The Goldwater-Nichols Act Of 1986: Resurgence In Defense Reform And The Legacy Of Eisenhower CSC 1989 SUBJECT AREA - History WAR IN THE MODERN ERA SEMINAR The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986: Resurgence In Defense Reform And The Legacy of Eisenhower Major Greg H. Parlier, USA 15 May 1989 Marine Corps Command and Staff College Marine Corps Combat Development Center Quantico, Virginia 22134 ABSTRACT TITLE: THE GOLDWATER-NICHOLS ACT OF 1986: RESURGENCE IN DEFENSE REFORM AND THE LEGACY OF EISENHOWER. AUTHOR: Major Greg H. Parlier, United States Army DATE: 15 May 1989 The recently enacted Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 has been described as comprehensive in scope, far-reaching in impact, and, as so much of the recent rhetoric suggests, "dramatic" in its effect upon our national defense apparatus. Such descriptive phrases end to reinforce the popular notion that this law, commonly referred to as the "Goldwater-Nichols Act", mandates "revolutionary" reform of our national defense organization. A natural inclination would be to counter this "revolutionary" hypothesis by suggesting the Act to perhaps embody a more "evolutionary" change to process and procedure, in contrast to genuine organizational reform. The purpose of this paper, however, is to challenge both of these arguments by conducting a through analysis of the larger historical context of defense reform issues extending back to World War II. A chronological approach is used to develop recurrent themes and trends in the attempt to "unify" the defense establishment, beginning with the Arcadia Conference when the Joint Chiefs of staff concept was created by FDR shortly after America declared war on Japan. The analysis includes the divisive interservice rivalries that emerged after the war and are reflected in both the pre- and post-1947 National Security Act debates. Special emphasis is placed upon Eisenhower's role as Army Chief of Staff after the war, problems confronting him as "presiding officer" of the JCS in 1948, and his criticism and reform proposals in 1953 and 19 58 when President. The historical chronology concludes in early 1982 when proposals for defense reform were advocated publicly by two encumbent members of the JCS, resurrecting issues that had remained "dormant" since 1958. A thematic approach is then used to explain a confluence of events that occurred beginning in 1979 shaping the form of the new legislation and providing impetus for eventual passage of the Act: recent joint military operations; procurement and acquisition problems; the military "reform" movement; fear of an American "General Staff", and the influence of key military and Congressional personalities during the debate preceding passage of the law in September 1986. References used to prepare this paper include autobiographies, biographies, official defense and legislative histories, Senate and House Armed Services Committee hearings, Congressional reports, numerous study and commission reports, books focused on national security issues, journal and newspaper articles concerning the 1986 Act, recent joint doctrinal publications, Service and Congressional documents, letters and memoranda, and of course the law itself. My research reveals the debate preceding passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986 to be neither "revolutionary" nor "evolutionary" in content but rather more accurately described as a "resurgence" of interest in reform measures proposed a quarter-century earlier by President Eisenhower. I conclude that Ike probably would be pleased with most of the contents in the new Act, impressed with the momentum for reform that had developed and was reflected in the final near-unanimous vote, but distressed that his earlier proposals had taken so long, at such great cost to the Nation, to finally be accepted. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page I. INTRODUCTION: REVOLUTION, EVOLUTION, OR RESURGENCE IN DEFENSE REFORM 1 II. GENESIS OF AN AMERICAN NATIONAL MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT (1942-1947) 8 CREATING AN AMERICAN WARTIME HIGH COMMAND. INTERSERVICE RIVALRY AND THE UNIFICATION EFFORT DURING WORLD WAR II. EISENHOWER AS ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF (1945-1947). III. THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF 1947 AND THE UNIFICATION DRAMA (1947-1952) 23 THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF 1947. THE THREE "ACTS" OF THE POSTWAR UNIFICATION "DRAMA." IV. EISENHOWER'S REFORMS AND THE DRIVE FOR UNIFICATION (1953-1958) 40 REORGANIZATION PLAN NO. 6 OF 1953. THE DEFENSE ORGANIZATION ACT OF 1958. V. LEGISLATIVE DORMANCY (1958-1982) 62 CHANGING CIVIL-MILITARY POWER RELATIONSHIPS. STUDIES, MORE STUDIES BUT NO ACTION. VI. DECADE OF THE `80'S: MANDATES FOR ACTION 72 THE RECORD OF RECENT MILITARY PERFORMANCE: COMMAND AND CONTROL PROBLEMS. PROCUREMENT AND ACQUISITION CHAOS. INTERSERVICE RIVALRY THE MILITARY REFORM MOVEMENT, AND THE "POLITICIZATION OF STRATEGY." VII. THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS (1982-1986) 86 GENERAL JONES, GENERAL MEYER, AND THE DEFENSE ORGANIZATION PROJECT. ALTERNATIVES FOR REFORM. FEAR OF THE "GENERAL STAFF" MODEL. THE LAW: EISENHOWER'S LEGACY AND GOLDWATER'S INFLUENCE. VIII. CONCLUSIONS 117 AFTERMATH AND TRENDS. FINAL THOUGHTS. TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUED) Page ENDNOTES 125 BIBLIOGRAPHY: PRINCIPAL SOURCES 144 BIBLIOGRAPHY: ADDITIONAL SOURCES 151 APPENDIX A: CHRONOLOGY OF DEFENSE REFORM 1942-1982 155 APPENDIX B: LEGISLATIVE CHANGES TO THE JCS 158 APPENDIX C: EVOLUTION OF THE JOINT STAFF 159 APPENDIX D: LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE GOLDWATER-NICHOLS ACT 160 APPENDIX E: SUMMARY OF MAJOR PROVISIONS OF 1986 ACT 161 APPENDIX F: CURRENT ORGANIZATION FOR NATIONAL SECURITY 168 APPENDIX G: THE JOINT STAFF: 1989 169 FIGURES 1. TRUMAN'S DEFENSE REORGANIZATION PLAN (COLLINS PLAN) 18 2. NATIONAL SECURITY ORGANIZATION PROPOSED BY WAR AND NAVY DEPARTMENTS 21 3. THE CHAIN OF COMMAND BEFORE AND AFTER THE REORGANIZATION ACT OF 1958 56 4. ALTERNATIVE JOINT REFORM OPTIONS 95 The Congress shall have power... To Make Rules for the Government and Regulation for the land and naval Forces; [clause 14] To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers... [clause 18] The Constitution Article I, Section 8 Chapter I INTRODUCTION: REVOLUTION EVOLUTION, OR RESURGENCE IN DEFENSE REFORM? These final years of the 20th Century are indeed interesting and exciting times. Perhaps this is true because they are so replete with dilemma, contradiction, and paradox. A vivid example is the recent Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons from Europe. Ironically, this was possible only after the historic Reagan defense build-up initiated to close the "window of vulnerability." The great paradox, of course, was the necessity to first deploy our own nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and Pershings in order to negotiate their subseguent removal. It was this manifestation of Western resolve that ultimately led to the Treaty, reversing the otherwise sorry tale of endless arms control negotiations spanning the previous two decades which settled little. Now the stage has been set for potential deep cuts in land-based "heavy" ICBMs. Few would have thought such an event possible when Ronald Reagan was first elected to the Presidency. We have also witnessed during this decade an unprecedented revival in strategic thinking. The larger defense debate has been invigorated by disparate, almost bizarre, elements ranging from self-proclaimed military "reformers" to our own Catholic Bishops, and is reflected in the astonishingly rapid climb in 1988 to "best-seller" status of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Professor Paul Kennedy. This widespread interest has now been given tangible form with the passage in September 1986 of the landmark Defense Reorganization Act symbolizing renewed concern for national purpose, strategic objectives and goals, and military capabilities. At the same time, there has been a seemingly endless litany of "waste, fraud, and abuse" episodes in the Pentagon suggesting a need for acguisition and procurement reform. Although recent incidents have dominated front-page headlines--the $700 hammer, the $640 toilet seat cover, the air defense gun that allegedly locked onto a latrine fan, and the latest financial scandal involving high government officials--the root causes of the current defense debate extend back to the late 1940s. That period culminated a four-decade rapid ascent to great power status of the United States. World War II had a revolutionary impact on U.S. strategic thinking. As former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Robert W. Komer has pointed out: It marked our definitive entry into balance of power politics, further confirmed the value of overseas force projection, [and] also saw the birth of elaborate joint and combined planning mechanisms... For the first time, serious strategic differences between the services.. .were hashed out in the new Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) forum that was created in 1942 to facilitate development of U.S. positions vis-a-vis the British Chiefs of Staff (the model for the JCS). [1] The end of the war also demonstrated the advent of nuclear weapons and long-range delivery systems which enabled us shortly thereafter to adopt a doctrine of "deterrence" and, with large standing forces semi-permanently deployed overseas, to formalize for the first time a grand strategy of "containment" outlined in NSC 68 in 1950. Although different nuclear doctrines would prevail--initially "massive retaliation", then "assured destruction", and finally the paramount strategic contradiction of the nuclear age, "mutually assured destruction" (MAD) --those basic strategic objectives of nuclear deterrence and containment specified in NSC 68 have remained unchanged for four decades. There have been no major military conflicts between the two superpowers and the United States has not lost any assets truly vital to our interests. Without trivializing regional conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan, the 44 years since World War II represents one of the longest periods without war between major states of the developed world since the days of the Roman Empire. However, up until the late 1970's we were able to procure "defense-on-the-cheap" through nuclear weapons and, as a consequence, "no comparable attention has been paid to non-nuclear strategy since 1945." [2] More recently, the loss of our comfortable cushion of nuclear superiority accompanied by a series of less-than-spectacular conventional military operations in Vietnam, Iran, Lebanon, and Grenada has prompted a growing public interest in national security issues. In no small way, the Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 reflects this interest and the debate preceding its passage resurrected issues which had been neglected and dormant for nearly 30 years. In drafting this legislation lawmakers grappled with traditional issues of civil-military relations and the dilemma inherent in democratic societies requiring the counterbalancing of an admittedly effective and highly efficient military organization on one side of the scale with civilian control and dominance over the uniformed military establishment on the other. This has been particularly difficult in the United States, as noted military correspondent and author Richard Halloran argues, because "Americans, since the early days of the Republic, have had difficulty reconciling military power with democracy." [3] In at least one aspect this balance has been impossible to achieve because proposals for organizational reform that might attain such a level of efficiency inevitably smack of creating a "German General Staff." With all that this term implies in the Anglo-American political culture, such a concept is still, in America at least, as politically infeasible today as it is completely misunderstood and historically misrepresented. Furthermore, as General Emory Upton discovered last century, attempting to impose revolutionary reforms upon an unwilling military bureaucracy can prove futile even if there is great merit in the proposals. [4] Nonetheless, Public Law 99-143: "The Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986," commonly referred to as the "Goldwater-Nichols Act," has been widely heralded as constituting the most comprehensive and sweeping reform of the National Defense Establishment since the National Security Act of 1947. The new law directed a "complete overhaul" of existing defense organization by increasing the authority of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the respective unified commanders, giving them greater latitude and full authority to organize assigned forces as they deem necessary. Additionally, the law requires substantial changes in the organization, size, and relationships among other principal elements of the defense establishment. All of this became necessary because, in the words of the Act's principal architect, Senator Barry Goldwater, the defense establishment "is broke, and we need to fix it." [5] The current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William J. Crowe, has acknowledged the new law's penetrating impact by citing the Act as an "important impetus" toward ensuring "that we do a better job of organizing and employing our military forces." [6] Nonetheless, aspects of the legislation have proven bitterly controversial. For example, the previous Army Chief of Staff, General John A. Wickham, Jr., testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, stated that "the law is so micro-detailed, you have hobbled us... [and it is]...going to ravage the field Army...We've got 50,000 regular field grade officers in the Army who are disturbed about this law." The current Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Carlisle A. H. Trost, has been equally vocal in addressing the dramatic impact the law will have upon U.S. Navy operational capabilities. [7] The rhetoric and concern, which today still continue unabated, tend to suggest that the Goldwater-Nichols Act does indeed mandate revolutionary change in our defense structure and organization. The primary purpose of this research endeavor, however, is to present a contrary argument. Although the Goldwater-Nichols Act is indeed comprehensive in scope, far-reaching in impact, and, as so much of recent rhetoric tends to suggest, "dramatic" in effect, these descriptive phrases tend to reinforce the popular notion that the Act mandates "revolutionary" reforms in national defense. I contend that this impression is not true and can be plausible only if one disregards the longer American historical context of the defense debate which extends over much of this century. This paper will provide that historical context in an attempt to illuminate the fallacy of those contemporary beliefs which suggest that this recent defense reform legislation contains "revolutionary" measures. A natural inclination, then, would be to counter this "revolutionary" argument by hypothesizing perhaps a more "evolutionary" change of process and procedure, in contrast to genuine organizational reform of our vast, bureaucratic national security apparatus. Again, to the contrary, I believe a thorough analysis of the larger historical context will reveal the debate preceding passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 to be neither "revolutionary" nor "evolutionary" in content. Rather the recent debate can be more accurately described as a "resurgence" of interest in reform measures first proposed by President Eisenhower. However, those issues would remain dormant thereafter only to be resurrected again a quarter-century later. As Senator Goldwater persuasively warned his fellow legislators in early 1985, referring to his colleagues who occupied the same Senate chamber three decades earlier, "They should have listened to Ike." Chapter II GENESIS OF AN AMERICAN NATIONAL MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT (l942-1947) CREATING AN AMERICAN WARTIME HIGH COMMAND The National Security Act of 1947 would later embody the World War II experience by codifying into law the national military command structure which was created during that war and which still exists today: the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Staff, and the unified and specified commands. President Roosevelt had initially established the JCS following the outbreak of war to facilitate U.S. -British military cooperation and coordination. At the Arcadia Conference held in Washington in late December 1941 and early January 1942, Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill agreed upon the Combined Chiefs of Staff as the "supreme military body for strategic direction of the Anglo-American effort." At that time the U.S. had no established high command structure for providing advice on defense policy as a whole. The British, however, had earlier created in 1924 a "Chiefs of Staff Committee" which provided administrative coordination, tactical control, and strategic direction to British forces. The British Chiefs of Staff, consisting of a service chief for each of the air, land, and sea services were supported by planning and intelligence staffs and also were charged, as a corporate body, for giving military advice to both the War Cabinet and the Prime Minister. The U.S., in sharp contrast to the established British system, had no comparable structure capable of coordinated staff work to provide input into a Combined Chiefs of Staff arrangement. Consequently, in 1942 an American "unified high command" was adopted and, patterned after the British, became informally known as the U.S. Chiefs of Staff. This first Joint Chiefs of Staff worked throughout the war without legislative sanction or even formal Presidential definition, a role that President Roosevelt believed preserved the flexibility required to meet the needs of the war. The first members of the Joint U.S. Chiefs of Staff were the "opposite numbers" to the British Chiefs of Army, Navy, and Royal Air Force (an autonomous and co-equal military organization): Admiral William D. Leahy, President Roosevelt's special military adviser, with a title of Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy; General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army; Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet; and General Henry H. Arnold, Deputy Army Chief of Staff for Air and Chief of the Army Air Corps. [1] Under Roosevelt's leadership, this new command arrangement grew in influence to become the primary agent in coordinating and providing strategic direction to the Army and Navy. Roosevelt regarded the JCS as immediately responsible to him as Commander in Chief and dealt with them directly, without using the service secretaries as intermediaries. The JCS operated on the basis of unanimity, on the premise that if decisions were not unanimous they were not truly joint decisions and consequently not decisions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Directives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were issued to the senior military executive of the Service responsible for seeing that they were carried out, who functioned, in effect, as the executive agent for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In December 1944 all four JCS members were promoted to five-star rank and by the end of the war their authority had expanded to include primary responsibility for setting military strategy and directing military operations. Much of this authority, granted by Roosevelt for effective prosecution of the war, was later withdrawn from JCS control. Though the British at the outbreak of World War II were far ahead of the U.S. in their efforts to merge the different military services into a coherent joint planning staff and to allocate resources and provide strategic direction, their experience offered a premonition of a similar problem the U.S. would soon encounter and which continues to persist nearly a half-century later. The problem, now referred to as "dual hatting", was reflected in a letter to Prime Minister Churchill in 1942 from the former British Director of Military Operations in 1918, Sir Frederick Maurice, who wrote: The one defect in the present [British] system, as I view it from outside, is the Joint Planning Committee. My experience is that the members of this committee are, ex officio, too much occupied with the affairs of their own Services to give their minds to joint planning, and that when they meet they are disposed rather to find difficulties in, and objections to, proposals for action than to initiate such proposals... [2]. The forerunner of the current Joint Staff was also created in 1942, but consisted of a series of twelve interlocking committees, boards, and agencies rather than a single joint staff. This ad hoc creation did evolve during the war, more in response to immediate needs than in fulfillment of any conscious design. The structure that arose was not an independent, multiservice staff responsible directly to the JCS, but, rather...consisted of service representatives who were temporarily detailed (to these committees) from the service staffs. [3] The third element of the new joint military structure was the establishment of a system of unified operational commands. These commands were established in each combat theater during the war and, although intended to facilitate joint and combined operations and planning, were arranged in such a way that a single service dominated each. By the end of the war, the United States had. . established five operational commands, each of which was identified with a particular service: the European and Southwest Pacific commands with the Army; the Pacific Ocean command with the Navy; and the two bomber commands with the Army Air Force. The sponsoring service provided the commander and the bulk of the operating forces. It also acted as an executive agent for the command, and transmitted the directives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The World War II command arrangements resulted in a system in which each of the commands was, in effect, an operating arm of one of the services. [4] Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, first in Europe and then in the Pacific, the need for some form of joint command structure was apparent in order to manage the immense occupation tasks and to develop rational security policies to guide America in her new-found, although unsought, role as the singular global power rising from the ashes of a war-ravaged world. The JCS system provided just such a structure and, following its formalization by the National Security Act of 1947, laid the foundation for a series of legislative and executive changes that have ultimately produced today's defense organization. However, the road toward a formal unified command organization would prove long and, to say the least, controversial. INTERSERVICE RIVALRY AND THE UNIFICATION EFFORT DURING WORLD WAR II Following the war several military study groups recommended shifting more authority from the individual services to a joint military structure and establishing a single armed forces chief of staff to preside over the JCS. The central issue was whether the U.S. should unify the military departments (then called the War and Navy Departments) into a single department of defense. In General Marshall's view, "the lack of real unity has handicapped the successful conduct of the war" and the JCS had proven "a cumbersome and inefficient method of directing the efforts of the Armed Forces." Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson declared the JCS to be "an imperfect instrument of top-level decision" because "it remained incapable of enforcing a decision against the will of any one of its members." [5] The initial unification debate did not, however, occur immediately after the war, but rather during it. As early as November, 1943, Marshall had become convinced of the need for a unified department and pushed within the JCS for agreement on the general idea of a single military establishment as a basis for organizational planning, leaving for later resolution service differences on roles and missions. Marshall's convictions were a result of the Pearl Harbor disaster which closer interservice coordination at Oahu might have prevented; chaotic war production planning caused by service interests which led the Navy, for example, to favor battleship and carrier production over amphibious shipping and landing craft resulting in the LST shortage which forced the postponement of OVERLORD; and the growth of a large air force which had simply become too unwieldy for the Army to administer. One of his biographers would write in 1947: Marshall looked at the organization of which he was a member--the Joint Chiefs of Staff--Marshall, Leahy, King, Arnold. Their achievements had been great; but there had been failures, too, and the weakness of the group was that, despite himself, each member had been caught by the fears and ambitions of service prestige and made an advocate of special, instead of national, interest. When that happened there was no one short of the President to render a decision on what was, after all, a purely military problem... The national security is a single problem, and it cannot be provided for on a piecemeal basis, [had been Marshall's] summation. [6] Marshall concluded that warfare had become so complex that a unified command arrangement, rather than mutual cooperation, had become necessary. In the Spring of 1944, a House Select Committee on Postwar Military Policy, chaired by Representative Clifton A. Woodrum [Democrat, Virginia], considered a proposal to establish a single department of armed forces. Although the Army, reflecting Marshall's views, was strongly in favor of the proposal, then Under Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal effectively blocked the idea, contending that the "whole question of military organization deserves and should receive an objective and thorough study. " [7] Navy testimony was construed as implied opposition to a single department and the Woodrum committee recommended the matter be put off until the end of the war. In May 1944, as Woodrum's committee was disbanding, the JCS created a "Special Committee for Reorganization of National Defense." Despite basic agreements which accommodated the creation of an Air Force Service and allowed the Navy to retain the Marine Corps and "requisite" naval aviation and the Army to keep its "specialized" aviation, the JCS committee, after conducting world-wide interviews with senior military leaders, delivered a split report. The majority endorsed a single department of the armed forces, with the Air Force assigned a position coordinate with the Army and Navy. The department would be headed by a civilian Secretary. Under him there would be a single Commander of the Armed Forces who would also act as Chief of Staff to the President. The Commander would be provided with an Armed Forces General Staff, and he would coordinate laterally with an Under Secretary who would serve as overall manager of the business side of the military Services. The Secretary, the Commander, and the military commanders of the three Services would constitute the "United States Chiefs of Staff", whose job it would be to advise the President on military strategy and budgetary matters. There would also be a council, composed of representatives from the Department of Armed Forces and the Department of State, "to correlate national policies and military preparedness." [8] The senior committee member, retired Admiral James O. Richardson, dissented from this majority view remaining unconvinced of the need for a separate air force while contending that an overall "Commander of the Armed Forces" would exercise too much power. Above all, Richardson feared "that the establishment of a single department would hamper the full and free development of the Services... [His] dissent reflected the growing misgivings within the Navy about the threatened loss of its air arm to the Air Force and possibly even the loss of its Fleet Marine Force to the Army." [9] EISENHOWER AS ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF: 1945 - 1947 Dwight Eisenhower assumed duties as Army Chief of Staff in December 1945. Two weeks later, President Truman submitted his proposal for an armed forces unification plan to the Congress. Earlier, then-Senator Truman had served as chairman of a special Senate committee investigating national defense programs. This experience significantly influenced his views on service unification: I had not fully realized the extent of the waste and inefficiency existing as a result of the Operation of two separate and uncoordinated military departments until I became chairman of the special Senate committee created in 1941 to check up on the national defense program. I had long believed that a coordinated defense organization was an absolute necessity. The duplications of time, materiel, and manpower resulting from independent Army and Navy operations which were paraded before my committee intensified this conviction. [10] Though Ike had just assumed his Chief of Staff role, the plan had been developed largely by the Army and presented to the Congress earlier on October 19 by his Chief of Information (Public Relations), Lieutenant General J. Lawton Collins. Fortunately, though they never became close friends, Truman and Ike had compatible views regarding unification and other defense propositions as well, such as the need for a universal military training (UMT) program. [11] Eisenhower's wartime experience deeply affected his views on the need for better interservice coordination at the strategic level. In his wartime memoirs, reflecting on the aftermath of the Normandy invasion and service cooperation during OVERLORD, he wrote: ...The accomplishment in Europe of the three services operating under unified command strongly influenced my determined advocacy of a similar type of organization in postwar Washington. [12] Eisenhower appreciated Truman's genuine concern for unification of the armed forces and spent much of his time as Army Chief of Staff arguing publicly for its serious consideration. He was such a strong advocate of unification that he proposed a single uniform for the armed services, and a service academy exchange program sending cadets to Annapolis and midshipmen to West Point during their third year. Both Ike and Truman also shared the general Army prejudice against the Marine Corps, and, although neither could ever say so publicly, they would have liked to eliminate the Corps (indeed, according to the Marines, that was the chief objective of unification). [13] Truman's unification proposal (the Collins plan) which implicitly assumed that interservice rivalry was the greatest barrier to more effective defense planning, was indeed timely and coincided with the [postwar] congressional investigation of the Pearl Harbor debacle, which each day seemed to uncover further shocking examples of the need for service unification. Truman's unification proposal thus rose on a groundswell of favorable public opinion. [14] In his message to Congress of December 19, 1945, he argued that "there is enough evidence now at hand to demonstrate beyond question the need for a unified department." During the war, unified direction or command in Washington never really existed leaving the President alone as the sole arbitrator of disputes between the War and Navy Departments. Even in the field, despite the creation of the unified operational commands, Truman believed that our unity of operations was greatly impaired by the differences in training, in doctrine, in communication systems, and in supply and distribution systems, that stemmed from the division of leadership in Washington. [15] The President cited nine critical reasons for combining the two existing departments, including a need for "integrated strategic plans and a unified military program and budget," the "strongest means for civilian control of the military," "parity for air power," "unity of command in outlying bases," and "consistent and equitable personnel policies" among the services. Truman's reorganization plan included the proposals listed in Figure l. Click here to view image 1. Creation of a single "Department of National Defense." 2. Designation of a cabinet-level "Secretary of National Defense," assisted by one civilian Under Secretary and several civilian Assistant Secretaries. 