As a matter of fact, I would be surprised if it were initially drawn to their attention.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Was any civilian position, Mr. Vance, recommended to your knowledge by your reorganization group dealing with a civilian position who would be responsible for operations? Mr. VANCE. No, sir.

Mr. BATES. It was suggested?

Mr. VANCE. Not to my knowledge.

Mr. HARDY. Maybe he didn't call it "Operations."

But you know what we are talking about.

Mr. VANCE. I really don't know what you are talking about. I never heard of this proposal.

Mr. HARDY. I don't mean that you know what we are talking about as "the proposal."

But there are a lot of different ways to skin a cat.

Secretary MCNAMARA. Well, Mr. Chairman, may I say on that point that I think the thought that a civilian, whether he is called Assistant Secretary or anything else, would be in direct charge of operations, as that connotes, is an unreasonable thought. In the Defense Department it makes no sense to me at all.

Mr. HARDY. I wish I knew if it was unreasonable. That is what bothers me.

Now, the Department of Defense is getting into operations in a good many areas. That is certainly so, if you construe the Defense Supply Agency being in the Department of Defense. And I don't know where it is. But that is one of the things. It is hanging up there loose. We have not pinpointed just where it is yet. But if that is to be construed as being in the Department of Defense, the Department is getting into a considerable area of operations.

Now I don't know whether you would call him "Assistant Secretary for Operations" or "Director of Operations," or whether you would even use the word "Operations."

Secretary MCNAMARA. Well

Mr. HARDY. And I don't suggest that this has been done or that somebody has come up with a proposition of this kind. I don't know. But there would be a lot of things you could call him, aside from hooking the name "Operations" on him and which would mean the same thing.

Secretary MCNAMARA. Well, Mr. Chairman, I frankly don't have any idea what the article referred to.

I have no plans at the present time for reorganizing my staff in any way or changing the titles of any members of the staff or changing the responsibilities of any members of the staff.

So this is all I can say with respect to it. I know nothing beyond

that.

Mr. HARDY. I think the committee is very glad to get that information from you. But it wouldn't be surprising if somebody, such as a bright lad who has dreamy eyes down in your Department, has been working on something of this kind down there.

Secretary MCNAMARA. If he is working on that, he is wasting his time. I would be happy to know it. [Laughter.]

Mr. BLANDFORD. Another subject, Mr. Chairman. We questioned the Joint Chiefs' staff as to any proposed changes in the national military command system.

And our impression-I am sure the subcommittee members will bear me out-is that they indicated that to their knowledge there was no study underway in this area.

Mr. Gilpatric in a speech at Monterey said—

We are now in the process of working out what is probably as difficult, a time-consuming and costly a project as I think we have undertaken. It has not been too clearly identified as yet because it is not something that frankly outside of a group like this is easy to talk about, and that is our national military command system.

Now, again, we may be engaged in semantics.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff did not seem to be familiar-perhaps it was because of the way we posed the question.

Secretary MCNAMARA. I am sure that is the case. Because they have spent literally weeks of their time on this particular subject, and I have volumes of papers from them directed to me expressing their views on it.

I am certain that it was a question of semantics. They probably did not recognize that term as applied to it.

That is the formal name for it.

Normally, we think of it as command and control. And we speak of it as command and control, and a system of command and control. And I think that is what may have caused confusion.

Mr. BLANDFORD. I think so. I think probably the words "National Military Command" seem to some people to connote a chain of command.

And that is not what you have in mind.

Secretary MCNAMARA. That is not.

What we are talking about in the brief essence is a communications system to secure command under operational conditions.

And this, of course, is a primary requirement for the Joint Chiefs, and they therefore have given considerable attention to it.

Mr. HARDY. Mr. Gilpatric, in pointing out that this was not the kind of thing you could talk about in general circles, certainly did create an aura of mystery around it.

It sort of bothered me a little, especially when the Joint Chiefs did not seem to know anything about it.

Secretary MCNAMARA. Well, I am sure it is a question of semantics. Because the Chiefs are not only completely familiar with this but bear the primary responsibility for the design of the system.

And that responsibility has been assigned to them by me in writing. Mr. BLANDFORD. Mr. Gilpatric also said, in his May 2 speech at Monterey, that over the past 15 months steps had been taken by you and by Mr. Gilpatric, that-

have had a common design, namely to bring together and establish more centralized control over functionally alike activities in the military establishment.

And on the 25th of April, Mr. Gilpatric issued a memorandum to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which he saidWhile I appreciate that the manpower increases recently approved for the organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were not based upon a transfer of functions from the services. I am convinced that if we add more personnel to take on more work at the OSD-JCS headquarters levels, there must be compensating decreases in the military and civilian headquarters staffs of the military departments.

Mr. Gilpatric then went on to say that the Department of Defense was committed to hold the total personnel in Washington headquarters' activities at the 1962 level.

He asked the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower to reduce the military and civilian authorizations in headquarters' activities in the Department of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

The question, Mr. Secretary, is does it appear reasonable to you to assign new functions-new functions-to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, absorb personnel into the organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from the three military departments, and at the same time not permit. the military departments to replace the personnel they have lost? Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes, sir; it does.

As it did also to the Joint Chiefs.

On the 19th of April, in a memorandum to me signed by General Lemnitzer, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, they said, with reference to the same personnel:

The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend that adjustments to offset the requested increases be made from within overall service ceilings.

And the reason was very clear. The number of people involved were such that within the ceilings of 960,000 or so for the Army and 800,000plus for the Navy and Air Force, the Chiefs felt it would be entirely possible to find the savings necessary to allow these spaces to be assigned to this new function, which was a counter-guerrilla function. But the important point I would emphasize is that I have issued instructions that such new functions must be manned with personnel saved from old functions.

