oversight Council (JROC), whose membership included the vice chiefs of staff of the four military services and the director
Admiral William]. Crowe
48 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 1947-1997
General Colin L. Powell
of the Joint Staff. In an effort to transcend service interests and achieve a DoD-wide outlook, the JROC undertook the formidable and highly sensitive task of determining future weapon priorities for the services, thus provid- ing the JCS chairman and the secretary of defense with a better informed basis for making decisions. As with other major innovations in Defense, the success of the JROC will depend on a continued evolution toward genuine jointness in making decisions. This may well be a painful and prolonged process for the military services, all of which have strong preferences for weapon systems that are designed to maintain and further advance their roles and missions.114
Changes in OSD organization occurred in 1993-94 under Secretaries Les Aspin and William J. Perry. Strongly influenced by his perception of a vastly changed inter- national scene, Aspin focused his attention on the policy function and established six assistant secretary positions subordinate to the under secretary for policy. He did not see this reorganization through before his departure in February 1994; the number of assistant secretaries in USD/Policy was thereafter reduced to four. The creation in 1994 of two more under secretaries — personnel and readiness, and comptroller and chief financial officer — added to the layering effect. This was further compounded by the elevation to statutory rank of the principal deputy under secretary for policy and the principal deputy under secretary for acquisition and technology115
The Goldwater-Nichols Act had not addressed the perennial and contentious question of service roles and missions. Continuing congressional unease about redundancy and overlapping of functions between the services and the search for savings in the cost of the Department of Defense led to calls for further changes. In November 1993 Congress mandated the establish- ment of the Commission on Roles and Missions in the Armed Forces to examine service responsibilities and make recommendations "to improve military effective- ness and eliminate needless duplication." Secretary Perry announced in March 1994 the appointment of a commission to be chaired by John P. White, a former assistant secretary of defense then at Harvard University, and including among other members former Secretary of Defense Aspin.116
The commission was to conduct a one-year study and submit its recommendations to the secretary of defense and the House and Senate Armed Services Com- mittees. The long-standing disagreements among the services on roles and missions soon emerged with the usual manifestations of service interest and complicated the work of the commission. Inevitably the services sought to maintain and strengthen their roles within the establishment, sometimes at each other's expense. The Air Force, in particular, proposed changes designed to enhance its role at the expense of the other services, which responded to the