3. Three co-equal branches: one for land forces, one for naval forces, and one for air forces, each under an Assistant Secretary with the Marine Corps remaining an "integral part of the Navy." 4. A single "Chief of Staff" of the Department of National Defense" to serve a relatively short tenure but with operational command authority who, together with the service department chiefs, would constitute an "advisory body to the Secretary of National Defense and to the President." [author's emphasis added] 5. The creation of a "State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee" to address the "formulation of a comprehensive national security program." Figure 1. Truman's Defense Reorganization Proposal (Collins Plan) [16] Despite Truman's strong plea backed by the prestige and power of his office and the tremendous public esteem for Eisenhower, the Navy effectively neutralized his proposals. Using the Eberstadt Report, which concluded that the JCS system had performed well during World War II, the Navy again argued that the adoption of a single chief of staff with command authority--which the Army contended was consistent with the principle of war referred to as "Unity of Command"--placed too much power in the hands of a single individual. Ferdinand Eberstadt, Forrestal's personal friend who had played a distinguished role in the resource mobilization effort during the war first as civilian chairman of the Army-Navy Munitions Board and later as vice chairman of the War Production Board, argued that planning difficulties were not due to interservice rivalry but a lack of civilian-military interagency coordination. Navy partisans in Congress were able to generate sufficient political emotion to effectively checkmate Truman's proposal. As historians Alan Millett and Peter Maslowski commented: Led by the redoubtable [Navy Secretary] James V. Forrestal, [the Navy] fought the Army plan to a standstill in the White House and Congress, for it saw the War Department plan as a blueprint for the end of its maritime security mission. Forrestal knew the unpublished assumptions of the War Department proposal: cuts in naval aviation, the transfer of land-based naval air to the Air Force, no Navy nuclear weapons, the reduction of the Marine Corps to minor peacetime security functions. A future war, probably with the Soviet Union, would not involve major naval campaigns, since the Russians did not have a global navy. Therefore, so the Army and AAF planners thought, the Navy should finally relinquish its role as the first line of defense, surrendering that function to the Air Force. [17] For almost two years (1945-47), coinciding with Eisenhower's 27-month stint as Chief of Staff of the Army, two coalitions of defense reorganization battled furiously. General Omar N. Bradley, Administrator of the Veterans Administration at the time, described the period as follows: Truman's proposal led to lengthy congressional hearings in the spring of 1946. These hearings broadened to examine such questions as "Why do we need a Navy at all?" "Why do we have separate ground forces in the Marine Corps and Army?" "Why do we have three air forces--Army, Navy, and Marine Corps?" By that time, the Navy and Marine Corps, sincerely fearing they would be diminished to ceremonial forces, were passionately and publicly opposing unification. The admirals made sensational anti-Army and anti-Air Force charges in the hearings. For example, it was revealed that Ike wanted to reduce the Marine Corps to a few lightly equipped regiments for "minor operations" and Spaatz wanted control of all guided missiles in the future. The new Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Chester Nimitz, charged that "the ultimate ambition of the Army Air Force [is] to absorb naval aviation in is entirety and set up one large air force." The Navy and Marine Corps testimony was so heated and controversial that Truman was forced to fall back and regroup. He asked the new Secretary of the Navy, James V. Forrestal, and the new Secretary of War, Robert P. Patterson, to seek a compromise solution for presentation to Congress the following year. [18] Truman and the Congress, exhausted and increasingly wary of Russia, finally forged a compromise solution in the National Security Act of 1947, signed into law on July 26 of that year. The national security organization finally agreed to by both Secretary Forrestal and Secretary Patterson is shown in Figure 2. Click here to view image Throughout this ordeal, as biographer Stephen Ambrose observed, Eisenhower had urged the principle of unity of command for American armed forces in the various theaters around the world; he had advocated unification of the armed forces, not through a loose federation at the top (as happened with the creation of the Department of Defense in July 1947) but through a real integration that would stretch from the high command in Washington to the smallest unit in the field; he had fought against a pell-mell, helter-skelter demobilization; he had argued for universal military training, with every American boy (and girl too, in his view) spending his or her eighteenth year either in the armed services or in some form of national service job; he had supported the idea of international control of atomic energy, if it could be achieved consistent with America's security interests. .. [20] However, when General Bradley relieved him in early February, 1947, Ike had lost on every point. He retired bitter and "fed up" with the "long succession of personnel, budgetary, and planning problems" from a job he characterized as being "as bad as I always thought it would be." He spent six months writing the account of his wartime experiences, published under the title Crusade In Europe, and then accepted the Presidency of Columbia University. Chapter III THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF 1947 AND THE UNIFICATION DRAMA (1947-1952) THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF 1947 The Congress, in finally passing the National Security Act of 1947, settled the unification issue largely in favor of the Navy by legislating the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a committee of "principal military advisors." The Act did not establish an informal "Chairman" although it retained Admiral Leahy's position as "Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief." It provided the JCS a "Joint Staff" of 100 officers to assist them in preparing joint strategic and logistic plans and provided for establishing unified commands in strategic areas. By late 1947 seven unified geographic commands and two specified commands would be established but, almost from the beginning, the debate of service dominance over the JCS structure surfaced. [1] Within each unified command, at least theoretically, Army, Navy, and Air Force troops were under commanders of their respective services and under the overall supervision of a commander in chief designated from one of the services by the Joint Chiefs. In practice, however, the principle of unity of command under this single unified commander was not really achieved. The Act created the Air Force as a co-equal service, a Secretary of Defense to exercise direction over the three services, the Central Intelligence Agency, and a National Security Council to assist the President with national sevurity policy formulation. As Millett and Maslowski note: The new defense organization--labeled the "national military establishment"--was not a centralized, "unified" system, but a federation of the World War II model. The Secretary of Defense, aided by a small staff, had only general, coordinating powers.. .The law specified service roles and missions, particularly for the navy and Marine Corps, which saved all naval aviation functions and the Fleet Marine Force by inspired lobbying with Congress. Interservice relations remained bound to tbe JCS system of military negotiation...Navy partisans were even more pleased with what had been avoided. Secretary of War Robert Patterson would not accept the new defense post, [so Navy Secretary] Forrestal became the first Secretary of Defense. General Eisenhower did not become a single, powerful military defense chief and could only function informally as a presidential advisor. [2] Each of the three military services retained much of their former autonomy. Although the new Secretary of Defense, accorded cabinet rank, was clearly intended to be the central figure in coordinating the overall National Military Establishment, the service secretaries retained authority for administration, training, and supporting their respective forces. All three were designated executive department heads and, though they lacked cabinet rank, had direct access to the President. In effect, the Secretary of Defense, with only coordinating powers, a small staff, and no single principal military advisor, was "held hostage" to the services. Army Chief of Staff General Bradley expressed his dismay with the final result: I had supported and testified for Truman's original unification plan and was not very happy with the final outcome. The act had been so watered down to mollify the Navy that the end result was not truly "unification" but rather a loosely structured "federation." [3] The Army's official history would later reinforce Bradley's views in assessing flaws in the new organizational structure: The signal weakness of the act, however, was not that it left the armed forces more federated than unified, but that the Secretary of Defense, empowered to exercise only general supervision, could do little more than encourage cooperation among the departments. Furthermore, the direct access to the President given the three service secretaries tended to confuse the lines of authority. [4] THE THREE "ACTS" OF THE POSTWAR UNIFICATION "DRAMA" In his memoirs, A General's Life, Bradley neatly divides the "drama of postwar unification and interservice planning...into three acts or phases, the `Forrestal Phase,' the `Ike Phase,' and the `Louis Johnson Phase.'" Between March 1948 and October 1949, initially at Forrestal's direction, the JCS attempted to develop, for the first time, a "unified" war plan and military budget to support Truman's defense policy while also providing sufficient atomic forces to defeat the Soviet Union in all-out war. Bradley describes this 18-month attempt as the bitterest "interservice war" in our history. It resulted in a revolt of the Navy and a near-revolt of the Air Force. The acrimony and pressures led many distinguished military men and top defense civilians to commit career suicide, and the taxing battle helped bring on Forrestal's real suicide. The pressures felled others--Ike for one--with severe illnesses. [5] Forrestal Phase: The need to develop a short-range emergency war plan was prompted by the Czech coup in February 1948 along with the combined effects of the Berlin Blockade and occupation commander General Lucius Clay's Shocking statement that war could come "with dramatic suddenness." Operation HALFMOON was prepared to counter a Soviet invasion of Europe by using Air Force-delivered atomic bombs on Russia, followed by the Army's mobilization to occupy both Europe and the Soviet homeland in order to "help restore law and order and stable governments." The plan was, in effect, the precursor to the "massive retaliation" strategy that would constitute the basis for deterrence in the early years of the new Eisenhower administration. However, agreement among the Joint Chiefs on the allocation of Truman's $14 billion budget ceiling proved impossible. The new Air Force Secretary, W. Stuart Symington, and Air Force Chief of Staff, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg (whose uncle was a prominent Republican Senator) openly defied Truman by seeking congressional support for a disproportionate share of the limited defense budget that would enable the Air Force to provide a "cheap-easy- victory-through-air power-alone" plan for HALFMOON. Forrestal, quickly losing Truman's confidence because of his inability to counter this "brazen Air Force end run," now realized he needed more high-level military advice in his small office than was authorized by the `47 Act. At the same time, the Navy, which had gradually been losing prestige since the war, became acrimonious and bitter about the lack of naval power envisioned in HALFMOON. The Air Force-Navy rivalry spilled over into an "unseemly semi-public brawl." Since Bradley, as Army Chief of Staff, had not yet become involved in-the feud, Forrestal asked him to serve as his "principal" military advisor, a sort of "dispassionate referee" to assist him, without violating existing law, in somewhat the same capacity that Admiral Leahy had served President Roosevelt. Ironically, Secretary of Defense Forrestal, who had earlier opposed an independent JCS first as Under Secretary, then as Secretary of the Navy, now "condemned their inability to offer integrated advice on any matter involving important service interests, particularly defense budget issues." [6] He now supported creating the position of "chairman" to the JCS, an idea recommended in November 1948 by the Committee on National Security Organization. President Truman obviously concurred and proposed a chairman to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to act as the principal military advisor to the president and the secretary of defense. Turman thus attempted to move from a service-dominated joint structure toward a system in which an independent chairman would assure that the joint structure produced military planning and advice that rose above individual service interests. He did not return, however, to the earlier Army proposals that called for an even stronger joint military leader--an armed forces chief of staff, who would both chair the JCS and command military operations. Indeed, the Truman Administration made no proposals to reduce service dominance of the operational commands. [7] The administration's reluctance to push for the single chief of staff proposal was also due to strong opposition by legislators who preferred the model established by Admiral Leahy during World War II. Although anointed as Roosevelt's special military advisor with the title "Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy," Admiral Leahy had not in any sense been a "commander" and in daily practice had operated as a liaison between the JCS and civilian leadership. Though the senior member and JCS "presiding officer," he occupied a position that was in no way superior to that of General Marshall and Admiral King. In fact, Congress was emphatic in rejecting any suggestion that the establishment of a chairman meant acceptance of an armed forces chief of staff or an armed forces general staff system. Later, in a 1949 Amendment to the original Act, Congress would specifically prohibit any such notions by amending the National Security Act's Declaration of Policy: In enacting this legislation, it is the intent of Congress to provide... [for] the effective strategic direction of the armed forces and for their separation under unified control and for their integration into an efficient team of land, naval, and air forces but not to establish a single chief of staff over the armed forces nor an armed forces general staff... [8] Congress thus precluded the new chairman from exercising command authority over either the JCS or any of the military services although it did provide for an increase in the size of the Joint Staff to 210 officers. Though he would later become the first occupant of the JCS "Chairman" position created by the `49 Amendment, Bradley now turned down this initial offer to serve as Forrestal's "dispassionate referee." According to Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall, he could not be "spared at this crucial point in the Army's history" especially since he had been Chief of Staff for only three months, but also because of the political uncertainty of the upcoming 1948 election. Forrestal further sought to moderate the increasingly vehement interservice squabbles by gathering the chiefs together at Key West in March 1948 and again in August at the Naval War College, Newport, in an effort to secure a gentlemen's agreement on service roles and missions. The Army was to retain primary responsibility for land operations, for providing a ground-based air defense capability to defend the United States against air attack, and for occupation forces and overseas security garrisons. The newly created Air Force would receive sole jurisdiction over strategic air warfare, air transport, and combat air support for the Army. The Navy would retain responsibility for surface and submarine operations and control of its own sea-based aviation and the Marine Corps with its organic aviation. Although the Navy would be allowed to develop nuclear weapons to support all phases of a naval campaign, it was not to develop a "strategic air force." And though the Marines were to retain air-ground amphibious forces, they were precluded from creating a "ground army." Forrestal, however, was ultimately unable to curb the interservice rivalries or to develop a consensus due to service and Congressional pressures. The final Key West "Agreement" proved to be little more than a description of service capabilities as they actually existed in 1948. [9] One provision of the agreement required designating a member of the JCS as "executive agent" for each of the unified commands. This soon caused considerable confusion in command relationships and lines of authority. Ike Phase: Following his re-election in late 1948, Truman decided to bring two strong allies into his defense camp. He persuaded Eisenhower to take a leave of absence from Columbia in January 1949 for the purpose of coming back to Washington for two or three months as a military consultant to Forrestal, a sort of "Presiding Officer" over the JCS. Truman needed Ike's prestige, hoping that he "would exercise his legendary conciliatory magic over the JCS, persuading [them] to agree unanimously on war plans, `weapons, and budgets, thus heading off a brawl in Congress." At this time the JCS included Chief of Staff of the Army (CSA) General Bradley, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Louis E. Denfield, and Air Force Chief of Staff General Vandenberg. Simultaneously, Truman made preparations to replace the ailing Forrestal with a staunch campaign supporter, millionaire lawyer Louis A. Johnson. By early 1949, Forrestal had completely lost Truman's confidence. Bradley noted Forrestal's "increasingly irrational behavior. He had sunk into deep depression and was on the verge of a nervous breakdown." And when Eisenhower arrived in January he was "shocked" at seeing Forrestal, noting in his private diary that "Jim is looking badly" as a result of his own anxiety and "terrific, almost tragic, disappointment in the failures of professional men to `get together'...." [10] Ike felt that Forrestal greatly exaggerated any help that he could provide in the task of "unifying" the services and, after two weeks with the JCS wrote: Except for my liking, admiration, and respect for [Forrestal's] great qualities I'd not go near Washington, even if I had to resign my commission completely. [11] Eisenhower was dismayed by the intensity of the budget controversy and the near insubordination of the Air Force and Navy leaders, noting: Some of our [military] seniors are forgetting that they have a Commander in Chief. They must be reminded of this, in terms of direct, unequivocal language. If this is not done soon, some day we're going to have a blowup... [12] Ike was determined to be fair-minded. Even CNO Admiral Denfield later wrote that Ike's "effort to be an impartial presiding officer met with success." [13] Nonetheless, he still thought the Marine Corps was an "unwarranted and expensive duplication of the Army" and shared Bradley's views that the Navy's budget should be cut. He recommended that Truman cut certain Navy programs, such as the new supercarrier [USS United States, CV-58], in order to obtain more money to support the strongest possible Air Force. He did not agree with the air power zealots that all carriers be eliminated but thought ten or so carriers would be "our greatest asset" in the first months of a war. However he had in mind using existing carriers already built and did not believe hundreds of millions should be spent on the new supercarrier program, believing that a supercarrier would just be a "super" target. Despite Eisehower's logic, charm, reputation, and his good intentions, the JCS could not come to agreement on a new plan to replace HALFMOON, now renamed OFFTACKLE in deference to Ike's football background! The divergence in proposed military forces, however, proved so great as to defy reconciliation. Ike became disenchanted with the constant "split" JCS decisions caused by the intransigence of both CNO Denfield and Air Force Chief Hoyt Vandenberg, writing in March in his diary: The situation grows intolerable...I am so weary of this interservice struggle for position, prestige and power that this morning I practically `blew my top'...The bitter fight still goes on...The whole performance is humiliating--I've seriously considered resigning my commission, so that I could say what I pleased, publicly. [14] On March 21, Ike became gravely ill and bedridden, suffering from chronic ileitis. At Truman's suggestion, lke spent three weeks recuperating first at the Winter White House in Key West, then for another month in Augusta. Although he returned briefly to Washington in late summer to assist new Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, he asked to be relieved of his assignment, recommending that Bradley take the newly legislated JCS Chairman position that he refused to accept. Ike returned to Columbia "convinced that Washington would never see me again except as an occasional visitor." [15] Johnson Phase: One week after Ike became ill Louis Johnson became Secretary of Defense. Forrestal was now barely able to attend his own farewell ceremony in the Pentagon courtyard. In early April, while resting in Florida, he broke down completely and was placed in the psychiatric ward at Bethesda Naval Hospital. A month and a half later, on May 22, Forrestal climbed through an unguarded window on the 16th floor and leaped to his death. Louis Johnson's major goal was to work a miracle in the Pentagon by bashing heads, cutting budgets, and stopping the interminable interservice rivalry by truly unifying the services. Completely opposite to Forrestal in character, many felt the flamboyant and outspoken Johnson had his eyes on the White House. In Bradley's view, he doubted seriously if Johnson knew much about military strategy or weapons systems. He was probably the worst appointment Truman made during his presidency. In a little more than a year, he too would be gone, a victim of his own ambition and excesses. [16] Gradually, Truman and others became suspicious of Johnson's public behavior. Truman later acknowledged that Something happened. I am of the opinion that Potomac fever and a `pathological condition' are to blame. Louis began to show an inordinate egotistical desire to run the whole government. He offended every member of the cabinet. . .He never missed an opportunity to say mean things about my personal staff. [17] Secretary of State Dean Acheson regarded Johnson's conduct as "too outrageous to be explained by mere cussedness." A few years later, Johnson had a brain tumor removed. Regrettably, as Bradley remarks in his memoirs, Truman had "unwittingly replaced one mental case with another." [18] Johnson was an airpower advocate, determined to remove the Navy from the strategic air mission. He did so by cancelling construction of the supercarrier USS United States on April 23, 1949. This act caught the Navy completely by surprise and the reaction was one of outrage: Navy Secretary Sullivan resigned in protest, Truman's naval aide described the decision as "criminal," and the now infamous "Revolt of the Admirals" ensued. On August 10, Congress enacted Public Law 81-216: "The National Security Act Amendments of 1949" which amended portions of the original National Security Act. Key provisions were the renaming of the "National Military Establishment" as the "Department of Defense," redesignating the services as "military departments" as opposed to "executive departments," and the removal of the service secretaries from the National Security Council. This 1949 Amendment also created the position of "Chairman," JCS and abolished Admiral Leahy's former billet "Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief. " The Chairman, JCS, would serve a two-year term with the possibility of only one reappointment. Amazingly, however, he was deprived of any formal "vote" among the JCS. After Ike rejected Johnson's offer to serve as the first Chairman, the Secretary of Defense then turned to Bradley although the general had earlier indicated he did not want the job. But Bradley now changed his mind and agreed to serve in the position for one term, later explaining why: The main reason for my change of heart was my deep concern about the state of the military establishment. Owing to the cancellation of the supercarrier, there was a vicious mutiny afoot in the Navy. With his crazy bull-in-the-china-shop approach, Johnson was in no way fitted to deal with it. A Navy mutiny could conceivably tear apart the Department of Defense, possibly tempting the Kremlin to capitalize on our military disarray. A firm but fair JCS Chairman, assisted by a neutral Army general (my replacement as Army Chief of Staff), might be the moderating force that could prevent a crippling brawl. [19] On August 16, 1949, Omar Bradley was sworn in as the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. However, like Ike before him, he would prove ineffective as a "moderating" chairman and could prevent neither a "crippling brawl" nor the Navy "vicious mutiny" from occurring. The issue which sparked the "Revolt of the Admirals" surfaced in June 1949. The Navy charged that the Air Force's new B-36 intercontinental bomber was a "billion dollar blunder" and was being produced only because Louis Johnson and Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington had financial ties to the contractor, Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft. Navy supporter Congressman James E. Van Zandt then demanded a congressional investigation. Van Zandt, a Pennsylvania Republican, had been called to active naval duty as a Congressman during the war and served in both the Pacific and North Atlantic before being discharged as a captain in early 1946. Carl Vinson, Georgia Democrat and chairman of the newly created House Armed Services Committee (HASC), who had earlier chaired the Committee on Naval Affairs, broadened the scope by launching a sweeping investigation into the national military establishment, its decision-making processes, strategic doctrine, and roles and missions of the services which lasted for three months. During the HASC hearings the Navy, led by aviator Admiral Arthur Radford, attacked Johnson, the B-36 and the Air Force, and the validity of strategic bombing, arguing that a strategy comprised of a "single atomic blitz" was both foolhardy and immoral. The Navy further argued that a plan to completely abolish the Marine Corps was being prepared and, evidenced by their support of the decision to cancel the new supercarrier, contended that neither Bradley nor Vandenberg had any understanding of sea power. Bradley, "shocked" and "angered" at these accusations, felt that the Navy's senior leaders had been "completely dishonest": For the Navy to raise public doubt about the effectiveness--or morality--of atomic bombs was the height of hypocrisy. Ever since I had been a member of the JCS the Navy had been fighting relentlessly not to be excluded from utilizing nuclear weapons. The principal purpose of the supercarrier was to accommodate aircraft large enough to carry atomic bombs. The cancellation of the supercarrier had, in effect, denied the Navy a decisive role in nuclear bombardment. This denial, in fact, was the main cause of the Navy's revolt. Bradley insisted that charges of a plan to eliminate the Marine Corps were also "dishonest" especially since a provision in the 1947 Act protected the Corps. Bradley felt that this charge had been "designed to incur the sympathy of the millions who regarded the Marine Corps as sacrosanct as motherhood." Like Ike, however, he did believe that the Marine Corps was far too large and a wasteful duplication of the Army's mission. Hence Bradley, as he later wrote, had proposed deep cuts in its size. But these cuts were more or less proportional to the cuts proposed for the Army and did not represent an attempt to abolish the Marine Corps. Moreover, Marine Corps aviation was still wildly out of balance, consisting as it did of twenty-one squadrons, which was the equivalent of seven Air Force tactical support groups. At the peak of Twelfth Army Group operations in the ETO, we never had more than fourteen groups supporting twenty-eight to thirty divisions in the line. Bradley was "furious about the grievous psychological damage" caused by the Navy, believing that The crybaby attitude of the naval aviators and Marines had been, in my opinion, gravely damaging both at home and abroad. The admirals were insubordinate, mutinous. Bradley, now discarded his "moderator" image and lashed back. Testifying before Vinson's committee, he predicted that "large scale amphibious operations will never occur again... [because] the atomic bomb properly delivered almost precludes such a possibility" and reminded the HASC that at Sicily and Normandy, "two of the largest amphibious assaults ever made in history," not a single Marine was present. He concluded his "hard hitting" remarks with: many in the Navy are completely against unity of command and planning as established in the laws passed by the Congress of the United States. Despite protestations to the contrary, I believe the Navy has opposed unification from the beginning, and they have not, in spirit as well as deed, accepted it completely to date. As a policy, yes, but as the final and authoritative vehicle for planning our collective defense, no. World War II should have taught all military men that our military forces are one team--in the game to win regardless who carries the ball. This is no time for `fancy Dans' who won't hit the line with all they have on every play, unless they can call the signals. Each player on this team--whether he shines in the spotlight of the backfield or eats dirt in the line--must be All American. The admirals' "revolt" had no effect on Truman's budget and the supercarrier remained cancel led. The principal outcome was the "professional death" of CNO Denfield. He was replaced by Admiral Forrest P. Sherman who had remained close-mouthed during the "revolt," but Sherman would die of a heart attack in less than two years. By late August these headlines were replaced with news of the Soviet explosion of their first atomic bomb, believed to have occurred on or about August 29, and the Communist victory in China forcing the Nationalist Chinese under Chiang Kai-Shek to withdraw to Formosa. These two events provoked a reappraisal of our foreign and military policy, culminating in April 1950 with NSC 68. This document was prepared largely by Paul Nitze who had been selected by Secretary of State Dean Acheson to replace George Kennan as head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff during the summer of 1949. It has become the enduring philosophical statement behind the post-War transformation of American strategic policy and the adoption of "containment." Although the "Revolt of the Admirals" was overshadowed by these global events and soon the Korean War, the defense issues which surfaced during this turbulent period would constitute recurrent themes that would link future reform efforts and even now, four decades later, still dominate the defense debate: 1. DOD civilian relations with industry and ethical issues involving favoritism and influence for political or financial gain as well as inevitable Congressional pork-barreling. 2. Bickering over "roles and missions" resulting in an increased tendency toward competitive rather than complementary service relationships. 3. Interservice rivalries which thwarted a "unified" defense effort and "politicized" strategic issues. 4. The abhorrence of adopting a general staff system and establishing unity of command at the highest military level for fear, respectively, of the "German example" and the "man on a white horse" syndrome. 