Now, the only point at issue here, that perhaps deserves discussion I think, is whether the savings should have been taken out of the headquarters staffs of the military departments

Mr. BLANDFORD. That is the issue, and not the total.

Secretary MCNAMARA. Which was the specific direction of Mr. Gilpatric's memorandum of May 11, or whether they should have been taken out of the field commands.

Now, we are talking of 117 people, which the Chiefs agreed should be assigned to this counterguerrilla function.

The headquarters staffs of the military Departments approximate 10,000 men per Department.

So we are talking about roughly 30,000 men for the three military Departments.

It is certainly my strong belief that we are overstaffed in military department headquarters. I think it is the belief of all who have really studied this problem that that is true.

And under those circumstances, it seemed wise to me, and it seemed wise to the Secretaries, to transfer authorizations for 117 people out of the 30,000, approximately, authorized for the headquarters in the military Departments.

Mr. HARDY. Is that all they are talking about here, 117 people? Secretary MCNAMARA. I think that is the total shown on the May 11 figure, Mr. Chairman, 117.

Mr. VANCE. Yes.

Mr. HARDY. Well-now, this group of 117 would become part of the organization of the JCS; is that right?

Mr. VANCE. That is right.

Secretary MCNAMARA. That is right.

Mr. HARDY. Now, didn't the same thing happen with respect to the others who are in that organization of the JCS? Weren't they pulled out of this same kind of function, of the individual services?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Mr. Chairman, I can't speak as to whether that was done previously when those other people were assigned or when their functions and their authorizations were assigned. I don't believe so.

Because it was only a few months ago that we set up a system that in effect provides a double entry bookkeeping system on personnel. And we will not increase the total personnel of the Department of Defense when a new function is taken on of this type.

Rather, we reduce the authorization from one area and increase it in another-this in order to try to hold down the total personnel of the Department.

When we are dealing as we are with 32 million people-21⁄2 million-plus of military and 1 million of civilians-I think that the public has the right to expect that we will take jobs of this kind within the existing ceilings, and that has been the intent of my policy. Mr. HARDY. Well, I don't want to suggest any question about trying to stay within the existing ceilings.

But I am trying to see if I can understand what happens when you take 117 or 831 as the case may be

Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes.

Mr. HARDY. You may have 831 that actually came from spots in the headquarters personnel.

Now, when you take them and put them in the organization of the JCS, you not only-follow me on this, because I am not too sure of what is happening here.

But it seems to me that you not only have reduced the capabilities of the individual services with respect to the performance of these people, but you have also imposed another requirement on the individual services to support, not only to take up the slack which these people vacated, that is the jobs they vacated, but they are going to have to be serviced.

Secretary MCNAMARA. They are going to have

Mr. HARDY. They are going to have to be serviced.

The fact that they are up in the organization of the JCS means that somebody back in the service has got to be attending to some of their requirements; isn't that right?

Secretary MCNAMARA. No, sir.

They are serviced in the sense of the payroll being processed, I presume by the military department.

Mr. HARDY. Well

Secretary MCNAMARA. But not in any other sense.

Mr. HARDY. Well, I would be surprised if I am not relating this to personal knowledge in the military services as such.

But from observation in Government employment generally, when you move a group performing a function which it has similarly performed previously in an individual area and put it in that higher level, you not only have to have somebody performing a similar function down in the agency where he left but you have got to have somebody sort of looking over to see what is happening up here as it affects that particular service.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Mr. Chairman, there is more

Secretary MCNAMARA. Mr. Chairman, this particular function was not a service function and therefore I don't believe it is necessary to have a person in the service

Mr. HARDY. Well, even if that is the case, if it is an entirely new function, the individual services have an interest in that function, don't they, because they are going to have something to do in carrying it out?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes, they will have training responsibilities in this case in relation to counterguerrilla operations.

Mr. HARDY. You are talking about the 117 now?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes.

Mr. HARDY. Instead of the 831?
Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes, sir.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Mr. Chairman, I don't think we can treat this matter as lightly as this, in this respect.

While this memorandum may only have involved 117 people, it would have been interesting to have determined what their grades And it would be interesting to compare that-you can talk about 2.8 million people. We are not talking about privates or sergeants or lieutenants or captains. We are probably talking about rather senior officers.

And when you take from these services some of the best people they have and that is usually the requirement to go up on the JCS leveland then decline to permit the services to even replace these people in the Washington area with competent people in grades that are called for, the question is whether this is not-perhaps not deliberate, but is this not weakening the military departments and leading to a further centralization of control in the Department of Defense, to go back to the quote that I gave from Mr. Gilpatric, in which he said

that was the trend?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Not in the slightest.

The grades in the Washington area in the military departments are not affected by this.

If they wish to transfer grade authorizations in from the field to offset these grade authorizations, they can do that. But they can't increase the number of authorized personnel in the Washington area above the limit they had before, less the 117.

And when you consider, as you must, that there are 30,000 people in the pool from which the 117 were taken, I think you would share my views that this is only reasonably conservative personnel management. Mr. BLANDFORD. Well, of this 30,000 that you speak of, what basically-what are the grade of the 117 that you drew on?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I can't respond offhand. They were probably in the captain through colonel level.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Well, the point is

Mr. HARDY. Most likely lieutenant colonels and colonels, I believe. Secretary MCNAMARA. Pardon me?

Mr. HARDY. Most likely, the majority of them would be lieutenant colonels and colonels.

Secretary MCNAMARA. I think that is probably correct.

Mr. BLANDFORD. You now have 831 military in the JCS organization.