5. Above all, problems of civil-military relations in a democracy and the absolute need to assure civilian control of the military. As Millet and Maslowski conclude, all of this had one major continued consequence: For the armed forces, the functional and organizational disputes of the late 1940s helped create an environment that encouraged civilian intervention in military affairs, even in matters that might have been narrowly interpreted as "internal, professional" matters. The postwar years opened an area of controversy about the relationship of the armed forces to reform within American society. In 1949 Congress approved the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which extended civilian substantive and procedural legal principles to the armed forces,... [and] created the all-civilian Court of Military Appeals. [20] And so, despite the incredible human toll and his own extraordinary effort during the great unification "drama," when Dwight Eisenhower assumed the presidency three years later, the JCS still "continued to operate on the World War II model as a weakly led committee of service representatives, with only a small service-dominated Joint Staff." [21] Chapter IV EISENHOWER'S REFORMS AND THE DRIVE FOR UNIFICATION (1953-1958) Eisenhower had severely criticized the inadequacies of the joint structure during the 1952 Presidential campaign. He took office in 1953 intent on reforming it, stating shortly after his inauguration: As a former soldier who has experienced modern war at first hand, and now as President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, I believe that our Defense Establishment is in need of immediate improvement. [1] Under Eisenhower's "New Look," following the termination of operations in Korea, defense expenditures and the Armed Forces were to be reduced with the military brought under greater subordination to civil authority and policy. In 1953 and again in 1958 President Eisenhower proposed measures to improve the performance of each of the three components of the joint structure. However, efforts to increase the authority of the chairman, for example, by giving the chairman the right to vote in JCS proceedings and control of the Joint Staff, were only partially successful. Eisenhower sought to clarify the division of labor between the services and the operational commands by separating administrative responsibilities from operational control of the forces, the former belonging to each of the services and the latter to the various CINCs. His attempts to create a truly independent military staff and to reduce service influence over the Joint Staff were also largely unsuccessful. Although the committee system was eliminated, it was replaced by elaborate staffing procedures which required service concurrence with all Joint Staff papers. Thus, the staff was kept a "captive of the services [which] lacked the independence to provide broad, cross-cutting advice and recommendations." [2] REORGANIZATION PLAN NO. 6 OF 1953 To assist the transition to a new Republican administration and provide a bipartisan foundation for subsequent reform measures, President Truman asked his outgoing Secretary of Defense, Robert A. Lovett, to prepare an assessment of organizational shortcomings. Lovett's letter of November 18, 1952 acknowledged the necessity for civilian control and "evolutionary" improvements to the overall unification effort but stressed the inadequacy of the existing joint structure. Regarding the JCS, Lovett wrote: I do not consider the present organization adequate, not only because it leaves certain responsibilities obscure but also because in its present form it does not provide the type of military guidance needed if the full benefits of unification are to be attained...By their very makeup it is extremely difficult for the Joint Chiefs of Staff to maintain a broad non-service point of view. Since they wear two hats--one as Chief of an Armed Service and the other as a member of the Joint Chiefs, it is difficult for them to detach themselves from the hopes and ambitions of their own Service without having their own staff feel that they are being let down by their Chief. The maintenance of an impartial, nonpartisan position becomes increasingly difficult in times of shortage of either men, money, or material... It is extremely difficult for a group composed of the Chiefs of the three Military Departments and charged, with the exception of the Chairman, with heavy responsibilities placed upon them by law with respect to each individual Service, to decide matters involving the splitting of manpower, supplies, equipment, facilities, dollars, and similar matters. In over-simplified form, one of the major difficulties with the present Joint Chiefs of Staff organization is that they are grievously overworked [and] too deeply immersed in day-to-day operations, frequently of an administrative character, to have adequate time to devote to their major responsibilities--the preparation of overall, joint and combined strategic plans, the development of logistic plans, the review of such plans in the light of the material and personnel situation and the effect of new weapons... [This is] aggravated by the fact that the Secretary of Defense has no military staff... [3] Lovett viewed the Joint Staff to be little more than a "clearing house for papers," contending that Fear of an "Armed Forces General Staff" again seems to have dominated our thinking. The broad national service point of view, as compared with the single service point of view, is not merely a problem of the individuals making up the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but is more likely in the Joint Staff which prepares the papers and submits the analyses and studies to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This Staff, by law, consists of officers of approximately equal numbers from each of the three Armed Services. They are of relatively junior grades and their future careers and promotions lie in their separate services. It is not unnatural therefore, that they should from time to time become the advocate of their own Service's point of view. There is, furthermore, a natural temptation to indulge in the indoor sport of "back-scratching." [4] He offered two alternatives to enhance unification. The first consisted of strengthening the role of the Chairman, JCS while relieving the dual-hat burdens of the service chiefs by delegating powers for day-to-day operations to the Vice Chiefs of each service. As part of the same proposal, Lovett advocating the creation of a General Staff Corps to provide a cadre of officers, immune from service retribution, to man the Joint Staff. Lovett readily admitted that this proposal appeared to violate the legal prohibition against an "Armed Forces General Staff." For that reason, which resulted from the inherent Anglo-American assumption that part of the cause of the war had been the power and influence of Germany's General Staff, the proposal was politically untenable. Lovett's second proposal, admittedly "radical" and therefore "disruptive," called for former service chiefs to become members of a "Combined Staff" forming a body of national military advisors rising above parochial service interests in areas of "strategic planning, logistic planning, military requirements, and overall military policies." [5] Lovett also warned against the bureaucratic tendency towards increasing layers of headquarters and argued, as had both President Truman and Eisenhower when he was Chief of Staff of the Army, the peacetime need for Universal Military Training (UMT): The problem of the number of Headquarters in the field as well as in the zone of the interior is steadily growing. There are, in my opinion, far too many levels of headquarters in the Military Services thus adding to the overhead and inevitably causing delay. One of the most promising areas of reduction of cost lies, in my opinion, in keeping the standing military forces to a minimum to protect against disaster while having immediately available a basically trained Reserve. The only satisfactory method of accomplishing this desired result, that I am aware of, is through a system of Universal Military Training and Service. I believe that steps should be taken promptly to make this system effective. [6] Given the new President's personal views and repeated frustration earlier as Army Chief of Staff after the war, as "presiding officer" of the JCS in 1949, and his recent experience as SACEUR in NATO (January 1951 - May 1952), Eisenhower could especially appreciate Secretary Lovett's departing observations. Shortly after assuming the Presidency, Ike constituted a standing committee, chaired by Nelson Rockefeller and including, among others, both former Secretary Lovett and General Bradley (still JCS chairman), to review the basic organization and procedures in the Defense Department. Recommendations from this "Committee on DOD Organization" formed the basis of Eisenhower's "Reorganization Plan No. 6" and were presented to Congress on April 30, 1953. Objectives included: 1. A "clear and unchallenged responsibility in the Defense Establishment." 2. "Maximum effectiveness at minimum cost." 3. The "best possible military plans." [7] Eisenhower sought to clarify lines of authority and strengthen civilian responsibility within DOD. As he explained in his transmittal message to Congress: The provision of the Key West agreement, under which the Joint Chiefs of Staff designate one of their members as an executive agent for each unified command, has led to considerable confusion and misunderstanding with respect to the relationship of the [JCS] to the Secretary of Defense, and the relationship of the military chief of each service to the civilian Secretary of his military department. [8] To fix responsibility along a definite channel of accountable civilian officials, Ike directed the Secretary of Defense to Designate in each case a military department to nerve as the executive agent for a unified command. Under this new arrangement the channel of responsibility and authority to a commander of a unified command will unmistakably be from the President to the Secretary of Defense to the designated civilian secretary of a military department. [9] To provide for greater economic efficiency within the Department of Defense, Reorganization Plan No. 6 abolished the "unwieldy board" system which Eisenhower considered "too slow and too clumsy to serve as effective management tools for the Secretary." The boards were replaced with six new Assistant Secretary positions and a General Counsel to "provide authoritative legal opinions and interpretations." Ike also directed special studies to examine each of the service departments, believing that "improvements are badly needed in the Departments of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force." In an unprecedented intrusion into traditional service matters, he directed service secretaries to instruct officer promotion boards To give the same weight to service in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the efficiency reports from that Office as to service in the military department staff and to efficiency reports of departmental officers. These actions are desirable in order to reward military officers equally for service on behalf of the Department of Defense and service on the staff of a military department. [10] Finally, Eisenhower set out to improve the strategic planning machinery by enhancing the military advisory role of the corporate JCS. He did so by removing the service chiefs from their "executive agent" roles to the unified commands and by increasing the chairman's authority. Reorganization Plan No. 6 gave the JCS Chairman responsibility for selecting the Director of the Joint Staff, subject to Secretary of Defense approval, and authority to both manage the Joint Staff and approve those officers selected by the other service chiefs to serve on the Joint Staff. Amazingly, up until 1953, the senior military officer in the United States, despite his great responsibilities, did not have the authority to approve officer assignments to either his own staff or its director or even to manage the day-to-day activities of the Joint Staff! THE DEFENSE REORGANIZATION ACT OF 1958 During the mid-1950's, new tensions were generated within the defense establishment as a result of radical changes in warfare brought on by scientific and technological advances and the rising costs of new weapon systems. Controversies erupted over tactical air support, airlift for Army ground forces, anti-missile missiles, intermediate-range ballistic missiles, carrier vs. land-based aviation, and the adequacy of existing military organizations for meeting future problems. In 1956, the House Appropriations Committee attacked the continuing problem of interservice rivalry: Each service, it would seem, is striving to acquire an arsenal of weapons complete in itself to carry out any and all possible missions. It is the firm belief of the committee that this matter of rivalry is getting completely out of control. It is expensive and undesirable, and points up the need for more effective control and direction. A sincere and self-sacrificing effort must be made by all concerned to substitute real unification for the present loose federation. [11] Critics increasingly charged that the parochial attitudes of individual service chiefs made it difficult for the Secretary of Defense to receive impartial military advice. Again the plea was made for an armed forces general staff with a single chief of staff from whom authoritative military advice could be obtained. In his January 9, 1958 State of the Union address, Eisenhower told the Congress that additional defense reforms were "imperative" and acknowledged the revolutionary impact science and technology was having on warfare: Some of the important new weapons which technology has produced do not fit into any existing service pattern. They cut across all services, involve all services, and transcend all services, at every stage from development to operation. In some instances they defy classification according to branch of service. [12] Shortly before his address Eisenhower had received a report from Rockefeller's standing advisory committee. Recommendations included "organizing operational forces as truly unified commands and running the chain of control from the President through the Secretary of Defense (and Joint Chiefs of Staff) directly to commanders of each unified force, rather than through the service Secretaries." The committee also urged further strengthening of the JCS Chairman's role and consolidating research and development activities under the Secretary of Defense. [13] Unlike the 1953 changes, which had been accomplished under a 1949 provision that allowed the President to reorganize the executive branch unless reversed by congressional veto, any new proposals in 1958 would now require affirmative congressional action. Eisenhower has written in his memoirs of the battle that lay ahead during 1958: The most spectacular legislative battle of that year involved the reorganization of the Department of Defense. When, in my State of the Union message, I had said America wanted interservice rivalries stopped, the line had drawn enthusiastic approval. Yet reorganization was to be neither easy nor automatic...Military organization was a subject I had long lived with; while I had definite ideas of the corrective measures that needed to be taken, I heartily approved of an objective exploration of the widest possible scope, in the hope--which proved vain--that with a report from such a distinguished body of broadly experienced individuals a bill could be drawn that could command my approval and overwhelming support in the Congress. [14] In his message of April 3, accompanying his legislative proposals to Congress, he predicted--wishfully in retrospect--that: 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 preparation and organizational activity must conform to this fact. [15] In his proposals, Ike contended that four existing joint structure characteristics inhibited the Department from effectively performing as an integrated force: 1. The chairman's lack of independent authority. 2. Dual-hatting of service chiefs as members of the JCS and as military leaders of their services. 3. Dominance of the individual services in Joint statf actions. 4. Weakness of the unified and specified commanders. First, to enhance the authority of the chairman, Eisenhower proposed a repeal of the provision that denied the chairman the right to vote. Even though the JCS, in fact, did not function by vote, this provision seemed to suggest that the chairman was somehow inferior to the service chiefs. He proposed other measures as well. However, in enacting the 1958 Act, Congress substantially weakened Eisenhower's proposals. The act assigned the chairman greater responsibilities, but did not endow the position with the independent authority that the president had requested. Congress repealed the provision that denied the chairman a vote in JCS proceedings, but carefully circumscribed his authority over the joint staff. Instead of granting the chairman exclusive authority to assign duties to the joint staff, Congress retained a parallel authority to select the director of the joint staff, but only in oonsultation with the JCS. Moreover, the chairman's previously unencumbered authority to manage the joint staff was qualified in the 1958 act by the phrase `on behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs' [16] Second, he tried to reduce the JCS workload by legislation that would shift much of their service-specific administrative duties to their vice chiefs. The Secretary of Defense could then "require the chiefs to use their power of delegation to enable them to make their Joint Chiefs of Staff duties their principal duties." [17] However, Eisenhower's objective of a nonparochial JCS was never realized either. One frequently cited article, consistent with Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett's earlier observations, explains why: The measures that allowed the service chiefs greater authority to delegate their service duties did not address the primary source of the chiefs' inability to put joint interests over service interests... A service chief's authority over his service derives largely from how effectively he represents its interests in outside forums, such as the JCS. At the same time, the service chief's power and stature within the joint arena, the defense department, and before the Congress, derive primarily from the resources and personnel that he controls as the military leader of his service. Moreover, in formulating joint positions, a service chief relies on the staff that works exclusively and directly for him--the service staff, which itself has strong incentives to ensure that important service interests are not sacrificed in the joint forum. Since the 1953 and 1958 reforms did nothing to alter these organizational realities, they had little affect on the character or content of JCS decisionmaking. [18] The third focus of the 1958 reforms was on the structure and procedures of the joint staff. Eisenhower believed that the existing joint decision procedures subverted the development of integrated military positions. He criticized the extent of service dominance over the joint staff inherent, for example, in the requirement for each service to review and approve each joint paper at multiple levels. Resulting plans, he later wrote in his memoirs, "were little more than a worthless scheme to balance various service considerations and prejudices" [19] and in his April 3 message to Congress he stated: These laborious processes exist because each military department feels obliged to judge independently each work product of the Joint Staff. Had I allowed my interservice and interallied staff to be similarly organized in the theaters I commanded during World War II, the delays and resulting indecisiveness would have been unacceptable to my superiors. [20] To abolish the practice of implicit single service vetos in joint staff actions, the Secretary of Defense was directed to reform joint staff structures and procedures, the joint staff committee system was eliminated, and Congress was asked to eliminate or raise the statutory limit of 210 officers on the joint staff. Eisenhower's intent was to transform the joint staff from that of a "broker for service views" into an "independent military staff with a unified national perspective." [21] However, his proposals drew emotional charges of another attempt to create a "Prussian-style" general staff. Carl Vinson, previously mentioned as a staunch naval supporter and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, was one of his strongest critics. Two weeks after forwarding his proposals, in an appearance before the American society of Newspaper Editors, Eisenhower responded to Vinson's charges: It will also be said that [it sets up] a monstrous general staff--usually called "Prussian." I am always amused when I hear that word, because I nearly always ask the individual to explain it to me by telling me what he thinks a Prussian general staff was. Few can do it. In any event, they fear that this monstrous staff will be set up to dominate our armed forces and in due course will threaten our liberty. This is nonsense... There will be: --no single chief of staff; --no Prussian staff; --no czar; --no forty-billion-dollar blank check; --no swallowing up of the traditional services; --no undermining of the constitutional powers of Congress. [22) When finally signed into law on August 6, the 1958 Act authorized an increase in Joint Staff strength to 400 officers. The committee system structure which had existed since 1942 when Roosevelt first created the JCS was replaced by a "unified joint staff" organization patterned after the practice of creating directorates in the unified command staffs. However, the law placed specific restrictions on Joint Staff authority and organization to prevent the emergence of a "general staff corps" of officers. Section 143(d) of Title 10, United States Code states: The Joint Staff shall not operate or be organized as an overall Armed Forces General Staff and shall have no executive authority. To prevent the emergence of anything even remotely resembling such an elite, and presumably dangerous staff, duty was limited by law to a maximum of three years after which the same officer could not be reassigned back to the Joint Staff for a minimum of three years. In the case of the Director of the Joint Staff, the law specifically prohibited his reassignment to the Joint Staff in any capacity whatsoever. Additionally, even though the committee system had earlier been disbanded the single service veto remained through elaborate staffing procedures that continued to circulate papers to the military departments for approval at each level of preparation. Thus, the 1958 reforms reorganized the joint staff, but they did not substantially change the procedures that prevented it from operating independently of the services. It continued to serve as an executive secretariat that coordinated, rather than integrated, service views. The fourth and overriding objective of the 1958 proposals was the necessity of reducing the services' grip on the combatant commands by establishing a more unified structure that would promote integrated operations and planning while also asserting greater civilian control over the operational chain of command. In his April 3 message Eisenhower stated: The need for greater unity today is most acute at two points--in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and in the major operational commands responsible for actual combat in the event of war... 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. This lesson, taught by World War II, I learned from firsthand experience. With rare exceptions, as I stated before, there can no longer be separate ground, sea, or air battles... Because I have often seen the evils of diluted command, I emphasize that each unified commander must have unquestioned authority over all units of his command. Forces must be assigned to the command and be removed only by central direction--by the Secretary of Defense or the Commander in Chief--and not by orders of individual military departments. Commands of this kind we do not have today... We must recognize that by law our military organization still reflects the traditional concepts of separate forces for land, sea, and air operations, despite a Congressional assertion in the same law favoring `their integration into an efficient team of land, naval, and air forces...' This separation is clearly incompatible with unified commands whose missions and weapons systems go far beyond concepts and traditions of individual services. Today a unified command is made up of component commands from each military department, each under a commander of that department. The commander's authority over these component commands is short of the full command required for maximum efficiency. In fact, it is prescribed that some of his command powers shall take effect only in time of emergency. [23] Later in his memoirs, he elaborated on the influence of his own experience and the need for "unquestioned authority" in the unified commander: Our overseas forces had operated under so-called "unified commands" since the early days of World War II. But the component units, divisions, carriers, and wings were normally assigned to the specified commander for tactical operations only; for other functions the separate services were in a controlling position. In some respects the authority sought for unified commanders was even more sweeping than that I exercised over all the American Forces assigned to OVERLORD in World War II. In my own experience in the European Theater I had found little difficulty with a loose theater organization, partly because of the spirit of cooperation existing in wartime and partly because I was also the administrative commander of by far the largest single component force in Europe, the United States Army, which included the Air Force. At SHAPE in 1951, likewise, President Truman had been careful to spell out that the Sixth Fleet operating in the Mediterranean was directly under my command. But my experiences, I well realized, were not universal... I have always believed that a nation's defense would be most efficiently conducted by a single service, comprising elements of land, sea, and air. I did not (and do not) join those who insist that a system of "checks and balances" among services contributes to a nation's security. Successful defense cannot be conducted under a debating society. [24] Toward this end, Ike proposed greater clarity in the division of labor between the military departments and the operational commands. The unified commands, organized geographically, and the specified commands, organized functionally, would "command and operate" the forces while the military departments, still organized along the traditional distinctions between land, sea, and air warfare, would be responsible for the "maintaining functions including recruiting, organizing, training, and equipping the forces. As a result, the military departments were to have only administrative responsibility, relinquishing operational responsibility over deployed forces. This scheme represented an attempt to press "the task force concept applied with such great success in World War II to its logical conclusion [and] sought to relegate the services to supporting functions roughly equivalent to what the Army Service Forces and Army Ground Forces commands did" during the war. [25] In the 1958 Act, Congress, at Eisenhower's request, repealed the statutory authority that the service departments previously held, as "executive agents," to command forces. At the same time Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy issued a directive establishing two command chains: an operational chain of command for deployed forces and an administrative chain for support. The operational chain would now run from the president to the secretary of defense, through the JCS for transmittal of orders, then to the unified and, specified commanders. The support chain would run from the president to the secretary then to the service secretaries and, finally, the service components in each operational command as shown Figure 3. Click here to view image Finally, in his 1958 reform effort, Eisenhower again sought to further strengthen the power of the Secretary of Defense. Increased authority was needed to further enhance civilian control over budgetary matters and to eliminate the incessant interservice rivalry and perennial disputes over strategy, force levels, and funds which he knew from his earlier frustrating experiences, did little to promote effective unification and rapid decision-making that the Nation now required. In his April 3 message he outlined the budgetary problems in DOD: I regard it as fundamental that the Secretary, as civilian head of the Department, should have greater flexibility in money matters, both among and within the military departments. Firmly exercised, it will go far toward stopping the services from vying with each other for Congressional and public favor... Today most of our defense funds are appropriated not to the Secretary of Defense but rather to the military departments... the Secretary of Defense needs greater control over the distribution of functions in his Department. His authority must be freed of legal restrictions derived from pre-missile, pre-nuclear concepts of warfare. Various provisions of this kind becloud his authority. Let us no longer give legal support to efforts to weaken the authority of the Secretary. On this point the law itself invites controversy. On the one hand, the National Security Act gives the Secretary of Defense `direction, authority, and control' over his entire Department. Yet the same law provides that the military departments are to be `separately administered' by their respective Secretaries. This is not merely inconsistent and confusing. It is a hindrance for efficient administration. The contradictory concept, however, that three military departments can be at once administered separately, yet directed by one administrator who is supposed to establish `integrated policies and procedures' has encouraged endless, fruitless argument. Such provisions unavoidably abrade the unity of the Defense Department...I suggest that we be done with prescribing controversy by law. [27] Eisenhower's intent in 1958 represented an effort to end one major aspect of the traditional role of the military departments since they were no longer to have any part in the directing of combat operations. The JCS and the unified commanders were to occupy stage center, while the defense secretary and his assistants were to exercise tighter control of service functions though increasing budgetary and management supervision. [28] In practice, however, the reform effort failed to remove the services from operations and the division between operating and maintaining functions would prove largely cosmetic. The arrangements that eventually prevailed frustrated the original intentions of the proposed reform measures. Although subordinate service component commanders in a unified command were now responsible to the CINC for "operational" matters, they were still responsible to their respecitve chiefs of service for essentially everything else, which, in peacetime, is almost everything of importance. Even 25 years after the 1958 Act former component commander and later JCS Chairman, Air Force General David C. Jones, expressed his experience in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee: I received all my money, all my airplanes, all my people, my people got promoted and were reassigned by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. I received nothing in the way of money or equipment from my Joint Commander (the CINC); therefore, my service chief had much more influence on me and my command than did the joint system. [29] In future years, the military services would use "their control of the budget and administration of the forces to maintain their dominance over the unified commands" and, as a result, the "statutory division of labor between the military services and the unified and specified commands has never been fulfilled in practice." [30] Eisenhower's inability to incorporate his strong views, based upon his own wartime experiences, into the defense establishment resulted both frog widespread bipartisan Congressional Concern about undercutting civilian control over the military and also more partisan concerns about Congressional control over military budgets and activities. Regarding the former, Senator Hubert Humphrey's views captured these sentiments in 1956: It is my firm conviction that there has never been a greater example of the inherent genius of our governmental institutions than the American developed Joint Chiefs of Staff concept. Later, in 1959, Senator Humphrey went on to explain why: The Joint Chiefs of Staff concept is the only system for military planning at the seat of government which possesses superior military effectiveness and at the same time does not clash with the concepts of the type of democratic government it is a part of and supports. [31] Regarding Congressional influence and control, Eisenhower wrote in his memoirs about the battles he had with the Democratic HASC Chairman, Carl Vinson, who, according to Ike: viewed with suspicion any proposal which might diminish the degree of control which he and his committee and the Congress exercised over military activities, many of which were matters of detail only. Recognizing my determination to bring about a modernization of Defense organization, he let it be known that he was going to try to defeat the effort. [32] Eisenhower patiently explained to Vinson, who had been in Congress since 1914 and had served as Chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee from 1931 to 1949: All we're trying to do is to set up an establishment that will function in peacetime, as it necessarily must in wartime, under the Secretary of Defense. [33] Vinson, however, remained unconverted. When Eisenhower finally signed the bill into law on August 6, 1958 it contained a few provisions inserted by Vinson that Ike had earlier described as "legalized insubordination." [34] Despite his disappointment he felt that "traditional inertia" had been overcome with "remarkable results" and informed his close associates that the Reorganization Act of 1958: Was just another step toward what the majority of experienced military men knew was necessary. Not only would new developments demand further revision, but it was quite clear that the members of the Congress, only a few of whom are knowledgeable in the principles of military organization and operations, normally display too much concern for the old, even the obsolete. [35] Among those close associates who witnessed his remarks was Eisenhower's staff secretary, then Brigadier General Andrew Jackson Goodpaster. Ironically, appearing before the HASC a guarter-century later, Goodpaster would transmit Ike's intentions and perceptions regarding defense reform measures as the Congress of a later era deliberated on another Defense Reorganization Act--ultimately to be known as the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. Thus, the last of the Eisenhower reforms in 1958 culminated the postwar development of the joint military establishment. The 1953 and 1958 reforms succeeded in strengthening some of the joint military actors and reducing service influence in the joint system. But they fell far short of achieving Eisenhower's objective of a more independent and integrated joint military structure, in which unburdened service chiefs, led by a strong chairman and supported by an independent joint staff, operated as a unified military planning and advisory ... In short, despite the concerted efforts of the Eisenhower Administration, the joint system continued to operate on the World War II model of a service-dominated, committee- coordinated structure. [36] As the official Legislative History of the Goldwater-Nichols Act notes, the structure that emerged in 1958, with only minimum changes, is the same system that was operating up until passage of this recent Reorganization Act in 1986. [37] The perceived deficiencies in the system--which was not modified for nearly 30 years--are indeed the legacy of the incomplete reforms that had been sought during Eisenhower's presidency. Chapter V LEGISLATIVE DORMANCY (1958-1982) Although the period between the Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 and its successor in 1986 did not include any fundamental statutory changes related to defense organization, these intervening years did contain a proliferation of studies and inquiries into the Defense Department--at least one for every White House occupancy change. Two other significant events during this period are worth noting. Although legislative action on the great unification issues of the Eisenhower era would lay "dormant" during this next quarter-century, Kennedy's appointment of Robert S. McNamara as Secretary of Defense would profoundly impact upon civil-military power relationships, especially regarding defense budgeting matters. At the same time, Congress refused to enhance the authority, influence, and prestige of the JCS Chairman despite consistent study recommendations to do so. CHANGING CIVIL-MILITARY POWER RELATIONSHIPS In his 1958 proposals Eisenhower, in order to provide greater unity of military effort, had sought increased authority for the JCS Chairman including greater control over the Joint Staff. However, Congress had viewed such proposals with misgivings since the role of the service chiefs in the JCS would simultaneously be diminished. Service parochialism and JCS "splits," from the Congressional perspective, were not necessarily undesirable. One argument advanced to support this view is the following: Under the Constitution, Congress shares responsibility for the national defense with the executive branch. Since Congress lacks direct military staff assistance and military expertise of its own, it wants a range of alternatives to consider. The JCS system, based as it is on the three separate military Services, does promote the generation of alternative views. In a single staff system such would not be the case. [1] Consequently, in 1963, when Major General Goodpaster, previously Ike's White House staff Secretary from 1954 through 1961, was nominated to occupy the new position of JCS "Deputy Chairman," Congress refused to grant the appointinent believing that creation of such a position would excessively enhance the power and prestige of the JCS Chairman. This rejection was certainly not a reflection on Goodpaster's qualifications, so an accommodation was reached by instead naming him as "Assistant to the Chairman," JCS. [2] Later he would advance to four-star rank and occupy, like his former commander-in-chief, the NATO post of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. In contrast, Eisenhower's proposals to invest greater civilian control over the military were more successful. The 1958 Act strengthened the Secretary of Defense by giving him the authority to enhance overall defense "effectiveness, ecomony, or efficiency" by consolidating "any supply and service activity common to more than one military department" [3]. The Act also clarified the relationship between the service secretaries and the secretary of defense. Previously, the service departments were, by law, "separately administered by their respective Secretaries." Eisenhower had referred to this as "legalized insubordination" because the law encouraged--literally required--the service secretaries and chiefs to present their respective cases to the President directly and to personally testify before Congress. The 1958 Act changed this provision to read: "Each military department... shall be separately organized under its own Secretary and shall function under the direction, authority, and control of the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary of a military department shall be responsible to the Secretary of Defense for the operation of such department as well as its efficiency..." [4] Despite the increased authority provided to the Secretary of Defense by the 1958 Act, the full power now legally available was not to be fully exercised until the next decade beginning with John F. Kennedy's appointment of Robert S. McNamara as Secretary of Defense. McNamara would ruthlessly exercise this power using new decision-making tools that had not been available to his predecessors. Systems analysis was introduced by Secretary McNamara in 1961 as a school of strategic thought. He and his key assistants regarded the selection of strategies and weapons systems as "fundamentally an economic problem... "[5] The attempt, for the first time, to answer the question "How much is enough?" captured some of the very "best and brightest" and completely transformed defense decision-making. However, both the phrase and the problem of relating strategy to resources had been addressed in the preceding decade during the second Eisenhower administration. Ironically, this was done not by an economist but by a military professional and World War II hero, then Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell D. Taylor. Taylor, later recalled by Kennedy to active duty for appointment as JCS Chairman, argued that the determination of U.S. strategy had "become a more or less incidental byproduct of the administrative processes of the defense budget:" President Eisenhower has well said, `The waging of war by separate ground, sea, and air forces is gone forever.' This statement means to me that we should organize our fighting forces on the task force principle, allocating a proper balance of Army, Navy, and Air Forces to the field commanders in consonance with the tasks to be accomplished. It is an anomaly that while thus thinking in terms of aggregate forces balanced for combat, we still `buy' our forces, so to speak, in terms of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. As a result, no one really knows what the United States is getting for its money in terms of combat power from any single budget or from any series of budgets in combination... Nowhere in the machinery of government is there a procedure for checking military capability against political commitments... How much of these forces is enough? [Others] have argued that these military matters cannot be submitted to scientific or engineering analysis [because] there are too many imponderables... It will never be possible for the JCS to produce an agreed tabulation of the forces needed for our security without first settling the basic question of how much is enough in the various operational categories. These yardsticks of sufficiency are the building blocks necessary to provide a solid foundation for defense planning. ..[6]. Secretary McNamara, formally President of Ford Motor Company and a statistician by training, created the Office of Systems Analysis and staffed it with mathematical economists who had been developing concepts such as systems analysis and parametric cost estimation techniques at RAND's Theoretical Economics and Cost Analysis divisions. This young, brilliant and motivated group quickly developed the capability to relate objectives to costs as General Taylor had suggested. They established a Five Year Plan which laid out, in matrix form, Congressional budget categories segmented by "function" (such as strategic nuclear, conventional, airlift/sealift, base operations, etc.) over time. This defense management system focused on outputs and tried to relate requirements to least possible cost. President Kennedy was kept well informed by McNamara and his "Presidential Memoranda" formed the basis of Congressional testimony and DOD decisions. The creation of the new defense financial management system, known as Planning-Programming-Budgeting (PPBS), seemed ideally suited for systems analysis with its economic efficiency-oriented approach and its ability to quantify trade-offs in a government where decision-making usually turns on budgetary questions and, frequently, specific line items. Their view, expressed best by Charles J. Hitch, the new Comptroller, was that "we regard all military problems...as economic problems in the efficient allocation and use of resources." [7] Systems Analysis became the decision-making process because of its ability to quantify and lay out life-cycle costs to support PPBS and especially its capacity to relate objectives to costs. The Office of Systems Analysis under Assistant Secretary Enthoven, an MIT-trained mathematical economist, became extremely powerful and some of its early decisions were devastating to the military services. Great friction developed between the two as McNamara's "whiz kids" early on "proved" the U.S. Navy's proposed nuclear powered aircraft carrier to be cost-ineffective and reduced the Air Force's proposed 10,000 Minuteman ICBM force to only 1,000 missiles. Consequently, enormous power was transferred from the services to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Externally, OSD also successfully challenged the State Department as the dominant power source in American policy formulation: Systems analysis allowed Hitch, Enthoven, and their colleagues to compare (at least on a cost basis) the relative value of weapons programs that performed the same or similar missions... Applied with messianic energy by a new office, the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Systems Analysis), the new technique found many applications. It became a marvelous tool for dismissing service requests and nonquantifiable professional military judgements... In practice, OSD, in collaboration with the NSC staff, challenged the State Department as the primary agency in determining American policy whenever that policy appeared to have military significance. For almost a decade the most powerful knights of "Camelot" were the civilians and military officers who marched under McNamara's banner. [8] Some of the important outgrowths of NcNamara's systems analysis "regime" include: inculcating a habit of explicitly quantifying as many factors as possible during the course of analytical "due process" in Congress, OSD, and the services; a decision-making process that today ironically resembles judicial advocacy rather than scientific objectivism; a process in military policy planning which now pervades not only OSD but the services as well (some have argued that a bizarre inversion has occurred between the two) and seems to be irrevocably entrenched in a symbiotic relationship with PPBS. In addition to the aims of increasing civilian control, standardizing service budgeting, and estimating life-cycle costs while, in general, relating strategy to resources, the systems analysis approach endorsed a greater investment in logistics support such as sea and air cargo transport and prepositioned stocks. This new approach was to especially have long-term impact as a result of increased attention to strategic nuclear policy and arms control. McNamara also quickly seized his authority, granted by the 1958 Act, to enhance defense "effectiveness, economy, or efficiency" by consolidating any "supply and service activity common to more than one department." Within a year of his appointment, he established the Defense Supply Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and, later in 1965, the Defense Contract Audit Agency. [9] Successive secretaries would continue further this consolidation process to increase efficiency by avoiding service duplication. For example, Melvin Laird established the Defense Security Assistance Agency, Defense Mapping Agency, Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, and Defense Investigative Service. However, the evolution of McNamara's Systems Analysis Office reveals how contentious that original source and focus of power would prove in subsequent years: by 1965 the office was elevated to the statutory position of "Assistant Secretary of Defense" under McNamara; in 1973 Elliot Richardson downgraded the office to the non-statutory position of "Director, Program Analysis and Evaluation;" in 1974 James Schlesinger re-elevated the office to "Assistant Secretary of Defense (Program Analysis and Evaluation);" in 1976 Donald Rumsfeld redesignated the position as "Director of Planning and Evaluation;" and in 1978 Harold Brown redesignated the office again as "Assistant Secretary of Defense (Program Analysis and Evaluation)." [10] STUDIES, MORE STUDIES BUT NO ACTION During subsequent administrations following the 1958 Act a series of study groups and "blue ribbon" panels continued to scrutinize defense organization and practices. These studies are noteworthy for their consistency and also because they were not, with the notable exception of the recent Packard Commission, incorporated into law or executive order. In 1960, Stuart Symington chaired the Committee on the Defense Establishment for President Kennedy. This study recommended replacing the JCS with a single officer who would act as the principal military advisor to the president and secretary of defense, preside over a new "military advisory council" similar in concept to Secretary Lovett's "Combined Staff" proposal in 1952, and direct the combatant commands. [11] President Nixon appointed a Blue Ribbon Defense Panel (known as the Fitzhugh Report) which concluded that "the present combatant command structure does not facilitate solving serious problems affecting national security" and recommended "a major restructure of the statutory and regulatory basis for the Department of Defense," including the creation of three new unified commands--a Strategic Command, a General Purpose Command, and a Logistics Command--and integrating the secretariats and service military staffs to eliminate duplication. [12] More than a year after the report was submitted to Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird only one recommendation was acted upon: creation of the "Director of Net Assessment" in OSD. The National Military Command Structure Study, prepared by Richard Steadman as part of President Carter's Defense Reorganization Study Project, also identified a number of "fundamental shortcomings," including The absence of a single military superior to the commanders of the unified and specified commands in Washington, the inability of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to address effectively resource allocation and constrained force structure issues, a lack of direct input by the commanders of the unified and specified commands into the budget process, the inability of the Joint Staff to produce persuasively argued joint papers, and the unwillingness of the Services to assign quality officers to the Joint Staff. [13) No formal action was taken on the Steadman Report recommendations although, on April 7, 1979, the Secretary of Defense did establish the Defense Resources Board (DRB) to improve efficiency and effectiveness within the PPBS. A final study effort, which would soon prove to be particularly influential, was known as the Defense Organization Study of 1977-1980 (DOS 77-80). Although events in Iran were to paralyze the Carter Administration during its final months, much of the doctrinal basis for subsequent DOD reform can be found in the historical summary of this "truncated" study: Unfortunately, the DOS 77-88 treatment of DOD organizational structure is unlikely to receive the attention it merits as the most comprehensive examination of the Department of Defense in at least a decade. The study was thrust upon an unwilling Department of Defense by the Carter White House. As long as Carter Administration interest remained high, the effort received attention at the highest DOD levels. When, in the latter stages of the administration, White House emphasis on reorganization gave way to other concerns, the Department of Defense effort quickly faded. By that time individual topical and issue-area studies containing scores of recommendations had been completed and organizations from throughout the Department of Defense community at large had provided hundreds of formal comments. But the DOD effort stopped short of submitting a comprehensive, integrated report to the president based on the issue studies and comments. [14] Consequently, no formal report was ever rendered to either President Carter or Secretary of Defense Brown. Nonetheless, the effort was later captured and recorded by an Air Force colonel who had served as the military staff assistant to the Executive Secretary of DOS 77-80. Colonel Archie D. Barrett would subsequently serve as a Senior Research Fellow at the National Defense University under whose auspices he published Reappraising Defense Organization before retiring to become a member of the Professional Staff, House Armed Services Committee. Here he would become one of the most influential behind-the-scenes architects of the final Goldwater-Nichols Act. Today, he remains one of its most ardent supporters, discouraging the HASC from entertaining any substantive modifications despite service pleas to relax stringent requirements in Title IV regarding joint officer personnel policy. [15] Chapter VI DECADE OF THE `80'S: MANDATES FOR ACTION The resurgence of interest in defense reform can be attributed to a confluence of events that occurred beginning in 1980 with the failed Desert One hostage rescue mission. The more visible of these events include the record of recent military performance, particularly on "joint" operations, and the outrage over soaring spare parts costs and seemingly mismanaged weapons procurement programs responsible for creating an atmosphere of chaos in Defense acquisition. Inevitably, of course, more studies appeared, including the highly acclaimed Packard Report on defense management which rapidly gained widespread acceptance and a lesser known independent study called the Defense Organization Project initiated by Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies. Unlike the many that preceded them, these two were not ignored. Congressional impetus to seriously consider mandating defense reform was provided by the outspoken and unprecedented criticism of two incumbent members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a general atmosphere within Congress conducive to military reform which can be attributed, at least partially, to the "defense reform movement" and in 1981 the creation of the Congressional Military Reform Caucus. THE RECORD OF RECENT MILITARY PERFORMANCE: COMMAND AND CONTROL PROBLEMS The problems inherent in Eisenhower's failed proposals to inculcate "unity of command" into the joint structure and contingency planning process revealed themselves in a series of operational failures. The most dramatic of these occurred during the early morning hours of April 25, 1980 with the failed Iranian hostage rescue mission. The official military inquiry, chaired by former CNO Admiral James L. Holloway, III, emphasized serious shortcomings in existing joint command arrangements. The Rescue Mission Report concluded that: Forces from the several services were pulled together on an ad hoc basis, operated in unfamiliar configurations under ambiguous command and control arrangements, and organized with insufficient redundancy to handle unexpected attrition. . .JCS planning for the Iranian hostage rescue mission permitted Marine helicopter pilots to be assigned the unfamiliar role of flying long distances over land--a practiced Air Force mission. Moreover, the rescue force lacked a single commander. Instead, there was an Army Commander for the ground attack force, a Marine commander for the helicopters, and an Air Force commander at the Desert One landing zone. [1] The next debacle involved the Marine peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Both Congressional hearings and the 1983 Report of the DOD Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Act, chaired by retired Admiral Robert L.J. Long, suggested that there were too many command layers between Washington and the Marine force on the ground in Beirut. Consequently, no one in the chain of command felt he had the responsibility or authority to directly supervise the force: There were six command layers between Washington and the ill-fated Marine contingent at the Beirut airport. Both the Congressional and Defense Department reports on the 1983 incident identified this attenuated command linkage as a significant cause of the Marine's unpreparedness for the terrorist truck bombing. . Although the mission assigned to the Marines changed substantially during the period of their presence ashore, those in the chain of command failed to make appropriate alterations in the explicit military instructions given the forces in Lebanon. The Marines were left unprepared to deal with the evolving threat, and no one in authority took prudent steps to guard against it. [2] The Investigations Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee reached a conclusion identical to the Long Commission: the chain of command was too unwieldy and inappropriate for the situation confronting the Marines. It would be this experience that prompted this very same subcommittee to later advocate organizational reforms enhancing control of the unified Commanders-in-Chief (CINCs) over forces assigned to their commands. [3] Even the 1983 Grenada mission, hailed by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger as an unqualified military success, involved JCS commitment of both Army and Marine ground forces necessitating the division of a tiny island into two theaters of operation between which communication was poor. Inadequacy of joint communications was most publicly demonstrated by the now infamous story of the 82nd paratroop officer who, trying to coordinate fire support, used his telephone credit card to contact Fort Bragg because he could not communicate with the Navy ships offshore. The inadequacy of joint interoperability procedures was further revealed when Army helicopters transporting wounded troops were denied permission to land on the carrier Independence because the pilots had not been qualified by the Navy for carrier landings. Then, after finally receiving permission to land and offload the wounded, the Navy initially refused to refuel them because funding compensation procedures had not been resolved. Reminiscent of Eisenhower's earlier warnings, the aftermath of these operations evoked criticism from all quarters. Typical comments are those of Morton and David Halperin: When the military is ordered to combat, the problem forces units that have not trained together or coordinated procurement to suit each other's needs to suddenly combine and go into action. Instead of inserting coherent permanent units, the United States deploys improvised coalitions of forces who must, on the spot, learn to work with strangers. [4] and William J. Lynn and Barry R. Posen: There is a widespread recognition among experienced professionals that the moment of incipient hostilities is exactly the wrong time to improvise or adjust to new modes of operations. Yet, inadequacies in the joint planning capabilities of the U.S. armed forces--from the Joint Staff down to the level of the joint task force--as well as inadequacies in the joint operational capabilities of the forces themselves result in lashed-together improvisations that increase the risk of failure. [5] A military perspective can be found in the course notes currently used to introduce the topic of "Joint and Combined Warfare" at the National Defense University (including both the National War College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces). The introduction to this course highlights the impact these recent operational deficiencies were to have on the impending reform effort: Taken as a whole, our [recent] operational performance has been discredited by many in Congress and the media, even by some professional military men. Often their complaints arise from 20/20 hindsight, incomplete knowledge of the situation, naive dismay that confusion--a normal if unwanted spirit--attends military action, an unwillingness to accept that (as in the case of the [Iranian] hostage rescue attempt) great risk may result in great success or great failure. Nevertheless--and make no mistake about this--the undercurrent of skepticism regarding general U.S. military operational excellence is at the heart of the mood for change manifest in the 1986 Reorganization Act. [6] These recent "joint" missions illuminated, in an operational setting, the ambiguous command and control problems and the splitting of functions and missions caused by interservice rivalries that Eisenhower had earlier attempted to resolve. PROCUREMENT AND ACQUISITION CHAOS Pressure for reform of the military procurement process also increased in intensity in the early 1980s. A seemingly endless series of highly publicized examples of "waste, fraud, and abuse" were occurring (and continue) but the fundamental shortcomings stemmed from four problem areas: 1. Insufficient assured connection between national military strategy and formulation of military requirements. 2. Failure to achieve feasible and desirable levels of common equipment. 3. Weak management and general resistance to joint programs. 4. Lack of effective service coordination of acquisition. [7] The Army, in particular, had developed a terrible reputation for poorly managing new weapon systems during its comprehensive modernization effort which began in the l970s. Twelve-term Representative William V. Dickinson claimed: I have always believed...that part of the reason for the Army's lack of success in the budget battles was that they didn't always manage their programs that well. The procurement landscape of the last decade is littered with Army fiascos--the Sgt. York antiaircraft gun, the Sheridan tank, the Viper antitank weapon, the Cheyenne helicopter, and the Aquila remotely piloted vehicle, to name a few. [8] As a result, in Congress military "reform" was coming to be identified with the proposition that the Army simply could not be "trusted to develop its own weaponry and that Congress must exercise a detailed and minute supervision over it." [9] Much publicity could also be gained by "uncovering waste and inefficiency" in the Pentagon and Congressmen were tempted to enter the "spare parts sweepstakes." Theodore Crackle, in his article "Pentagon Management Problems: Congress Shares the Blame," cited an "all-too-typical" example: Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-IA) made headlines by detailing the fact that the Air Force was being charged...$1,118.25...for a small plastic cap for the leg of a navigator's stool. Dina Rasor and her Project for Military Procurement, who provided Grassley with the information, subsequently were besieged by calls from harried Congressional staffers who wanted similar examples of outrageous costs so that their bosses, too, could trigger such headlines. [10] Although most of the examples of "overpricing" were discovered and publicized by the Defense Department, this sort of publicity proved harmful by undermining the clear consensus for the long-needed military build-up that existed in the early `80s. Legislators were pressured to translate indignation into action as a result of constituent demands to "do something" without thinking through the consequences of their legislative proposals for procurement reform. [11] These pressures led to incredible growth in the imposition of new laws and regulations governing the aerospace and defense industry: more legal changes were imposed in the 1980's than had been in the previous two and a half decades. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard claimed that the effort to "micromanage to death" the whole acquisition system led, for example, to: Wiretapping offices in the Pentagon and defense contracting installations. Those are the kinds of actions you would expect to be characteristic of the most tyrannical types of police state. They are absolutely the antitheses of what you'd expect in a free-enterprise economy and in a free-enterprise system... Congress has not come to grips with the nature and dimensions of their responsibility. First, it loudly proclaims that industry should be guided by the principles of enterprise, capitalism and competition which has shaped the industry in this country, then it sets about to legislate and regulate the industry to such a profound extent as to make the application of these principles utterly impossible. [12] By the mid-1980s, the consensus for increased growth in the defense budget had evaporated. During the Senate floor debate preceding the FY `85 Defense Appropriations Bill, the Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, admonished his colleagues who were calling for deep cuts in defense on one hand while protecting favored programs on the other, asserting that "Congress has made the defense bill a jobs bill." [13] Striking examples of this intrusion of narrow political interests into the defense budget include the support "liberals" normally hostile to the Pentagon have given to weapons produced in their own states and districts: [California Senator] Alan Cranston's support for the B-1 bomber, the endorsement that [Speaker] Tip O'Neill, [Representative] Robert Drinan, and [Senator] Edward Kennedy gave to the F-18 (whose engine is produced in Massachusetts), the support of the New York delegation for the A-1O and T-46 (both produced on Long Island) --all testify to the potency of electoral considerations. This propensity, however, is not confined to liberal Democrats. It occurs with the same frequency on both sides of the aisle. [14] Pressure for acquisition reform intensified and, despite a host of previous efforts such as the earlier Packard initiatives in the late `60s and the Carlucci initiatives in the early `80s intended to "streamline" the process, Congress conducted extensive hearings and, in the mid-l980s, passed two procurement laws (PL 98-525 and PL 99-145) to "improve" and "reform" the defense acquisition system. In addition to stipulating other procurement reform measures, these laws have essentially mandated separate career fields for military officers in procurement and acquisition. This notion of legislating specific commissioned officer career patterns, including assignments, training, and tour lengths, would soon appear again in joint officer personnel policies mandated by the Goldwater-Nichols Act. [15] The consensus for action in procurement reform was so strong in both the legislative and executive branches that President Reagan approved and decreed by executive order (NSDD 219) in April 1986, some of the proposed organizational reforms even before the Packard Commission's final report was released on June 30 of that year. One such proposal that was immediately adopted was the Senior Acquisition Executive concept which removed the extensive "layering" between an actual program manager and his superior. The title of the Packard report, A Quest For Excellence: Final Report to the President by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, bore a striking resemblance to a recent best-seller on successful management practices in civilian corporations. In fact, one coauthor of In Search of Excellence, Dr. Tom Peters, advocated attractive ideas during hearings preceding the 1986 Act. Those portions of the Act requiring both a transfer of certain functions from the service staffs to the service secretariats as well as the specific directive to significantly reduce the number of personnel assigned to high level staffs was a direct application of the "Peters Principles." [16] INTERSERVICE RIVALRY, THE MILITARY REFORM MOVEMENT, AND THE- "POLITICIZATION" OF STRATEGY As the foreword to the Defense Reform Debate: Issues and Analysis notes, the current reform movement originated in the late 1970s, as a "distinctive but not unprecedented effort to bring about changes in American military doctrine, strategy, weapons, and organization." The predecessors of the current defense reform movement include the strategists and limited-war theorists of the l950s who wanted to relate military force to political purpose, then McNamara's systems analysts of the l960s who wanted to relate cost to military effectiveness and to quantify "how much is enough" using an exclusive economic approach, and the arms controllers of the `70s who wanted to "elevate arms control to equality with deterrence in American security policy" in order to establish acceptable limits on arms build-ups. [17] Although referred to as a "movement," which implies some unity of thought and purpose, the current reformers really seem to have only three commonly shared views. First, they concentrate almost exclusively on conventional issues rather than nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy. Second, they emphasize our historical attrition-oriented approach to warfare. As General Jones has asserted: Although most history books glorify our military accomplishments, a closer examination reveals a disconcerting pattern: unpreparedness at the start of a war; initial failures; reorganizing while fighting; cranking up our industrial base; and ultimately prevailing by wearing down the enemy--by being bigger, not smarter. [18] The reformers also dichotomize warfare by advocating so-called "maneuver" warfare over "attrition" warfare. Finally, they wish to shift emphasis in procurement from a smaller number of sophisticated but expensive weapons to a larger number of "proven" but cheaper weapons. Beyond these similarities it is difficult to find consensus and, on many issues, they hold contradictory views. In fact, reformers have been able to use "strategic thought" as a means of reinvigorating the Army-Navy rivalry dating back to the debates preceding the National Security Act of 1947 and the 1949 Amendment by "politicizing U.S. strategy." While the "strange politics of JCS reform" is couched in arcane phrases such as "strategic monism vs. strategic pluralism" and "strategism vs. managerialism," the more outspoken reformers, such as Robert Komer and Edward Luttwak, have simply been critical of the Navy's recent buildup. They believe that more resources should be allocated to the Army and complain of the inability of the JCS to provide good advice. As one commentator observes: They support a strengthened Chief in the apparent belief that he would share their view that the heart of American military interest abroad lies in the Central Front of Europe. Perhaps this explains why, in the words of James Woolsey, "the Navy has historically been the most skeptical service of unifying moves in the U.S. defense structure." [19] Others, notably Jeffrey Record, acknowledge the strategic imperative to defend Europe but contend that a corporate form of JCS advice is consistent with a "maritime/power projection" and "transatlantic division of labor" strategy which suggests ways that the U.S. can defend Europe other than by concentrating American resources on the Central Front. In this way: The U.S. would tap its comparative advantage in providing naval and expeditionary "balanced" forces to deal with contingencies outside of Europe, while the Europeans would exploit their geographical and logistical advantages by providing heavy formations to defend the Central Front. It is a variation of this approach (maritime superiority and balanced forces in pursuit of strategic pluralism) that has prevailed during the Reagan Administration over the strategic monism (emphasis on NATO, deemphasis of U.S. regional objectives) of the Carter Administration... Reform of the JCS reflects a deeper debate over strategic doctrine. The pro-reform group has as its hidden agenda an emphasis on Europe and on the land forces to defend the Central Front. Reformers want a powerful military advocate for their own position, and hence criticize the advice of the corporate JCS because it does not. Anti-reform opinion generally supports the maintenance of a variety of balanced forces which can be called upon to deal with a diverse range of contingencies. [20] Thus, as MacKubin Owens argues, interservice rivalry is the "centerpiece of the debate over the JCS" and the reason that since 1942, the Army and Air Force have favored a national defense staff approach with a strong chief, and the naval services have opposed it. [21] Those reformers were also joined by a few thoughtful, experienced, and serious military correspondents and defense journalists who articulated their own reform measures. Notable among these are Arthur Hadley's The Straw Giant, published in 1986, and Richard Halloran's To Arm A Nation, also published in 1986--the year that Goldwater-Nichols was enacted. These authors, along with writer Edward Luttwak, who published The Pentagon and the Art of War in 1984, all advocated dramatic structural changes to the defense organization. Luttwak, for example, argued the need for a National Defense Staff consisting of "national-defense" staff officers whose assignments and promotions are no longer controlled by their original service. Such arguments, though perceptive, tend to disregard what General Emory Upton had discovered in an earlier era--military reforms cannot be made without regard to the American political environment and the national culture. Also, an unwilling military bureaucracy will normally resist change, regardless of the merit in the proposals. As Colonel Barrett points out in Reappraising Defense Organization: Studies are simply too prone to advance far-reaching proposals while remaining insensitive to possible sources of support and opposition in the bureaucracy, White House, Congress, and public. If they are to influence the shape of public institutions such as the Department of Defense, organization studies and other literature of this genre must advance reorganization proposals developed with an informed appreciation of the likely boundaries of the politically possible. [22] In 1981, general Congressional disenchantment with the inability of both armed services committees, especially the HASC, to exercise genuine oversight led to the creation of the "Military Reform Caucus" within Congress. This occurred largely as a result of the unavoidable conflict of interest charges faced by HASC members with their narrow political intrusions into the defense budgeting process. Initiated by Senator Gary Hart, Colorado Democratic Congressman, and Bill Whitehurst, Virginia Republican, the group now contains over 130 members about evenly split between the two parties. members of this caucus have exhibited keen interest in military reform but that interest also translated into 200 amendments to the 1988-89 National Defense Authorization Act! This clear indication of a breakdown in the Congressional budget resolution process, described recently by the SASC Staff Director as "totally bankrupt," obviously reveals that the Defense Department is not the only federal agency in need of reform. [23] Chapter VII THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS (1982-l986) GENERAL JONES, GENERAL MEYER. AND THE DEFENSE ORGANIZATION PROJECT In March 1982, four months before his retirement, General David C. Jones, USAF, then Chairman of the JCS, published an article in Armed Forces Journal entitled "Why the Joint Chiefs of Staff Must Change." This was followed in April by another critical article, advocating even stronger reform measures, written by General Edward C. Meyer, then Chief of Staff of the Army, also in Armed Forces Journal: "The JCS--How Much Reform Is Needed?." These two articles, representing public expressions by two encumbent members of the JCS, were highly critical of the entire JCS system. This unprecedented and outspoken criticism by two senior active military leaders not only caused resurgence of a debate that lay dormant for 25 years but also spurred Congress to act. Before his article was published, General Jones had established a study group consisting of five retired flag officers, representing all the services, and project director William K. Brehm, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, to "analyze the effectiveness of the Joint Chiefs of Staff organization, procedures, planning, and staffing, to document any need for change, and to develop appropriate recommendations." Their report, known as the Chairman's Special Study Group on The Oraanization and Functions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the "Brehm Report"), concluded that the existing system required "substantial change" and recommended increased authority for the chairman, creating the position of Vice Chairman, JCS, strengthening the Joint Staff, and greater participation by the unified and specified commanders in the resource and force allocation decision-making processes. The report did not mince words: The JCS generally have been seen by civilian leaders as unable to provide useful Joint advice on many issues. Joint Staff work often comes across as superficial and predictable, and of little help in resolving issues. the JCS and the Joint Staff do not have a significant role in setting objectives or in resource allocation. [1] Although both Generals Jones and Meyer would soon retire, their influence in the subsequent defense reform debate, which they initiated while on active duty, was tremendous. In their public articles calling for "substantial changes" to the joint structure, both Generals Jones and Meyer incorporated Eisenhower's earlier arguments to reinforce their own criticisms of the existing joint structure. General Jones, in "Why the Joint Chiefs of Staff Must Changed" lamented: despite many studies that have periodically documented problems with this military committee system and made cogent recommendations for improvements, the system has been remarkably resistant to change... Most of the problems and some of the approaches I will address have been discovered--then reburied--many times in the past 35 years. As an aide to SAC Commander General Custis LeMay, General Jones had earlier observed the intense debate preceding the `58 Act during Eisenhower's presidency. Jones recalled the signing of the 1958 Act when Ike had reminded his associates that it was just another step toward what was necessary. Now, 24 years later, Jones wrote: "....I believe he [Eisenhower] would be disappointed that further steps have not been taken." In his April 3, 1958 message to Congress Eisenhower had stated "We must free ourselves of emotional attachments to service systems of an era that is no more." Now, 24 years later, General Jones, echoed those thoughts, elaborating further: Deep-seated Service traditions are important in fostering a fighting spirit, Service pride, and heroism, but they may also engender a tendency to look inward and to perpetuate doctrines and thought patterns that do not keep pace with changing requirements. Since fresh approaches to strategy tend to threaten an institution's interests and self-image, it is often more comfortable to look to the past than to seek new ways to meet the challenges of the future. When coupled with a system that keeps Service leadership bound up in a continuous struggle for resources, such inclinations can lead to a preoccupation with weapon systems, techniques, and tactics at the expense of sound planning. Contending that "the need for correction is more urgent now than at any time," General Jones attributed the most serious deficiencies to joint officer personnel policies and organizational structure and procedures. He advocated three changes: 1. Strengthening the role of the Chairman, JCS by authorizing the position of Deputy Chairman: the Chairman should be authorized a deputy. It is an anomaly that the military officer with the most complex job is virtually the only senior--and in many cases not so senior--officer who does not have a deputy. 2. Limiting service staff involvement in the joint process: the Service staffs dwarf the Joint Staff with many of the Service officers duplicating the work of the Joint Staff. There are two basic problems. First, the Service staff involvement is a cumbersome staffing process and, second, the Service Chiefs receive their advice on joint matters from their Service staffs... we should abolish the current system in which each Service has almost a de facto veto on every issue at every stage of the routine staffing process. President Eisenhower noted 23 years ago that "these laborious processes exist because each military department feels obliged to judge independently each work product of the Joint Staff." The situation has not changed. It is unrealistic to expect truly inter-Service advice from a staff comprised of officers from only one Service. The Joint Staff can and should provide such advice. 3. Broadening the training, experience, and rewards for joint duty: More officers should have more truly joint experiences at more points in their careers--and should be rewarded for doing so. There should be more interchange among Services, as Eisenhower advocated, and preparation for joint assignments should be significantly upgraded. The joint educational system should also be expanded and improved. An assignment to the Joint Staff or to a Unified Command headquarters should be part of an upward mobility pattern, rather than a diversion or end of a career, as has been the case so often in the past. It is difficult to see how present patterns can be changed, however, without some influence by the Chairman on the selection and promotion of officers. Also, the statutory restrictions on service on the Joint Staff should be removed. [2] General Jones concluded his article hoping that "a middle ground" could be found "to strengthen our joint system" thus precluding "major surgery." General Meyer, in contrast, offered more radical "full-scale reform" measures contending that "major surgery may be necessary": Reform...is long overdue. Tinkering with the mechanisms will not suffice. Only by addressing the issues which have been considered to be too tough to cope with in the past do we have a chance of instituting the reforms necessary to develop the smooth-running machinery required to see our nation through to the 21st Century with our freedoms and national values intact. Meyer further identified three major problem areas beyond those mentioned by Jones: 1. Divided loyalty demanded of service chiefs caused by dual-hatting them as members of the JCS--in Meyer's view this was the "root cause of the ills... addressed these past 35 years." 2. A joint structure incapable of rapidly transitioning to war due to disconnects between resource allocation and operational planning. 3. Lack of participation by the various CINCs in the defense decision-making process. General Meyer proposed a major institutional change to correct the divided loyalty issue inherent in dual-hatting service chiefs: creation of a "National Military Advisory Council." This council would consist of active duty "distinguished four-star rank officers" with "particular expertise in areas of special importance to the joint arena; e.g., strategic nuclear policy; unconventional as well as conventional warfare; and command, control, and communications." These officers would "never return to their respective service," and would constitute a "body of full-time military advisors to the President and Secretary of Defense, thus ending the dual-hatting which has proved so troublesome." [3] This idea was not novel either. Thirty years earlier it had first been proposed to the incoming Eisenhower administration in November 1952 by departing Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett. Just as Meyer was now proposing such a committee to resolve the dual-hatting issue, Lovett's earlier vision consisted of a body of national military advisors who could likewise rise above parochial service interests. In 1960, Senator Symington had also suggested the concept of a "military advisory council" in the report submitted by his "Committee on the Defense Establishment" to President Kennedy. After retiring, General Meyer worked as a key member of a special "Defense Organization Project," initiated by Georgetown's Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in mid-1983. One of the three CSIS project chairmen was Andrew Goodpaster, Ike's former presidential staff secretary and now a retired four-star general. In addition to previously serving as Assistant to the JCS Chairman, Director of the Joint Staff, SACEUR, and later recalled to active duty to become Superintendent at West Point, Goodpaster's testimony during the extensive hearings preceding the Goldwater-Nichols Act would soon provide a critical link back to the Eisenhower era of defense reform. Published in 1985 under the title Toward A More Effective Defense, the CSIS project took as its beginning premise: The failure to complete the reforms proposed by President Eisenhower in 1958 is among the root causes of current problems within the defense establishment. President Eisenhower's three objectives for reform were: 1. Clarify and strengthen the authority of the Secretary of Defense relative to the individual Service departments over all defense activities. 2. Improve the quality of the military advice given to civilian leaders by granting more authority to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and giving him full control over the Joint Staff. 3. Ensure the unity of operational command of the U.S. armed forces in the field by separating the military Services from the unified and specified commands. The services should perform maintaining functions such as training and equipping the armed forces. The unified and specified commanders should be responsible for combat. [4] The analysis and recommendations contained in the CSIS report were categorized by separate working groups studying joint command structure, defense planning and resource allocation, weapons acquisition, and the defense budget process. This report was frequently cited in a special report on Defense Organization by the Senate Armed Services Committee and heavily influenced their deliberations and hearings on defense reorganization conducted later in 1985 and again in 1986. Clearly, the continued participation by Generals Jones and Meyer, whether testifying before Congress or participating in well-coordinated and influential study efforts after their retirement, provides ample evidence that the senior leadership within the military had again become convinced that reform measures were imperative but could only be imposed from outside the DOD bureaucracy. First, however, it had been necessary to voice those concerns within it. ALTERNATIVES FOR REFORM All of these influencing factors played out during the course of the HASC Investigations Subcommittee hearings conducted in 1982 and 1983 and later again during SASC hearings in 1985 and 1986. The Defense Authorization Act of 1985 took some interim steps toward strengthening the Joint Staff by allowing longer maximum tour lengths (up from three years to four), two years minimum time between assignments to the Joint Staff, and gave the Chairman the authority, which he did not previously have, to select the officers assigned to the Joint Staff from among those nominated by the services. [5] Nonetheless, the Services provided the nominations for Joint Staff duty and continued to establish their own promotion policies and promotion board guidance. In another article written shortly after his retirement, "What's Wrong With the Defense Establishment?," General Jones explained the impact of these service dominant policies and lack of power by unified commanders: Virtually their only power is that of persuasion. The services control most of the money and the personnel assignments and promotions of their people wherever assigned, including in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the Unified Command Staffs. Officers who perform duty outside their own services generally do less well than those assigned to duty in their service, especially when it comes to promotion to general or admiral. The chiefs of staff of the services almost always have had duty on service staffs in Washington but almost never on the Joint Staff. Few incentives exist for an officer assigned to joint duty to do more than punch his or her ticket and then get back into a service assignment. I cannot stress this point too strongly: He who controls dollars, promotions, and assignments controls the organization--and the services so control, especially with regard to personnel actions. [6] The Brehm Report, prepared at General Jones' request and published in April 1982, provided considerable evidence substantiating General Jones' views: All professional military assignments have special requirements for prior training and experience. Submarine skippers, F-15 pilots, and infantry battalion commanders all require--and are given--careful preparation...The same should be true for officers in joint assignments... Few do. Of those officers now serving in the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (OJCS), only 2% had any previous joint staff experience...Only 13% have attended the five-month resident course at the Armed Forces Staff College, the school specifically designed to train young officers for joint duty. Of the colonels and Navy captains now assigned to the joint staff...less than one-quarter have been to one of the two joint schools--NWC and ICAF--that are specifically provided for joint education...In the OJCS--the most complex and important military staff in the defense establishment...the average experience level on the staff is no more than fifteen months, and there is virtually no corporate memory. The leadership positions in the joint staff are filled by general and flag officers... the average level of experience on the joint staff for generals and admirals is about one year. For those who served during the past five years, less than 60% had served previously in a joint assignment, even though DOD policy states that a joint duty assignment is a prerequisite for promotion to flag rank. The Armed Forces Staff College prepares officers at the 0-3 and 0-4 levels for joint duty. However, there is no assurance that most AFSC graduates will ever be assigned to joint duties. The same is true of the more senior National War College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces... [7] Attempting to resolve the issue of joint officer personnel policy would soon produce the expected results: acrimonious debates, bitter tensions, and the inevitable cries of alarm over creating an elitist Ganeral Staff Corps incompatible with American democratic values. During the course of the hearings and various independent staff studies, three alternative "models" for joint military restructuring evolved and were compared with the existing "service dominant" structure. Figure 4 compares each alternative in terms of the historic issues that had not been seriously addressed, at least by Congress, since President Eisenhower's proposals for reform in 1958. The models are arranged from left to right in increasingly greater degrees of unification, with the "General Staff" model representing complete unity of command in a single military authority, supported by a professional, independent general staff. [8] Click here to view image Each of the proposals had influential supporters: General Jones favored the "Strong Chairman" model which is what he advocated in his 1982 article "Why the Joint Chiefs of Staff Must Change"; General Meyer strongly argued for a "board" of National Military Advisors separate from the Service chiefs because of his strong views against "dual-hatting"; and Senator Barry M. Goldwater, Arizona Republican and a staunch supporter of the original Eisenhower proposals for reform, favored a completely unified command structure with a single Armed Forces Chief of Staff, as did former Secretary Harold Brown who strongly advocated a General Staff concept, despite strong Congressional resentment and the existing statutory prohibition against any form of a general staff system. [9] Few issues have persistently evoked greater anxiety and emotional rhetoric, or such mixed feelings of fear and awe while remaining at the same time so incredibly uninformed and full of historical distortion, as the notion of adopting an American General Staff. FEAR OF THE GENERAL STAFF MODEL The Declaration of Policy which accompanied the 1949 Amendment to the National Security Act of 1947 states, in part: In enacting this legislation, it is the intent of Congress to provide a comprehensive program for the future security of the United States;.. .to provide for the effective strategic direction of the armed forces and for their operation under unified control... but not to establish a single Chief of Staff over the armed forces nor an armed forces general staff... And the 1958 Defense Reorganization Act contains the following provision: The Joint Staff shall not operate or be organized as an overall Armed Forces General Staff and shall have no executive authority. Since World War II Congressional attitudes toward adopting a General Staff system have certainly been a product of deep-rooted concern to ensure absolute civilian control over American military forces. As the 1985 SASC report on Defense Organization notes: Congressional hostility to a General Staff is a principal reason why this concept has not been seriously considered for application in the U.S. military establishment. It is interesting to note, however, that such hostility has not always existed and is a tendency that emerged only following World War II. In fact, during the debates preceding the National Defense Acts in 1903, 1916, and 1920 the German General Staff was never criticized for "leading to or representing militarism, dictatorship, or faulty strategic planning." During the 1903 debate, which concluded with the actual creation of the U.S. Army General Staff, Representative Richard W. Parker [Republican, New Jersey] expressed the widely shared view that "The whole civilized world has found out that a general staff is an absolute necessity." [10] No doubt the greatest obstacle to a dispassionate analysis of an American General Staff proposal is our association of the General Staff with Hitler and the rise of German National Socialism during the interwar period. This perception continues today despite the clear historical evidence indicating that the German General Staff was not a Nazi institution, nor was Hitler a stooge of the German Army or even brought to power by the military: But it was not the German General Staff that brought on the horrors of World Wars I and II, it was the civilian leadership: a vain and indecisive Kaiser Wilhelm and a madman politician named Adolf Hitler, who came to power through democratic elections. However the Prussian-style General Staff was misused by the civilian German command, it was the most educated, efficient, effective, useful, and brilliant military organization of its kind in history. .. [11] Perhaps, as Army Major Tim Lupfer suggests in his recent article "The German Model and American Military Reform:" The strengths of the German military have been misunderstood by Americans because the German military, and especially the German General Staff, were able to synthesize elements which, to the American mind, are essentially contradictory. According to Lupfer these successful "syntheses" included: the ability of the General Staff to combine conformity and creativity--for example, the concept of "aufstragstaktik," now gaining popularity in our own U.S. Army and Marine Corps; to balance action and reflection, wherein the German General Staff was largely able to reconcile the natural antipathy between "thinkers" and "doers"; and to integrate the functions of command and staff, rather than keeping them completely distinct, for example, by investing legal authority as we do in only one leader at every level of command. [12] Regrettably, as Colonel Trevor Dupuy, USA (Retired), notes in A Genius for War: "The United States has generally ignored (rather than rejected) the example of the German General Staff." This is particularly troublesome because objective evaluations of the concept would only seem possible after the strong emotions associated with World War II began to subside. The establishment of a General Staff is a far-reaching option that might substantially contribute toward resolving the existing inadequacies of the Joint Staff. The fundamental characteristic of a General Staff is that its officers, once selected, remain General Staff officers throughout the remainder of their careers, regardless of their assignments. Their promotions are determined by their superiors on the General Staff, not by their original Service. [13] Even as late as the Congressional debate following Eisenhower's 1958 proposals, the General Staff concept continued to suffer from erroneous American views about the German military "model" and its alleged influence in German history: A general staff organization--which is unswervingly oriented to quick decision and obliteration of alternative courses--is a fundamentally fallible, thus dangerous, instrument for determination of national policy... [general staffs] attempt to control all national policies involved in war--notably foreign and economic policy, both of which lie far beyond the proper sphere of military planners... [14] Congressional opposition to a General Staff concept was articulated by Congressman Carl Vinson's House Committee on Armed Services in 1958. Vinson's committee submitted a special report accompanying the final 1958 Act explaining why a general staff concept was "dangerous." Summarized, general staff deficiencies were "found" to include the following: (1) a failure to systematically consider the full range of alternatives; (2) rigidity of thought; (3) an attempt to control national policies that are beyond military affairs; (4) isolation of civilian officials from other points of view; and (5) erosion of civilian control of the military by concentrating too much power in the hands of the military officers immediately below the senior civilian official. [15] Then as now, these Congressional criticisms are inaccurate and cannot be supported by recent historical analysis of the performance of General Staffs, particularly those of Prussia and Germany. Even the recent SASC report ironically asserts that "these criticisms more accurately reflect the actual deficiencies of the current Joint Staff than they do the imagined shortcomings of the General Staff concept." [16] The dominant criticism of the General Staff system has always been that it is alien to and would threaten democratic institutions generally, and civilian control of the military particularly. Although Major Lupfer's observations regarding U.S. inability to understand the German General Staff may be valid in a "technical" sense, the more fundamental issue is found in the larger American culture and value system. These values are based upon an egalitarian, democratic, geographically isolated and maritime-oriented society which is largely anti-military in outlook, possessing an inherent distrust of things military as connoting excessive efficiency and a threat to the "liberties of the people." This sentiment has been echoed repeatedly since the initial unification debate following World War II. Excerpts from Senator Edward V. Robertson's [Republican, Wyoming] comments during the floor debate preceding the 1947 Act illustrate this perception: It is the imperceptible, gradual, and constant accumulation of authority in carrying out the policy of their so-called superior authorities that national general staffs became a dominant force in their government. It is almost axiomatic that militarism in any country increases proportionately to the power of the Nation's general staff. Its members will become a permanent national general staff corps, an inner circle of professional military men of the Nation... It will be a short step indeed from such a position of actual power to a position of titular power and a position of dominance in the affairs of the Nation. The development of the German General Staff has been characterized by continued efforts to bring all elements of the armed forces under control of a single agency controlled directly or indirectly by the general staff... we should remember that any plan that would place all armed forces directly or indirectly under the General Staff...would conform to a method by which the German General Staff militarized Germany. The arguments voiced by our War Department for its plan for unification of the armed forces and creation of a high command seems inspired by the philosophy of those who militarized Germany. And from remarks by Representative Gerald R. Ford [Republican, Michigan] during the debate preceding the 1949 Amendment: A deep-seated conflict between those, both in the military and in civilian life, who favor a republican form of government and those who apparently believe an extreme concentration of authority and power of decision is a very small and carefully selected cadre of officers known as the general staff. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey [Democrat, Minnesota], in 1956, offered his view of a general staff as: ... the form of highly centralized supreme general staff system which is anathema to every concept of democracy. [17] Once again the basis for this persistent fear is historical analogy to the experience of the German Army General Staff. However, this analogy is fallacious for several reasons: First, the German General Staff was solely an army staff, not an all-arms institution as proposed for the United States. Second, unlike pre-1945 Germany, the legislature provides a significant check on the power of military institutions in the United States. Third, the record of the German General Staff with regard to civilian control is mixed. The determining factor in the German military's role in both world wars was the character and strength of the political institutions, not the type of military command structure. Finally, the American military has very different roots than those of the German Army. Civilian control is deeply ingrained in the traditions and institutions of the American military establishment; and unlike Wilhelmine Germany, military officers do not represent a separate social class with interests at odds with other groups in society. [18] Military historian Daniel Hughes recently observed at an annual meeting of the American Military Institute that German history and their military tradition are viewed by Americans without any real understanding of German culture and the context within which German military institutions such as the General Staff were created and evolved. [19] Although historians can write at length about the historical reality, this will not necessarily change the context of the popular culture or its reflection in the Congress. Summarizing his analysis in "The Evolution of Congressional Attitudes Toward A General Staff in the 20th Century," Robert L. Goldich concludes: The vehemence of objections to an elite general staff based on the assumption that such an organization would threaten American political democracy seems misplaced. Yet the congressional opponents of "the general staff" may very well have been correct in sensing something "un-American" about it. The missions of a general staff--to prepare for war, based on the assumption that there will be a "next war"; to conduct systematic long-range planning; to do all this in an atmosphere of at least relative secrecy--all fly in the face of the traditional American qualities of optimism (there need not be a next war), ad hoc pragmatism (long-range planning is an undemocratic narrowing of options by technocrats), and openness (the public's `right to know'). Congressional attitudes toward a general staff in the 20th Century, therefore, may indicate the persistence of American social myths... and the truly representative nature of the Congress in reflecting popular attitudes and beliefs, however, inchoate, formless, or subliminal. If the Congress changes its attitudes about a general staff... it may indicate a strong confidence in the ability of American political institutions to control the military, regardless of how the Nation's highest military command is structured. It might also reflect a changed, deeper, and more substantial acceptance and understanding of the nature of wars and military institutions themselves among not only Members of Congress, but the people they represent. [20] Nonetheless, as noted earlier in the discussion on interservice rivalry and the "politicization of strategy," the belief still persists that creation of such a prestigious and elite organization may go too far toward centralization and concentration of authority, creating the risk that planning may be slanted to reflect a single strategic perspective. [21] Finally, few understand the distinction between a general staff concept as a functional organization and a General Staff Corps which has historically been an elite and separate branch of the career officer corps. One of the very few in either the House or the Senate who did realize this distinction, and their potential application to the U.S. military within the context of American democratic institutions, was Senator Goldwater. During the 1958 debate, sounding much like Eisenhower advocating complete unification a decade earlier, Goldwater spoke from the Senate floor on July 18: I state again, as I have stated before in discussions on this subject, that I believe the ultimate organization of the armed services must be one military, one uniform, a General Staff, and a Chief of Staff, surrounded by proper civilian protection and surrounded by Congress and the President, so as to eliminate any chances that there might occur what some people seem to think could possibly occur under such a system. [22] Now, twenty-five years later, Senator Goldwater would play a central role in pushing another comprehensive defense reform package through the Congress. But, even then, almost half a century after the beginning of World War II, the idea of installing an American General Staff would still prove as politically untenable in 1986 as it had earlier in 1947 and 1958. THE LAW: EISENHOWER'S LEGACY AND GOLDWATER'S INFLUENCE Although both Generals Jones and Meyer would retire shortly after publicizing their defense reform proposals, their influence in the subsequent defense debate, which they initiated while on active duty, was tremendous. Their proposals sparked debate in both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. During 1982 and 1983 the HASC Investigations Subcommittee conducted hearings, interviewing numerous former chairmen of the JCS, service chiefs, secretaries of defense, national security council advisors, and commanders-in-chief of unified and specified commands. [23] The lead-off witness during the initial hearings in early May 1982 was General Meyer, followed immediately by General Jones. Among the many called to offer their views on Jones' and Meyer's proposals was the one individual who could provide a clear historical perspective and could "speak for Ike": recently retired General Andrew J. Goodpaster. Subcommittee Chairman Whitehurst posed the inevitable question: "...how do you think President Eisenhower would assess the proposals that have been put forward...?" Goodpaster readily admitted that, although hesitant "to speak for [Ike]...I suppose I have had as much discussion with him on issues of this kind as any other human being." As a result of his perspective when earlier serving as Ike's staff secretary and personal confidante, the highly esteemed Goodpaster was regarded as "the single most reliable source for what happened in the Eisenhower Presidency." [24] Thus, his testimony carried great weight and would prove influential in the final outcome of the 1986 Act. In Goodpaster' s words, It took the unique experience of an Eisenhower administration and the unique confidence of the American people in his military judgement to accomplish the reform measures of 1958, and even those did not go as far as he desired... [25] He felt that Eisenhower "would deplore the parochialism that was being shown" and judge the JCS system as having "not measured up to his hopes." Goodpaster offered his own critical assessment as of May 1982: ... the mechanisms for developing and advancing individual service interests and promoting individual weapons systems are stronger by far then those for providing coherent overall strategic plans and responding to overall national security interests and needs... The `corporate duties' of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have not had priority... The service chiefs are heavily burdened with service responsibilities. The staff process for joint matters is cumbersome, laborious and subject to watering-down and log-rolling through repeated layers of review and revision [and]. ..lacks the timeliness and responsiveness it should have, reflects too much of `weapons push' and service proponency rather than an `operational requirements pull' based on overall strategy...The truth is that the weaknesses are systemic and that it is systemic improvement that is needed. Goodpaster concluded his prepared remarks by offering his own views on JCS reform which strongly reinforced the reform proposals advanced by General Jones: It is... unmistakably clear that a strengthening of the role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be critical... He should have full authority over the Joint Staff... The Joint Staff itself should be strengthened. The participation of service staffs in the joint process should be discontinued in its present form. [26] The hearings provoked considerable public debate in the print media and further propelled the "military reformers" toward a new flurry of articles, books, and study documents as committees were formed and think tanks issued their reports. At least four legislative proposals were introduced in 1982 and 1983 designed to remedy perceived weaknesses. These bills ranged from minor changes to the joint structure (H.R. 3718--the 1983 Nichols Bill) to drastic overhaul by abolishing the JCS and Joint Staff altogether and replacing them with a single Chief of Staff to the National Command Authorities who would have operational authority over the ClNcs, staff support from a Joint Military Staff, and advice offered by a National Military Advisory Council-- essentially a combination of the "National Military Advisors" and "General Staff" models (H.R. 2560--the 1983 Skelton Bill). Nonetheless, with the exception of a few non-controversial portions of the Nichols Bill, these proposals were never enacted into law due, at least at that time, to disinterest on the part of leading figures in the Reagan Administration who were focused on other aspects of military "reform," notably the defense budget build-up. In June 1983, Senator John Tower (Republican, Texas), then Chairman of the SASC, and Senator Henry M. Jackson (Democrat, Washington), ranking minority member, initiated a "comprehensive review of the organizational relationships and decision-making procedures of the Department of Defense." As part of this project, the committee held a series of 12 hearings in which it took testimony from 31 witnesses. [27] A 645-page staff report entitled Defense Organization: The Need For Change was completed under study director James R. Locher in October 1985 and presented to Senator Goldwater, who had replaced Tower as SASC Chairman. Although this SASC "Task Force on Defense Organization" addressed some 34 specific problem statements, key organizational deficiencies focused on four areas: operational failures and deficiencies; acquisition process deficiencies; lack of strategic direction; and poor interservice coordination. [28] One "obvious conclusion" of the SASC effort, was that these problems were not new at all: The problems currently plaguing the Department of Defense have not just recently evolved. For the most part they have been evident during much of the post-World War II period; some problems even predate this period... [29] The Defense Organization staff report would constitute the Senate's analytical basis for the eventual Goldwater-Nichols Act which was enacted less than one year later. Released by Senator Goldwater and SASC ranking minority member Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia on October 16, 1985, the report was described as a "landmark" effort, prompting Armed Forces Journal to publish an "Extra" since the magazine's editor regarded the report as "the single most important body of work on national security matters done so far this century." It was only the third such "Extra" in the 122-year publishing history of the Journal. [30] The special edition reprinted chapters of the report and also printed six Senate floor speeches delivered by Senators Goldwater and Nunn on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 8th of October. The Goldwater/Nunn statements shifted focus each day, beginning with "Congressional Oversight of National Defense" on October 1. Goldwater delivered his address first, expressing shock At the serious deficiencies in the organization and procedures of the Department of Defense and the Congress. If we have to fight tomorrow, these problems will cause Americans to die unnecessarily. Even more, they may cause us to lose the fight... The inability to solve these problems is not due to a lack of attention. It is both the extreme complexity of the Department of Defense and its inherent organizational resistance to change, particularly in the military Services, that has served to frustrate previous efforts... Congress is is compounding the problems in the Department of Defense, and major changes in the way we conduct our business are long overdue. We are at a critical time when change is absolutely essential. Congressional oversight of the Defense Department has degenerated into debate over the wrong issues and that irrelevant debate occurs more than once each year. Discipline in Congress has broken down. The discussion is becoming less substantive and balanced. As we direct that changes be introduced into DOD to improve overall national security, we must make changes ourselves. I am casting the first stone and I am throwing it an our glass house here in the Congress. Senator Nunn followed: If we are going to demand reform in DOD, we are going to have to reform ourselves. Congress needs to exercise some self-restraint. We need to restore discipline to the legislative process... Our preoccupation with trivia is preventing us from carrying out our basic responsibilities for broad oversight... Shifting the focus of the Congress away from inputs toward outputs, from trivia to fundamentals, from micromanagement to oversight, will require the active collaboration of Congress and DOD... Fundamental systemic reform is essential if we are to minimize these inefficiencies. This reform must include the Congress. The second day of Senate floor speeches focused on the historical perspective of DOD organization. Goldwater addressed historical examples of American unity of command problems: the Spanish-American War, both Pearl Harbor and Leyte Gulf during World War II, and the seizure of the Pueblo in 1968. Later, Nunn continued by citing similar problems encountered at Desert One and in Grenada. Goldwater spoke of Eisenhower's earlier efforts to correct these "unity of command problems": A weak unified command structure means our ability to defend ourselves and protect our interests in regions vital to our national security are still held-hostage to the will of the individual services... In 1958 President Eisenhower proposed changes to the 1947 act to strengthen the unity of the Armed Forces and their ability to conduct joint operations... But unfortunately, the influence of the individual Services remained too strong. Although Congress approved Eisenhower' s proposals, the concept of unified command that Ike articulated has not been adequately implemented by the Department of Defense at any time over the last 27 years. They should have listened to Ike... President Eisenhower's proposals remain the last serious attempt in this century to correct these serious flaws in our unified command system; 1958 was a long time ago, but the problems Ike identified have not been corrected. And it is clear that the Department of Defense won't make the necessary changes. It is going to be up to the U.S. Congress. This is our challenge; this is our responsibility under the Constitution... Thus the problems that General, and later President, Eisenhower identified persist. [31] Not surprisingly, Goldwater had always held Eisenhower in high regard. In his memoirs, written after leaving the Senate, he compared all the Presidents with whom he had worked over the years going back to Truman, concluding: Eisenhower, contrary to many political pundits then and now, was our best all-around chief executive. He was helped by choosing extremely able men to be around him, but that does not diminish his own excellence. [32] The focus on the third day was "The JCS and Unified Commands." Again, service dominance and interservice rivalries were cited by Goldwater as central problems resulting in an Inability of the JCS to provide useful and timely military advice; the poor performance in joint operations; the inadequate quality of the [Joint Staff]; the confused command lines; and the lack of adequate advocates for joint interests in budgetary matters... Many of these problems have their roots in the fact that the Services continue to dominate the JCS structure. I regret to conclude after years of observing this process that the system is such that the members of the Joint Chiefs rarely override their individual Service allegiances. When the rope from the individual Services pulls in one direction and the rope from the Joint Chiefs pulls in the other direction, the individual Services invariably win that tug-of-war. The Services win the tug-of-war, but the country lose... ...it is widely accepted in the Services that it is not a good career step to serve on the Joint Staff. An officer's prospects for promotion and command are much better if he or she serves on their own Service staff... Some Services have even acknowledged that in their personnel system, duty on a joint staff is a low priority. For the most part, military officers do not want to be assigned to joint duty where they are pressured or monitored for loyalty by their Services. They are not prepared by either education or experience to perform joint duties. Nunn, reciting the Napoleonic maxim that "Nothing is so important in war as undivided command," reiterated comments made by some of the CINCs during the SASC hearings. General Bernard Rogers, SACEUR, testified to: An imbalance between my responsibilities and accountability as a unified operational commander and my influence on resource decisions... There remains in Washington a preeminence of service goals in the program and budget process. And General Nutting of Readiness Command stated: There is an imbalance between my operational responsibilities and influence over resource decisions... The system as it is presently constituted depends inordinately on cooperation and goodwill in order to function--which is to say the present system contains internal contradictions. On October 8, Goldwater delivered his concluding remarks, reminding his colleagues of their "constitutional duty and responsibility to oversee the armed forces of our nation:" I believe we have failed in that duty. The last time we really did anything significant was almost 30 years ago in the Defense Reorganization Act of 1958. That act sought to correct the organizational deficiencies which were disclosed by World War II and first addressed by the National Security Act of 1947...that purpose has not been fully carried out... The reorganization of the Department of Defense may be the most important thing that Congress does in my lifetime. It will be the most important thing that I tried to do in mine. [33] Although the actual passage of the 1986 Act was now less than a year away, Goldwater recalled in his recently published memoirs that he was then anything but optimistic about the chances of success for reform: When the reorganization effort began in February 1982, only a handful in Congress supported reform. When Nunn and I began to make our move [in 1985], I wouldn't have bet more than a sawbuck on our chances of success. History and tradition were against us. Yet I had made up my mind that I would not retire from the Senate without giving reorganization my best shot. [34] The joint structure proposal that was eventually crafted by the SASC "Task Force on Defense Organization" under the leadership of Senators Goldwater and Nunn conformed closely to the "Strong Chairman" model. Senate Bill 2295 stressed the civilian supremacy of the President and Secretary of Defense: "The Secretary has sole and ultimate power within the Department of Defense on any matter on which the Secretary chooses to act." The bill retained the dual-hatting of service chiefs but strengthened the Chairman by making him, rather than the corporate JCS, the principal military advisor to the President, NSC, and Secretary. The proposal also called for the creation of a four-star deputy to assist the Chairman and gave the Chairman, for the first time, exclusive "authority, direction, and control of the Joint Staff," which previously had also been provided by the corporate JCS. The Chairman's position was further enhanced by transferring to him several other responsibilities previously performed by the corporate JCS, plus new tasks including net assessments, periodic reviews of service roles and missions, establishing joint doctrine, and preparing fiscally constrained strategic plans. The statutory limit on the size of the Joint Staff, which had been capped at 400 since the 1958 Act, was now more than quadrupled to 1,627 to assist the Chairman in carrying out his new responsibilities. The existing unified command structure was retained; however field commanders could now input their views, through the Chairman, on resource procurement and decisions. The intent was clear: by legislating specific combatant commander authority power would be decentralized out of Washington and pushed down to the field level responsible for conducting joint warfighting. This provision, along with the reduction in size and subsequent capping of personnel strengths on service headquarter staffs and a reduction in the number of defense reports required by the Congress, reflected the influence of the "Peters Principles," such as "simple form, lean staff" with "few people at the upper levels," "few administrative layers," and other "power down" ideas advocated during the earlier HASC hearings by Dr. Tom Peters. The bill also "requires the President to submit an annual report to the Congress on the national security strategy of the United States," [35] a provision clearly reflecting the widespread belief, strongly voiced by a handful of Senators acknowledged as defense "experts," that the Reagan Administration was incapable of articulating a consistent, comprehensive national security strategy because one simply did not exist. The reform issue that would prove most contentious in the future was the clearly evident need to improve the quality of the Joint Staff. Goldwater clearly expressed the intent of the Senate bill's framers: By direct order of the Congress, a career specialty would be created for officers on joint duty assignment. In the past, the military generally viewed such assignments as just this side of Siberia. Under the new system, future assignments and promotions would depend, to a significant extent, on joint duty... [promotion boards] would be required to have a joint duty member. Procedures would be established to monitor the careers of joint duty officers. A record of joint duty would be needed for consideration for flag rank...top posts... would be reserved for officers with significant joint duty experience... The JCS staff can no longer be a dumping ground for inept officers. [36] Toward the end of the HASC hearings in early 1986, current members of the JCS provided testimony advocating retention of the status quo. Several CINCs, however, made open pleas for change. [37] This disunity among those on active duty represented not only a fundamental split between the Service chiefs and the CINCs, but also fostered antagonism between Congress and OSD/JCS. Additionally, as an Army major who had served an "internship" with the HASC during this period noted in his after action report: The HASC membership was not much impressed by what they saw as a de facto OSD policy of stonewalling and obstruction in at least the initial stages of the legislative effort. That stand quickly led to a "we-they" mentality, so much so that the Chiefs' endorsement of "evolutionary" rather than "revolutionary" change was seen as a code-phrase that really meant, "We'd actually prefer no change at all." From a military standpoint, it appeared at times that Congressional meddling had reached a new and dangerous low point... [38] Despite the perceived OSD "stonewalling," vast momentum for change had now developed resulting from the convergence of all the previously described "confluence of events." The passage of defense reform legislation, which had not even been attempted since 1958, had now become inevitable. On May 7, 1986, the Senate passed their reorganization bill (S. 2295) by a vote of 95 to 0. The House later approved a slightly modified conference revision by a near-unanimous vote of 406 to 4. On October 1, 1986, the Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act was signed by President Reagan into law. At the signing ceremony, the President commented: [The Act] is a milestone in the long evolution of defense organization since our national security establishment was created in 1947... After long and intense debate, we have set a reasonable course of action... affirming the basic wisdom of those who came before us--the Forrestals, Bradleys, Radfords, and Eisenhowers--advancing their legacy in the light of our own experience. [39] Though the legislative process had consumed four and one-half years, in the end Senator Goldwater's earlier pessimism proved unwarranted. His own characteristically blunt words from his memoirs best illustrate his elation: ... Seldom in its history has Congress spoken so clearly. I did too: `It's the only god-damn thing I've done in the Senate that's worth a damn. I can go home happy, sit on by hill, and shoot jackrabbits.' [40] Chapter VIII CONCLUSIONS: AFTERMATH AND TRENDS The joint structure "model" that was finally adopted by a Congress wary of the "Upton Paradox" was, as might be expected, the "Strong Chairman Model." Some minor organizational and structural changes were made, such as the creation of a Vice Chairman, JCS, and some reallocating of missions between Service staffs and secretariats. However, the changes to process, procedures, and responsibilities are far-reaching and comprehensive. These are indeed more than cosmetic changes, as William V. Kennedy, military affairs journalist and former military assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), has noted: The Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 was not just one more adjustment of a familiar, essentially timeless system. By placing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff firmly above the level of his former peers, the Service chiefs, and by making it plain that the Joint Staff, not the Service staffs, is to be responsible for formulation of US military strategy, the Congress has set in motion one of the most profound changes ever to have occurred in US military history and policy. [1] The obvious Congressional intent has been to change the balance of power--perhaps more precisely, the imbalance of power--between the individual services and joint military institutions. The balance of power shift is particularly conspicuous in the relationship of the JCS Chairman to the service chiefs who were formerly dual-hatted as his JCS co-equals. The increased stature now legally invested in the Chairman is reflected in one of the Title II provisions which authorizes "the Chairman, subject to the direction of the President, to attend and participate in National Security Council meetings." This one provision allegedly became so important to the collective JCS that by May 1986 they were willing to abandon their earlier opposition especially when it became evident that Senator Goldwater's determined advocacy for defense reform, coupled with all the other influencing factors, made some form of defense reorganization legislation compelling and imminent, regardless of the level of OSD and JCS support. However, as a corporate body they could not publicly endorse the proposed legislation since Secretary Weinberger early on had consistently opposed any Congressionally-directed DOD reorganization schemes. [2] Among the Chairman's many new statutory responsibilities contained in Title II, not previously shared by the corporate JCS, are those for: "preparing fiscally constrained strategic plans;" "performing net assessments;" "advising the Secretary of Defense on the critical deficiencies... identified during the preparation of contingency plans;" "establishing and maintaining a uniform system of evaluating the readiness of the... combatant commands;" and "developing joint doctrine." [3] To discharge these new responsibilities, the current Chairman, Admiral William J. Crowe, has already used his new statutory authority to exercise exclusive direction of the Joint Staff by creating two new joint directorates (J-7: Operational Plans and Interoperability, and J-8: Force Structure, Resource, and Assessment) to develop joint doctrine; to wargame, analyze, and refine joint operational plans and force structure; and to perform military net assessments. This increased stature and prestige was symbolized when, during the first JCS "tank" session after the Act had become law, for the first time ever the four-star chiefs of all the services rose to attention as the Chairman entered the room. [4] This shift away from traditional service dominance toward more effective joint institutions has been especially visible to the military officer corps in a "startling change to the historical prerogatives of the military departments" contained in Title IV of the Act concerning joint officer personnel policy. Despite yet persistent fears of an American "General Staff" and the continued legal prohibition against such a system, as Army Colonel Don Snider has observed: The joint officer personnel provisions of the new law create a historic departure for officer development and management in our armed forces. Congress has finally overcome the unfortunate spectre of `The Man of Horseback', and has now legislated the foundations necessary for a joint staff of the armed forces, one that can be educated, trained, and promoted over time to insure its progression, continuity, and freedom of action from undue influence from the services. [5] Indeed, the requirements contained in Title IV are so demanding that they probably will not be met, certainly not by the Navy, for the "foreseeable future." [6] The comprehensive and unbelievably detailed provisions of this portion of the Act (refer to Appendix E), combined with recent Congressionally-directed officer endstrength reductions and the impact of budget cuts, has forced the Army to literally micromanage its officer corps: Incredibly intense career management will be necessary in order to comply with Title IV while providing maximum professional development opportunity yet still retaining a cadre of relatively young combat arms commanders at all levels, especially in view of recently mandated tour stabilization policies. [7] This Congressional tendency toward increasingly detailed prescriptions is dramatically revealed not only in the requirements for joint officer personnel policy, but also in the reporting requirements they have imposed to ensure that these new rules are being enforced. Despite some of these more onerous provisions which have caused the Services considerable agony in implementation, the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, followed by the 1987 Senate hearings on national security strategy chaired by Senator Nunn, and the President's annual National Security Strategy reports for 1987 and 1988 (which were mandated by this law), clearly indicate a sorely needed resurgence in strategic thinking prompted by a revival of classic geopolitical thought. At the same time, the American professional military has benefitted tremendously from a rediscovery of the importance of the operational art of war placing much greater emphasis on joint interoperability requirements, the synchronizing of strategic deployment and logistical support to warfighting effectiveness, and campaign planning to link the strategic and tactical levels of war. Additionally, the Act should not be viewed as a singular event but perhaps as the centerpiece of a set of complementary initiatives resulting from the larger and more diverse aspects of the reform movement. These include defense management and acquisition reforms recommended by the Packard Commission and implemented in April 1986 by executive authority in NSDD 219, and also the creation of two new unified commands for special operations forces and strategic deployment and mobility by the 1987 Defense Appropriations Act. FINAL THOUGHTS In most respects, the decision-making process that ultimately led to this legal document illustrates the tenor of the times and is representative of many other evolving trends. Included among these are the tendency to create ad hoc "blue ribbon" commissions to assess and recommend changes within a large, ever-expanding, and increasingly entrenched federal bureaucracy. Power sources have become increasingly more diffuse with infighting and "turf" battles practically inviting paralysis and checkmating internally generated "reform" efforts. However, even when resorting to these external sources for independent and objective review, the recent history of defense reform well illustrates the need for system failure to actually be evident, not just imminent, before any significant reform measures can be successfully instituted. The tension, animosity, and distrust between the Congress and the executive, in this case DOD, was clearly revealed when it became apparent to OSD and the Services that "far-reaching" measures would be legally imposed, especially in the area of traditionally service-dependent officer career assignment patterns and promotion philosophies. Regrettably, there continue to be incidents and issues in the wake of the Act, (especially involving Title IV "oversight" by the HASC), which indicate that this antagonistic relationship has not altogether abated. [8] This situation is obviously not healthy. Yet, as Mac Owens has noted, our political system precludes an easy resolution: The Constitution dictates that Congress and the President share responsibility for national security. In the contemporary international environment, the roles of Congress and the Executive Branch-- intended by the founders to be complementary--have, in many cases, become competitive and even conflicting. Thus, while it is possible to improve the U.S. national security process by refining the functions of the two branches, the Constitution itself limits what can be done. [9] All of this seems to suggest that Congress is indeed cognizant of the "Upton Paradox"--political consensus simply cannot be achieved on issues relating to major organizational and structural reform. Thus, as Goldwater-Nichols also demonstrates, the tendency of the Congress toward micromanaging internal processes and procedures rather than mandating drastic organizational reform. Finally, as one former staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee suggests, this law is another example of a series of legislative restraints, beginning in 1965, "borne of Congressional frustration and inability to control events. This `fabric of legislative restraint' is obviously intended to serve as a barrier and an impediment to executive authority." [10] Noted military historian Martin Blumenson, in his May 1987 Army magazine article entitled "Reorganization: Army Shifts Gears," observed that the Goldwater-Nichols Act "is billed as the most dramatic and far-reaching reorganization effort since 1947." [11] While these two adjectives might be warranted, any stronger description would not accurately convey the origins and history behind this renewed effort at defense reform. The historical record proves this recent debate anything but "revolutionary" in scope or content. In fact, the history of the defense debate since the end of World War II clearly reveals the Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 to truly be another step--despite an intervening legislative lapse of almost 30 years--toward the effective unification of the National Defense Establishment originally proposed by General Marshall, initiated by President Truman, vigorously sought by President Eisenhower, and encouraged by numerous commission reports since. This is not to suggest, however, that defense reform has been "evolutionary" either. Although Goldwater-Nichols represents another "adjustment" to the defense establishment--following lengthy debate, extensive analysis, and critical review--a statutory void lasting more than a quarter-century can hardly be categorized as an "evolutionary" process. Furthermore, the legislative history of defense reform suggests this recent Act more accurately manifests a "resurgence" of interest in reform measures proposed three decades ago by President Eisenhower rather than symbolizing a "revolutionary" or "evolutionary" point event in the larger history of defense-related public law. By and large, I suspect that Ike would have been pleased with the contents of the 1986 Act, possibly excepting certain unwarranted and excessively detailed provisions contained in Title IV. He probably would have been impressed--if not truly amazed--with the overwhelming, near-unanimous vote symbolizing the strong consensus that had finally emerged for many of his earlier proposals. But I also think he would have been deeply distressed that it had taken so many years, at such great cost to the Nation, to finally secure what had been obvious to him and so clearly needed long, long ago. Now, in the immediate aftermath of the Act, it appears that Senator Goldwater was indeed right: "They should have listened to Ike!" ENDNOTES Chapter I INTRODUCTION: REVOLUTION, EVOLUTION, OR RESURGENCE IN DEFENSE REFORM? 1Robert W. Komer, "Strategymaking in the Pentagon", Reorganizing America's Defense, ed. by Robert J. Art, Vincent Davis and Samuel P. Huntington (McLean, VA: Pergamon- Brassey's, 1985), pp. 207-208. 2Ibid., p. 209. 3Richard Halloran, To Arm A Nation: Rebuilding America's Endangered Defenses (New York: MacMillan, 1986), p. 12. 4Despite great merit in Upton's proposals--many of which were later implemented--he did not take account of "political traditions and institutions in his quest for change" and discovered that "policy cannot be made without regard to the American political environment." See MacKubin T. Owens, "The Hollow Promise of JCS Reform", International Security, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Winter 85/86), pages 98 and 102, and also Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For The Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America, p. 258. 5From a Senate floor speech delivered by Senator Barry Goldwater on 3 October 1985. This speech, one of six addressing the need for defense reorganization delivered by Senators Goldwater and Sam Nunn, was reprinted in full in a special issue of Armed Forces Journal International (AFJI), October 1985 "Extra", p. 19. 6Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr. (CJCS), "Our Commanders in Chief: Leading Edge of Deterrent Strategy", Defense `87, November/December issue, Armed Forces Information Service, p. 3. 7P.J. Budahn, "Service Chiefs Seek to Change Reorganization", Army Times, 8 June 1987. 8AFJI, October 1985 "Extra", p. 13. Chapter II GENESIS OF AN AMERICAN NATIONAL MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT (1942-1947) 1Armed Forces Staff College Publication No. l (AFSC Pub 1), National Defense University (Washington: US GPO, 1 July 1988), p. 31. Noted military historian D. Clayton James, in his masterful work A Time for Giants: The Politics of the American High Command in World War II, provides an interesting account of the creation of the Combined Chiefs of Staff during the Arcadia Conference: "The [U.S.] Joint Chiefs of Staff as a corporate entity evolved from the Arcadia Conference as a belated American effort to match the impressive interservice high command system of the British... The [JCS) grew out of two needs that became apparent to Roosevelt...: the necessity for better coordination between the American services...; and the need for an American high command body to counter British efforts to dominate Anglo-American strategy making. " See Chapter One: "Preparing for Wartime Commands," pp.7-8. 2Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1950). The quote is reprinted in the Report for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff by the Chairman's Special Study Group (Brehm Report), April, 1982. 3William J. Lynn, "The Wars Within: The Joint Military Structure and Its Critics", Reorganizing America's Defense, p. 171. 4Ibid., p. 171. 5Quotes attributed to Marshall and Stimson appear in Lynn's article, pp 171-172. 6William Frye, Marshall, Citizen Soldier (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947), p, 7Harry B. Yoshpe and Theodore W. Barrer, Defense Organization and Management (Washington: Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 1967), p. 12. Forrestal's views were Presented to the House Select Committee on Postwar Military Policy and are contained in the House report Proposal to Establish a Single Department of the Armed Forces (78th Congress, 2nd Session: Washington: US GPO, 1944), p. 124. 8Ibid., pp. 12-13. Author's emphasis added. The report of the JCS Special Committee for Reorganization of National Defense was Published by the Senate Military Affairs Committee in Department of Military Security, S. 1942, Hearings (79th Congress, 1st Session: 1945), pp 411-439. Chapter II (con't) 9Ibid., p. 13. General Omar Bradley was one of the Army field commanders interviewed by the committee. He wrote in his memoirs that the principal reasons for the opposition expressed by naval officers was their fear of "losing control of Navy and Marine Corps aviation, and possibly the aircraft carriers." 10Arthur T. Hadley, The Straw Giant (New York: Random House, 1986), p. 76. The quote is from President Truman's transmittal message to the Congress accompanying the "Collins Plan" proposal for service unification. 11Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Vol. I (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 443. Biographer Stephen E. Ambrose, whom Eisenhower personally selected after his retirement from formal public service as President, recently delivered a presentation on Ike to the USMC Command and Staff College. During seminar discussions on 12 October 1983, Ambrose emphasized Eisenhower's extreme, but genuine, views on complete unification--to the extent of "single service, single uniform". Ambrose also stated that Eisenhower regarded UMT as the "centerpiece" of his views on the appropriate national defense policy for the United States given the stature and global responsibilities facing America in the post-World War II era. 12Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade In Europe (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948), p. 262. 13Ambrose, Eisenhower (Vol. I), p. 443. 14General of the Army Omar N. Bradley and Clay Blair, A General's Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 465. 15The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization, 1944-1978, ed. by Alice C. Cole, et. al. (Washington: OSD Historical Office, 1978), p. 9. The quote is from President Truman's message to the Congress on 19 December 1945. 16Ibid., pp. 7-17. 17Alan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For The Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America (New York: Free Press, 1984), pp. 479-480. 18Bradley, A General's Life, p. 466. 19The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization; 1944-1978, p. 34. 20Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 472. Chapter III THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF 1947 AND THE UNIFICATION DRAMA (1947-l952) 1Public Law 253 (80th Congress, 1st Session): The National Security Act of 1947, Section 211(a) through 211(c). The complete Act is reprinted in The Department of Defense: Doouments on Establishment and Organization, pp. 35-50. Under the "Unified Command Plan," approved by President Truman on 14 December 1946, the geographic commands were the Northeast (consisting of forces in Newfoundland, Labrador, and Greenland), Far East, Pacific, Alaska, Caribbean, Atlantic, and Europe. The specified commands were the Air Force Strategic Air Command and U.S. Naval Forces, Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean. However, the term "specified command" was not used until 1951. 2Millett and Maslowski, For the Common Defense, p. 480. 3Bradley, A General's Life, p. 466. 4Maurice Matloff, general editor, American Military History (Army Historical Series), Office of the Chief of Military History, US Army (Washington: US GPO, 1973), p. 532. 5Bradley, A General's Life, p. 488. 6Lynn, "The Wars Within", Reorganizing America's Defense, p. 173. 7Ibid., p. 174. Author's emphasis added. 8Public Law 216 (81st Congress), commonly referred to as "The 1949 Amendment", Section 2: Declaration of Policy, reprinted in The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization, p. 86. Author's emphasis added. 9See Millett and Maslowski, For the Common Defense, p. 481; Matloff, American Military History, p. 532; and General Maxwell D. Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1959), p. 165. 10In this and the preceding paragraphs, words and phrases in quotes are those of General Bradley in A General's Life, pp. 497-498. 11Eisenhower's remarks are from his personal diary and are quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower (Vol. I), p. 486. 12Eisenhower's remarks here, again from his diary, are found in Bradley, A General's Life, p. 499. Chapter III (Con't) 13Brad1ey, A General's Life, p. 499. 14Ambrose, Eisenhower (Vol. I), p. 487. 15Ibid., p. 489. 16Bradley, A General's Life, p. 502. 17Ibid., p. 503. 18Ibid., p. 503. Acheson's comment is from his memoirs, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W.W. Norton, 1969), p. 374. 19 This quotation from Bradley, along with the next four, are from his memoirs, A General's Life, pp. 505-511. 20Millett and Maslowski, For the Common Defense, p. 482. 21William J. Lynn and Barry R. Posen, "The Case for JCS Reform", International Security (Vol. 10, No. 3: Winter 85/86), p. 73. Chapter IV EISENHOWER'S REFORMS AND THE DRIVE FOR UNIFICATION (1953-1958) 1The quote is an excerpt from President Eisenhower's message to the Congress on 30 April 1953. This message accompanied Reorganization Plan No. 6, an executive order transmitted to the Congress for review. Since no unfavorable action was taken by either the House or the Senate within 60 days, the plan thus became effective on 30 June 1953. 2William J. Lynn and Barry R. Posen, "The Case for JCS Reform", International Security (Vol. 10, No. 3: Winter 85/86), p. 74. 3Secretary Lovett's letter of 18 November 1952 is reprinted in full on pp. 115-126 of The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization, p. 120. 4Ibid., p. 121. 5Ibid., pp. 121-123. 6lbid., p. 125. Chapter IV (Con't) 7Harry B. Yoshpe and Theodore W. Bauer, Defense Organization and Management (Washington: Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 1967), p. 32. The Report of the Rockefeller Committee on Department of Defense Organization was printed by the Senate Committee on Armed Services (83rd Congress, 1st session), 11 April 1953. 8The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization contains Eisenhower's 3 April 1953 transmittal message to Congress for Reorganization Plan No. 6 on pages 149-157. This excerpt is found on p. 151-152. 9Ibid., p. 152. 10Ibid., p. 154. 11This quote attributed to the 1956 House Appropriations Committee is found in Yoshpe and Bauer, Defense Organization and Management, p. 35. Committee concern with degenerating interservice cooperation and increasing rivalry occurred as a result of its review of several DOD documents attempting to clarify service roles and missions. These documents extended from 1948 to 1957 and were reproduced in House Document 436 (85th Congress, 2nd Session): United States Defense Policies in 1957 (Washington: US GPO, 1953), pp. 106-119. 12This excerpt from President Eisenhower's 9 January 1958 State of the Union address is found at the bottom of p. 37, Defense Organization and Management. 13Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace. 1956-1961 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), p. 244. 14Ibid., pp. 244-245. 15This frequently cited quote is from Eisenhower's 3 April 1958 message to Congress transmitting his proposals for defense reorganization. The entire message is in The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization. This excerpt can be found on p. 175. 16 William J. Lynn, "The Wars Within: The Joint Military Structure and its Critics", Reorganizing America's Defense, p. 175. 17The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization, p. 181. 18Lynn, "The Wars Within", Reorganizing America's Defense, p. 177. Chapter IV (Con't) 19Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace, pp. 249-250. 20From Eisenhower's 3 April 1958 message to Congress. This excerpt can be found on p. 181 in The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization. 21Lynn, "The Wars Within", Reorganizing America's Defense, pp. 177-178. 22 Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace, p. 251. 23The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization, p. 179. 24Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace, pp. 247-248. Portions of this lengthy citation appear on these two pages as footnotes #6 and #8. Author's emphasis added. 25 Paul Y. Hammond, Organizing for Defense: The American Military Establishment in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 372. 26This figure has been extracted from Yoshpe and Bauer, Defense Organization and Management, p. 43. 27The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization, pp. 184-185. 28Maurice Matloff, general editor, American Military History (Army Historical Series), Office of the Chief of Military History, US Army (Washington: US GPO, 1973), p. 582. 29General Jones' statement is in the SASC report Hearings on Organization, Structure, and Decisionmaking Procedures of the Department of Defense, 4 October 1983, p. 142. 30Lynn and Posen, "The Case for JCS Reform", International Security, p. 74. 31These two quotes attributed to Senator Humphrey appear in the Report of the Chief of Naval Operations Select Panel, Reorganization of the National Security Organization, March, 1985, pp. B-1 and B-2. 32Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace, p. 246. Chapter IV (Con't) 33Ibid., p. 246. 34Ibid., p. 252. 35Ibid., p. 253. 36Lynn, "The Wars Within", Reorganizing America's Defenses, pp. 180-181. 37Legislative History of Public Law 99-433, Senate Report No. 99-280, p. 4. Chapter V LEGISLATIVE DORMANCY (1958-1982) 1 Harry B. Yoshpe and Theodore W. Bauer, Defense Organization and Management (Washington: Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 1967), p. 76. This assertion that "Congress lacks military staff assistance and military expertise of its own..." was probably valid 22 years ago. In the intervening years the trend has been toward increasing "staff support and assistance" including the creation of the Government Accounting Office (GAO), the development of knowledgeable professional staffs supporting the SASC and the HASC (e.g., Archie Barrett of the HASC Staff), and expertise within the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress (e.g., Robert L. Goldich and John M. Collins). At the same time, however, collective "military expertise," in terms of the military experience of individual Members has gradually been declining. 2Ibid., p. 75. 3The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization, 1944-1978, ed. by Alice C. Cole, et. al. (Washington: OSD Historical Office, 1978), pp. 198-199. 4Ibid., p. 189. Chapter V (Con't) 5This remark appears in a variety of sources, attributed to McNamara's premier "whiz kid", Dr. Alain Enthoven, a young, brilliant MIT-trained mathematical economist installed initially as the chief of the newly created Office of Systems Analysis. Later, the position was elevated by statute to "Assistant Secretary of Defense" status. For critical views on the impact of systems analysis see Eliot Cohen, "Guessing Game: A Reappraisal of Systems Analysis" in The Strategic Imperative, ed. by Samuel P. Huntington (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1982), pp. 163-191; also Richard K. Betts, "Dubious Reform: Strategism Vs. Managerialism", in The Defense Reform Debate, ed. by Asa A. Clark IV, et. al. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), pp. 62-82. This quote appears on p. 165 of Cohen's article. 6Maxwell D. Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1959), pp. 83, 118. General Taylor, one of the architects of "Flexible Response", was recalled to active duty by President Kennedy to serve as Chairman, JCS in the McNamara Defense Department. 7Charles J. Hitch and Roland N. McKean, The Economics of Defense in the Nuclear Age (New York: Atheneum, 1978); originally published in 1960 by the RAND Corporation. Hitch and McKean, in their introduction, state: "Economy and efficiency are two ways of looking at the same characteristic of an operation. In other words, there is no conflict between the budgeteer who is supposed to be interested in economizing and the military commander who is supposed to be interested in efficiency...". pp. 1-7. 8Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America (New York: Free Press, 1984), p. 532. 9The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization 1944-1978 (Washington: OSD Historical Office, 1978), p. 239. 10Ibid., pp. 239-240. 11A summary of the key elements proposed by Symington's Committee on the Defense Establishment is contained in Archie D. Barrett, Reappraising Defense Organization (Washington: National Defense University, 1983), p. 6. 12Report of the Chief of Naval Operations Select Panel, Reorganization of the National Security Organization, March 1985, p. B-4. 13Ibid., pp. B-11 and B-12. Chapter V (Con't) 14Barrett, Reappraising Defense Organization, p. 9. 15See, for example, Army Times article, "Experts See Benefits in DOD Reorganization", 29 June 1987, pp. 18 and 28. Numerous internal Army memos and Army Times articles illustrate Dr. Barrett's influence and power as a HASC Staff Member. Chapter VI DECADE OF THE `80S: MANDATES FOR ACTION 1Admiral James L. Holloway, III, USN (Ret.), Chairman, JCS Special Operations Review Group, Rescue Mission Report (Washington: JCS, 1980), pp. 15-36; a more recent, well-documented appraisal of the Iranian hostage rescue mission is offered by Captain Paul B. Ryan, USN (Ret.), The Iranian Rescue Mission: Why It Failed (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1985). 2Admiral Robert R.J. Long, USN (Ret.), Chairman, Report of the DOD Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Attack; reprinted by the HASC Investigations Subcommittee in Adequacy of U.S. Marine Corps Security in Beirut (98th Congress, 1st Session: 19 December 1983), pp. 43-52. 3Extracted from a Department of the Army Memo: "An Inside Perspective on the DOD Reorganization Act of 1986", 8 January 1987, p. 3, by Major C. Kenneth Allard. Allard served a fellowship as a member of the HASC Staff and worked for Congressman Bill Nichols and Dr. Archie Barrett preparing the House version of the bill that, after conference modifications, became the Goldwater-Nichols Act. 4Morton H. Halperin and David Halperin, "Rewriting The Key West Accord", Reorganizing America's Defense, p. 352. 5William J. Lynn and Barry R. Posen, "The Case for JCS Reform", International Security (Vol. 10, No. 3: Winter 85/86), pp. 84-85. 6Colonel James E. Toth, USMC (Ret.), course director, Joint and Combined Warfare: Theater Warfare; Phase I Course Syllabus for JCW 175, National Defense University, AY 1988-89, p. 3. 7Staff Report of the Senate Committee on Armed Services (99th Congress, 1st Session), Defense Organization: The Need for Change (Washington: US GPO, 1985), p. 6. Chapter VI (Con't) 8Army Times, 22 February 1988, p. 3. Representative William V. Dickinson was interviewed by the Army Times weekly newspaper. 9David C. Hendrickson, Reforming Defense: The State of American Civil-Military Relations (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), p. 82. 10Crackle is cited in Mackubin Thomas Owens, "Executive and Legislative Influence on U.S. National Security Policy", The Reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ed. by Alan R. Millett (Washington: Pergamon-Brassey's), pp. 37-38. 11Ibid., p. 38. See also "Congress' Role in Defense Mismanagement" by Owens in Armed Forces Journal International, April 1985, pp. 92-96. For example, on p. 94 Owens states: "The budget process undermines whatever coherence PPBS may have and almost ensures that the outcome will be wasteful and inefficient." 12David Packard, "Micromanagement: The Fundamental Problem With the Acquisition System", Defense `88, Special Issue, Armed Forces Information Service, p. 7. 13Owens, "Executive and Legislative Influence on U.S. National Security Policy", p. 37. 14Hendrickson, Reforming Defense, p. 33. A more recent example of this "intrusion of narrow political interests" is the Congressional reaction to the bipartisan military base closure study recommendations. 15These two laws, "The Defense Procurement Reform Act of 1984" (PL 98-525) and "The Defense Procurement Improvement Act of 1985" (PL 99-145), were an outgrowth of hearings conducted by the SASC Subcommittee on Defense Acquisition Policy in 1984 and 1985. The SASC exhibited "continued interest. .. in the establishment and maintenance of a distinct career path for individuals pursuing acquisition as the primary part of their careers." See the SASC staff report Defense Organization: The Need for Change, p. 560. Although these laws became fully effective this summer (July 1989), the Army still continues to view its Material Acquisition Management Program as an "additional skill" held by officers in the program rather than a distinct career field for personnel management and professional development purposes. 16Allard, "An Inside Perspective On the DOD Reorganization Act of 1986", pp. 2-3. Chapter VI (Con't) 17Asa A. Clark, IV, et. al., eds., The Defense Reform Debate: Issues and Analysis (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1984), pp. ix-x. 18The quote from General Jones (former Chairman, JCS) is taken from the introduction to the final chapter ("Toward Reform") in Edward N. Luttwak, The Pentagon and the Art of War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), p. 266. General Jones' comments are similar to those of General Emory Upton last century. Though historically accurate, the problem would likely confront any maritime-oriented "island" democratic state when it must engage in an overseas protracted land war. 19Mackubin Thomas Owens, "The Hollow Promise of JCS Reform", International Security (Vol. 10, No. 3: Winter 85/86), p. 107. 20Ibid., pp. 107-108. 21Ibid., p. 106. 22Archie D. Barrett, Reappraising Defense Organization (Washington: National Defense University Press, 1983). p. 7. 23Author's notes from lectures delivered by John Heubusch, Legislative Director for Representative Denny Smith, and Arnold Punaro, Staff Director, SASC, on "Congress and National Security Policy", Georgetown University, 26 March 1988. Senator Goldwater lamented Congress' unwillingness to reform itself. Shortly after retiring he wrote an article in the February 1987 issue of AFJI, "Overdose of Oversight and Lawless Legislative," remarking: "Reform of the Pentagon was accomplished through the [`86 Act, but SASC] efforts to initiate meaningful Congressional reform failed, primarily due to insufficient interest among Members of Congress... Until fundamental reforms on Capitol Hill are realized, our defense effort will be plagued by instability, inefficiency, delay, and confusion..." pp.54-56. Chapter VII THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS (1982-1986) 1Citations are from the Report for the Chairman, JCS by the Chairman's Special Study Group, April, 1982. An abridged version of the report is contained in Chapter 13: "The JCS--Views of Participants", Reorganizing America's Defense (Washington: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1985), pp. 275-291. The retired senior officers of the Group were: General Walter T. Kerwin, USA(Ret.), former Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army; General William V. McBride, USAF (Ret.), former Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force; General Samuel Jaskilka, USMC (Ret.), former Assistant Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps; and Admiral Frederick H. Michaelis, USN (Ret.) former Chief of Staff, U.S. Pacific Command. 2Quotes attributed to General Jones are all extracted from his original article, "Why the Joint Chiefs of Staff Must Change", Armed Forces Journal International (AFJI), March, 1982, pp. 62-72. 3General Meyer's remarks and proposals are all extracted from his original article, "The JCS--How Much Reform Is Needed?", AFJI, April, 1982, pp. 82-90. 4The Final Report of the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Defense Organization Project was published under the title Toward A More Effective Defense, edited by Barry M. Blechman and William J. Lynn (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1985). 5Legislative History of Public Law 99-433, Senate Report No. 99-280, p. 5. 6General David C. Jones, USAF (Ret.), "What's Wrong With the Defense Establishment?", The Defense Reform Debate (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), p. 282. 7"The JCS--Views of Participants", Reorganizing America's Defense, pp. 286-287. 8The chart is taken from William J. Lynn, "The Wars Within", Reorganizing America's Defense, p. 184. 9Harold Brown, Thinking About National Security: Defense and Foreign Policy in a Dangerous World (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1983), p. 210. 10Citations are from the SASC Staff Report, Defense Organization: The Need for Change, pp. 257-260. Chapter VII (Con't) 11James Gates and Michael Kilian, Heavy Losses: The Dangerous Decline of American Defense (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), p. 128. 12Major T.T. Lupfer, "The German Model and American Military Reform", 1987 Review, Canadian Forces Command and Staff College, pp. 65-77. 13SASC Staff Report, Defense Organization: The Need for Change, p. 228. 14The quote is from H.R. Report 1765, DOD Reorganization Act of 1958, 22 May 1958 and appears in Colonel John M. Collins, USA (Ret.), US Defense Planning: A Criticue (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1982), pp. 58-59. 15SASC Staff Report, Defense Organization: The Need for Change, p. 231. 16Ibid., p. 231. 17Excerpts from Congressional floor debates in this paragraph are contained in a special annex in the SASC Staff Report prepared by Robert L. Goldich, "The Evolution of Congressional Attitudes Toward A General Staff in the 20th Century", pp. 244-274. See pp. 260-261, 266-267, and for Senator Humphrey's remarks, p. 235. 18William J. Lynn and Barry R. Posen, "The Case for JCS Reform", International Security (Vol. 10, No. 3: Winter 85/86), pp. 87-88. 19Author's discussion with LtCol Donald F. Bittner, USMCR, USMC Command and Staff College Military Historian, on 27 April 1989. Professor Hughes' views are summarized from comments made at the annual meeting of the American Military Institute held at the Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia on 14 April 1989. He is the Command Historian at Fort Leavenworth. 20Goldich, SASC Staff Report, pp. 269-270. 21Lynn and Posen, "The Case for JCS Reform", pp. 88-89. 22Goldich, SASC Staff Report, p. 264. 23For testimony presented to the subcommittee see two HASC reports: Reorganization Proposals for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (HASC No. 97-47) and Reorganization of the Defense Department (HASC No. 99-53). See also the Report of the Chief of Naval Operations Select Panel, Reorganization of the National Security Organization, March, 1985, Annex B. Chapter VII (Con't) 24Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Vol. II (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 676. 25HASC Hearings, Reorganization Proposals for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (HASC No. 97-47), p. 462. 26Ibid., pp. 443-445. 27SASC Staff Report, Defense Organization: The Need for Change, p. 13. 28Ibid., p. 15. 29Legislative History of Public Law 99-433, Senate Report No. 99-280, p. 7. 30The AFJI "Extra" was published in October, 1985. Editor Benjamin F. Schemmer (author of the authoritative account of the Son Tay POW rescue effort, The Raid) was noticeably impressed with the Goldwater/Nunn speeches and their SASC "Task Force on Defense Organization" Staff Report, remarking in his editorial introduction to the "Extra:" "...Congress' once-disciplined oversight of our nation's defenses has deteriorated to the point of legislative anarchy. Its deliberations are now characterized by contradiction, conflict, and confusion; delay; and micromanagement.. The Senate's deliberate action on [the SASC Task Force] conclusions and recommendations may well endure as the greatest contribution to America's security we'll see in our lifetimes...". 31AFJI "Extra", October, 1985, pp. 4-13. Senator Goldwater, as his memoirs clearly illustrate, had been deeply impressed with Colonel Charles Beckwith and his views on the aftermath of Desert One where Beckwith had been the assault commander. Goldwater had "long talks" with Beckwith, especially on the subject of the need for "team effort" through better unified command arrangements, and summarizes these in his memoirs (pp. 344-347). Beckwith's personal account of the failed hostage rescue mission is Delta Force (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Javonovich, 1983). 32Barry M. Goldwater and Jack Casserly, Goldwater (New York: Doubleday, 1988), p. 392. 33Remarks by Senators Goldwater and Nunn on 3 October 1985 and Goldwater's concluding remarks from the Senate floor on 8 October are reprinted in full in the AFJI "Extra", pp. 16-38. 34Goldwater and Casserly, Goldwater, p. 340. Chapter VII (Con't) 35Extracted from the "Summary of Major Provisions" of the conference substitute amendment which was later accepted by both Houses and enacted as the "Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986". The specific provision cited here can be found on p. 98 under "Title VI--Miscellaneous". 36Goldwater and Casserly, Goldwater, pp. 354-355. 37General Edward C. Meyer, USA (Ret.), "JCS Reorganization: Why Change? How Much Change?", The Reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ed. by Alan R. Millett (Washington: Pergamon-Brassey's), p. 58. 38Department of the Army Memo, "An Inside Perspective On The DOD Reorganization Act of 1986", 8 January 1987, pp. 1-2. 39Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, 2 October 1986, p. 1317. 40Goldwater and Casserly, Goldwater, p. 357. Chapter VIII CONCLUSIONS: AFTERMATH AND TRENDS 1William V. Kennedy, "What Future For The Service War Colleges", Armed Forces Journal, June 1988, p. l6. 2Mark Perry, Four Stars: The Inside Story of the Forty-Year Battle Between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and America's Civilian Leaders, (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1989), pp. 336-340. Also, in Chapter II of his recently published memoirs (Goldwater, New York: Doubleday, 1988), Goldwater describes a meeting he and Senator Nunn had with the JCS in "the tank" in early February, 1986: the current JCS was generally opposed to organizational reform--"They didn't believe in reorganization, and they were telling us to go to hell"; at the conclusion of the meeting two JCS members, CNO Admiral James Watkins and USMC Commandant General P.X. Kelley, refused to shake hands with either Senators Nunn or Goldwater (p. 338). Later, Navy Secretary John Lehman "did everything he could to torpedo the plan" according to Goldwater (p. 339). Interestingly, in Lehman's recent book (Command of the Seas, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988), he does not once mention the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. Chapter VIII (Con't) 3See JCS Pub 2: "Unified Action Armed Forces (UNAAF)". This joint doctrinal publication was immediately updated after the Act and now lists 49 JCS Chairman responsibilities. 4Mark Perry, Four Stars, p. 340. Admiral Crowe replace General John W. Vessey, Jr, as Chairmans, JCS on 2 October 1985. Among the many factors that must have been considered in selecting Crowe was the fact that he held a PhD. from Princeton. His doctoral dissertation analyzed military cooperation in the British Joint system! 5Don M. Snider (Colonel, USA), "DOD Reorganization: Part I, New Imperatives", Parameters, September, 1987, pp. 95-96. 6From the prepared statement of Vice Admiral Leon A. Edney, Chief of Naval Personnel, delivered before the SASC Manpower and Personnel Subcommittee on 17 March 1988. Chapter VIII (Con't) 7 From a Department of the Army study "Impact Analysis of Title IV, DOD Reorganization Act of 1986", US Army Military Personnel Center (DAPC-PLF), 28 May 1987. The requirements in Title IV (refer to Appendix E) now force the services to assign their best field grade officers to joint duty positions, including the Joint Staff in Washington, joint and combined staffs in the field, and defense agencies. This "reallocation" of top quality officers (defined in the Army, far example, as "former commanders") into joint duty assignments (JDA) will cause a significant reduction in the number of such officers serving in Service-specific commands. The impact in the Army is indeed significant (perhaps even more dramatic for the Navy) as the charts below reveal. In Chapter I, the author cited General Wickham's (CSA) comment to the HASC that the law, specifically Title IV, will "ravage the field Army" (refer to endnote #7). The two "Title IV Impact" charts below, extracted from the study cited above, were used by General Wickham during his testimony to graphically illustrate what he meant. Click here to view image Chapter VIII (Con't) 8For example, in a letter to Secretary Weinberger on 9 October 1987 the late Congressman Bill Nichols, then Chairman of the HASC Investigations Subcommittee, admonishes DOD for failing to meet legislative reporting requirements regarding the Title IV directive for DOD to review joint progressional military education (JPME) programs and further accuses the JCS of attempting, by creating so-called "joint education tracks" at service staff colleges, to "circumvent legislative intent". In another letter to Secretary Carlucci on 18 December 1987, HASC Chairman Les Aspin informs DOD that he has appointed a special HASC "Panel on Military Education", chaired by Congressman Ike Skelton, that will thoroughly investigate overall professional military education and suggests that "long term decisions await the results of the panel's review". The CJCS-approved joint "track" concept proved to be short-lived indeed, lasting only one academic year (AY 88-89), before being replace by a two-phase JPME program recommeded by the HASC PME panel. More recently, Arch Barrett, the highly influential HASC professional staff member who also served on the Skeleton PME panel, has charged that the services have been "more successful than they should have been" in evading the Title IV provisions (Law's Architect Questions Success of Joint-Service Guideline," Navy Times, 5 Dec 88). The current Investigations Subcommittee chairman commented upon reviewing a critical GAO report released on 3 April 89: "It has been two and a half years since passage of [the Act]. At some point, `trying to implement' the law becomes basic non-compliance with its provisions." ("GAO to Joint Chiefs: Use Power on Budget, Personnel Choices", Army Times, 17 Apr 89, p. 20). 9MacKubin T. Owens, "Executive and Legislative Influence on U.S. National Security Policy", The Reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: A Critical Analysis, by Allan R. Millett, et.al., (New York: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1986), p. 40. 10From a lecture delivered by Dr. William B. Bader, former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Staff Director and currently Vice-President, SRI International, on "Congress and National Security Policy", Georgetown University National Security Studies Program, 26 March 1988. Other elements of this "fabric of legislative restraint" include: the War Powers Resolution; Congressional Control and Impoundment Act (created CBO); and the Hughes-Ryan Amendment in 1974 on Congressional oversight of intelligence activities. 11Martin Blumenson, "Reorganization: Army Shifts Gears", Army, May 1987, p. 44. BIBLIOGRAPHY: PRINCIPAL SOURCES BIOGRAPHIES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES: Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower, Volume I: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect. 1890-1952, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983. This volume, one of three by biographer Ambrose (whom Ike personally selected after his retirement from formal public service as President), served as the major reference source for the subchapter on Eisenhower's service as Army Chief of Staff (CSA) after the War. Although Ike continually kept a diary, he did not convert his immediate post-War experiences into book form as was the case during the War (Crusade in Europe) and as President (The White House Years). This source also complemented General Bradley's autobiography (A General's Life) as a major source for my third chapter on the post-War "unification drama" and provides tremendous insight into those factors which later influenced Ike to ultimately seek the 1958 defense reforms. Bradley, Omar N. and Clay Blair. A General's Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983. I drew extensively from Chapters 49 through 52 on Bradley's views regarding the "Battle of the Potomac" and the incredibley bitter and acrimonious interservice fights preceding and following the `47 Act. Bradley's perspectives, since he followed Ike as CSA then became the first JCS Chairman in 1949, though valuable in their own right, were used as a way of correlating Ike's views as expressed by Ambrose. Eisenhower, Dwight D. The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956-1961. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963. Chapter X, pp. 244-257, were used as a primary source for background and events leading up to and following passage of the `58 Act. These few pages are also crucial to an understanding of the subsequent debate and unresolved issues that ultimately led to the `86 Act. Goldwater, Barry M. with Jack Casserly. Goldwater. New York: Doubleday, 1988. Goldwater's recently published memoirs are easy--actually fun--to read and provide an incisive, as opposed to purely partisan, Congressional perspective on events of the past three decades. I used Chapter II: "Duty-Honor-Country" to illuminate personality-related issues and power relationships leading up to final passage of the `86 Act. In my opinion, without Goldwater's staunch advocacy and dogged persistence, there would not have been an `86 Act. Taylor, Maxwell D. The Uncertain Trumpet. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959. Written just after he retired as CSA. Contains the original plea to determine "How Much Is Enough?", advocates a new strategy of "Flexible Response"--later adopted by JFK, and calls for revisions still being voiced by "reformers" today. Recalled to active duty by JFK and appointed CJCS under McNamara. OTHER BOOKS: Art, Robert J., Vincent Davis, and Samuel P. Huntington, eds. Reorganizing America's Defense: Leadership in War and Peace. Washington: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1985. The most useful "anthology" of defense reform articles for my project: "The Wars Within: The Joint Military Structure and Its Critics", by William J. Lynn, was especially useful in developing a historical framework to discuss alternative reform proposals; "Strategymaking In The Pentagon", by Robert W. Komar, offered a useful historical perspective; and "Rewriting The Key West Accord", by Morton and David Halperin, offers historical insight into the yet persistent "roles and missions" issues which, along with divisiveness caused by budgetary pressures, has been (and still is) a major cause of interservice rivalries. Also contains an abridged version of the CJCS Special Study Group (Brehm Report) in "The JCS--Views of Participants". Blechman, Barry, and William J. Lynn, eds. Toward A More Effective Defense: Report of the Defense Organization Project. Cambridge: Ballinger, 1985. Probably the most influential study impacting upon the content of the law in its final form. Incredible cast of "heavy hitters", including Generals Jones and Meyer (after they retired); countersigned by six former Secretaries of Defense; deliberately did not advocate drastic reform measures but incremental changes needed to move toward Eisenhower's original intent for unified national defense articulated in 1958. Clark, Asa A., IV, Peter W. Chiarelli, Jeffrey S. McKitrick, and James W. Reed, eds. The Defense Reform Debate: Issues and Analysis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. The best single document describing and analyzing all aspects of the contemporary "defense reform" effort: strategy, doctrinal, force structure, modernization and weapons acquisition, and defense policymaking. Wide spectrum of contributors including Newt Gingrich, Richard Betts, Bill Lind, Pierre Sprey; military contributors include Colonel Wass de Czege (co-author of the new AirLand Battle doctrine) and Major Tim Lupfer; the editors are all professors at West Point. Chapter 16: "What's Wrong with the Defense Establishment", by General Jones, expands upon his initial call for reform shortly before he retired as CJCS. Hartman, Frederick H. and Robert L. Wendzel. Defending America's Security. Washington: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1988. Contains two chapters on defense reform summarizing the recent debate and a good discussion of the impact of the `86 Act as well as additional reform measures still needed. Hendrickson, David C. Reforming Defense: The State of American Civil-Military Relations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988. "Of defense reform," writes David Hendrickson, "it might fairly be said that while there is a consensus that we need it, there is no agreement on what it is." In an attempt to ease the confusion surrounding military reform, Hendrickson categorizes major reform movements that have arisen in the 1980s: military, organizational, and administrative. In the first part of his book, Hendrickson places these reform movements within a historical context that stresses traditional, theoretical, and practical dilemmas raised by civil-military relations. In Part 2 of his book he shows how the many reform proposals--particularly those of the military reformers--are misconceived and might serve to undermine the effectiveness of the military. When the subject is considered in total, Hendrickson concludes that a civilian attempt to impose a reform program on the services could result in very serious consequences and might make things worse, not better. The real case for reform, he argues, lies in the transformation of American strategic doctrine, in those institutional changes that would combat the lack of unified direction in civil-military relations, and in the strengthening of military professionalism within the American officer corps. Hendrickson does an excellent job of discussing all aspects of the various issues confronting the defense establishment. Millett, Alan R., Mackubin Thomas Owens, LTG Bernard E. Trainor, USMC (Ret.), GEN Edward C. Meyer, USA (Ret.), and Robert Murray. The Reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: A Critical Analysis. Washington: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1986. A chapter by General Meyer (former CSA) bears a striking resemblance to provisions of the final law, especially Title IV. Also helpful was the chapter by Owens, "Executive and Legislative Influence on US National Security Policy". Perry, Mark. Four Stars: The Inside Storv of the Forty-Year Battle Between The Joint Chiefs of Staff and America's Civilian Leaders. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Company, 1989. Recently published (February, 1989), this book gives an extraordinary account of personalities and "agendas" operating behind the scenes which simply are not available in the "official" published histories (legislative, JCS, and defense). This source gave me the best account of General Vessey's and Admiral Crowe's participation, influence, and views on the reform effort after General Jones' retirement. This is also the only public document I know of that alleges plans for a mass resignation by the entire JCS, led by CJCS General Earle Wheeler, to protest the LBJ/McNamara handling of the Vietnam War. Literally at the last minute on 26 August 1967 Wheeler reversed the unanimous JCS agreement and cancelled the public announcement. ARTICLES Cohen, Eliot. "Guessing Game: A Reappraisal of Systems Analysis." The Strategic Imperative, edited by Samuel P. Huntington, Cambridge: Callinger, 1982: 163-191. A good explanation of the impact of systems analysis in the McNamara regime and the misguided attempt to apply quantitative techniques as a "mode of strategic thought". "Defense Organization: The Need for Change." Armed Forces Journal International 123 (October 1985 Extra): 3-61. Contains the complete text of the Goldwater/Nunn Senate floor speeches on defense reform delivered 1-8 Oct 1985. I have quoted liberally from this source in Chapter VII. The AFJI editor, Ben Schemmer, describes Senate action on the debate as the "greatest contribution to America's security we'll see in our lifetimes...". Jones, David C. "Why the Joint Chiefs of Staff Must Change." Armed Forces Journal International 119 (March 1982): 62-72. Four months before his retirement, this is the CJCS public statement--literally a plea--calling for substantive reforms in the defense establishment. Lynn, William J., and Barry R. Posen. "The Case for JCS Reform." International Security 10 (Winter 1985/86): 69-97. Argues that Congress had two choices: adopt a General Staff System or mandate less drastic "evolutionary" change. Highlights fallacies of "German General Staff" fears. Meyer, Edward C., GEN, USA. "The JCS--How Much Reform Is Needed?" Armed Forces Journal International 119 (April 1982): 82-90. Meyer's proposals were a call for more radical reforms than those offered by CJCS Jones. Owens, Mackubin Thomas, Jr. "The Hollow Promise of JCS Reform." International Security 10 (Winter 1985-86): 98-111. Reminds current reformers of the traditional resistance of military establishments to effect reform efforts by citing the historical example of General Emory Upton's unsuccessful attempt to generate internal reform after the Civil War. Many of his ideas, however, were later accepted and adopted near the turn of the century. Snider, Don M. "DOD Reorganization: Part I, New Imperatives." Parameters 17 (September 1987): 88-100. Excellent explanation of impact of `86 Act on US Army written by an Army colonel. PUBLIC DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED: Armed Forces Staff College Publication No. 1 (AFSC Pub. 1. National Defense University. Washington: US GPO, 1 July 1988. Contains good summaries, in chart form, of JCS and Joint Staff changes over the years. See Appendices B and C. Cole, Alice C., Alfred Goldberg, Samuel A. Tucker, and Rudolph Winnacker, eds. The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization. 1944-1978. Washington: Office of the Secretary of Defense Historical Office, 1978. The most current official DOD history on defense reform. A primary source for Chapters II-IV. Yoshpe, Harry B. and Theodore W. Bauer. Defense Organization and Management. Washington: Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 1967. I found Chapter II: "The Growing Pains of Unification" a useful account of the `49, `53, and `58 reforms. U.S. Congress. Public Law 99-433: "Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986", 99th Congress, 2d. sess., Oct 1, 1986. This is the actual law. It is amazing in both scope and detail. A summary of the major provisions of the law is provided at Appendix E. U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services. Investigations Subcommittee. Hearings on Reorganization Proposals for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 97th Cong., 2d. sess., 1982. HASC No. 97-47. These hearings initiated Congressional action which, more than four years later, led ultimately to the `86 Act. U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Defense Organization: The Need for Change. Staff report to the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, October 16, 1985. 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985. S. Prt. 99-86. Contains as a stand-alone, sole-source document, the research, analysis, alternative proposals for reform, and recommendations presented by the SASC Staff to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Explains the rationale, at least from the Senate perspective, for the legislative proposal (S.2295) finally enacted on October 1, 1986. U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. DeDartment of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 - Report (to accompany S.2295). 99th Cong., 2d sess., 1986. Senate Report 99-280. This is the official Senate legislative history of the Goldwater-Nichols Act. I used it to help clarify the relationships between SASC and HASC reform proposals and bills beginning in 1982. PUBLIC DOCUMENTS UNPUBLISHED: Report of the Chairman's Special Study Group for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Organization and Functions of the JCS, April 1982. This is the "Brehm Report". CJCS Jones used it as the analytical basis for his reform proposals, especially those pertaining to personnel reforms need in joint institutions. Joint Chiefs of Staff Publication No. 2 (JSC Pub 2): "Unified Action Armed Forces (UNAAF)". Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C., December 1986. JCS Pub 2 was quickly updated by December 1986 to accommodate the new authority invested in the CJCS by the `86 Act. However, no substantive changes were made to service roles and missions. Joint Chiefs of Staff Special Historical Study: Role and Functions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--A Chronology. Historical Division, Joint Secretariat, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C., January 1987. This is the current JCS official history on defense reform affecting joint institutions. I have summarized its contents in Appendix A Report of the Chief of Naval Operations Select Panel: Reorganization of the National Security Organization, March 1985. Contains superb chronological listing of statutory history behind reform. Summarizes testimony taken from numerous high officials during hearings in 1982 and provides insight into "mandate for reform" perceived by Congress and their subsequent views on DOD stonewalling. " Department of the Army Memorandum: "An Inside Perspective on the DOD Reorganization Act of 1986", Office of the Chief of Staff, US Army, 8 January 1987. Interesting perspective offered by an Army Major assigned to HASC as a one-year Congressional Fellow. Offers explanation for current antagonism between "intransigent" lawmakers and "ravaged" service officials. Lupfer, Timothy T. "The German Model and American Military Reform", 1987 Review, Canadian Forces Command and Staff College (1987): 65-77. Lupfer's manuscript provided a valuable analysis of the German Army General Staff and its potential relevance to the American military today. BIBLIOGRAPHY: ADDITIONAL SOURCES The following additional sources also provided relevant background information. Some were used as general reference material and others were used to verify statements attributed in or inferred from another source. In most cases, each source was used for documentation in at least one instance in the text. BIOGRAPHIES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES: Acheson, Dean. Present At The Creation: My Years in the State Department. New York: W.W. Norton, 1969. Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower. Volume II: The President. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. Eisenhower, Dwight D. Crusade in Europe. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948. Frye, William. Marshall: Citizen Soldier. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1947. Lehman, John F., Jr. Command of the Seas. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988. Manchester, William. American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1978. Pogue, Forrest C. George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory 1943-1945. New York: Viking Press, 1973. OTHER BOOKS Abshire, David M. Preventing World War III: A Realistic Grand Strategy. New York: Harper and Row, 1988. Barrett, Archie D. Reappraising Defense Organization: An Analysis Based on the Defense Organization Study of 1977-1980. Washington: National Defense University Press, 1983. Brown, Harold. Thinking about National Security. Boulder: Westview Press, 1983. Coates, James and Michael Kilian. Heavy Losses: The Dangerous Decline of American Defense. New York: Penguin Books, 1986. Collins, John M. U.S. Defense Planning: A Critique. Westview Press, 1982. Dupuy, Trevor N. A Genius for War: The German Army and General Staff. 1807-1945. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1977. Hadley, Arthur T. The Straw Giant. New York: Random House, 1986. Halloran, Richard. To Arm A Nation: Rebuilding America's Endangered Defenses. New York: Macmillan, 1986. Hammond, Paul Y. Organizing for Defense: The American Military Establishment In The 20th Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. Hitch, Charles J. and Roland N. McKean. The Economics of Defense in the Nuclear Age. New York: Atheneum, 1978. James, D. Clayton. A Time for Giants: Politics of the American High Command in World War II. New York: Franklin Watts, 1987. Korb, Lawrence J. The Joint Chiefs of Staff: The First Twenty-Five Years. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976. Luttwak, Edward N. The Pentagon and the Art of War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. Millett, Allan R. The American Political System and Civilian Control of the Military: A Historical Perspective. Mershon Center Position Paper No. 4 in the Policy Sciences. Columbus: The Ohio State University, April 1979. ------------ and Peter Maslowski. For The Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America. New York: Free Press, 1984. Moses, Louis J. The Call for JCS Reform. Washington: National Defense University Press, 1985. Rearden, Steven L. The Evolution of American Strategic Doctrine: Paul H. Nitze and the Soviet Challenge. Boulder: Westview Press, 1984. Ryan, Paul B. The Iranian Rescue Mission: Why It Failed. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1985. Van Creveld, Martin. Command In War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985. ARTICLES: Blumenson, Martin. "Reorganization: Army Shifts Gears." Army (May 1987): Crackel, Theodore J. "Defense Assessment." In Mandate for Leadership II: Continuing the Conservative Revolution, edited by Stuart M. Butler, Michael Sanera, and W. Bruce Weinrod, 431-448. Washington: Heritage Foundation, 1984. Crowe, William J. (CJCS). "Our Commanders in Chief: Leading Edge of Deterrent Strategy", Defense `87 (November/ December 1987): Davis, Vincent. "The Reagan Defense Program: Decision Making, Decision Makers, and Some of the Results". The Reagan Defense Program: An Interim Assessment, edited by Stephen J. Cimbala, Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, Inc. (1986): 23-62. Kross, Walter. "Military Reform: Past and Present." Air University Review 32 (July-August 1981): 101-108. McKitrick, Jeffrey S. "The JCS: Evolutionary or Revolutionary Reform?" Parameters 16 (Spring 1986): 63-75. Mearsheimer, John J. "The Military Reform Movement: A Critical Assessment." Orbis (Summer 1983): 285-300. Packard, David. "Micromanagement: The Fundamental Problem With the Acquisition System", Defense `88 (Special Issue): PUBLIC DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED: American Military History (Army Historical Series), Maurice Matloff, general editor, Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, Washington, D.C.: US GPO. A Quest For Excellence: Final Report to the President, Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, David Packard, chairman, June 30, 1986. National Security Strategy of the United States, The White House, January 1988. U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services. Report of the Panel on Military Education of the One Hundredth Congress. 101st Cong., 1st sess., April 21, 1989. Committee Print No. 4. U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services. Investigations Subcommittee. Hearings on Reorganization Proposa's for the Joint Chiefs of Staff--1985. 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985. HASC No. 99-10. U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services. Investigations Subcommittee. Hearings on Reorganization of the Department of Defense. 99th Cong., 2d sess., 1986. HASC No. 99-53. U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Hearings on Organization, Structure, and Decision Making Procedures of the Department of Defense. 98th Cong., 1st sess., 1983. S. Hrg. 98-375 pt. 1 thru pt. 12. U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Report on The Department of Defense Reorganization Act. 99th Cong., 2d sess., 1986. PUBLIC DOCUMENTS UNPUBLISHED: Report to the President and the Secretary of Defense on the Department of Defense, Gilbert W. Fitzhugh, Chairman, 1 July 1970. Joint Chiefs of Staff Special Historical Study: The Evolving Role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the National Security Structure. Historical Division, Joint Secretariat, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C., 7 July 1977. National Defense University (NWC and ICAF) Phase I course syllabus for "Joint and Combined Warfare": Joint and Combined Warfare: Theater Warfare, AY 1988-89. Department of the Army: "Impact Analysis of Title IV, DOD Re-Organization Act of 1986." Officer Planning Section (DAPC-PLF), Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans, U.S. Army Military Personnel Center, 28 May 1987. Click here to view image
