tucky, whose judgment we respect very much, will have enough advice, and hear enough testimony, that he will be able to make a determination on it. Mr. HOPKINS. Mr. Taft, let me ask a question in reference to the concept that we're looking at here. Information that I have thus far shows some divided personalities, which always happens. It's my understanding that from the Senate side right now we have two guys that I have a lot of admiration for, finding themselves in objection to you representing the Department on these concepts, and that being, Mr. Nunn, Mr. Goldwater, other people divided in there. But I have a great deal of respect for those people, and their knowledge over the years. In reference to one of the concepts involving military department reorganization, that is to reduce the top three DOD management layers, less the service Secretaries, military headquarters, to two, by creating a single military headquarters staff in each department. Now, in figures, and I may not have the exact figures, but certainly the service Secretary and assistant Secretaries, and so forth, have somewhere between 250 and 800 people, each, under them. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have somewhere between 2,500, 3,500, under them. And it's my understanding of this concept that it would join those two organizations together, and thereby it would eliminate approximately some 1,500 people in the process. Are you opposed to that concept? Are you familiar with that concept? Or could you elaborate on what that might do? Are you for it, or against it, Mr. Taft? Mr. TAFT. Let me be sure I understand which concept you're talking about. I understand and I addressed in my statement, the idea of consolidating the service staffs which now report to the Chiefs of Staff in each of the military departments and the service secretariats which now report to the service Secretary. Is it the consolidation of those two staffs that you are asking about? Mr. HOPKINS. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, not the service Chiefs. Mr. TAFT. My view on that is that what we ought to do is to assure that there is a minimum of duplication of any overlap between the activities of those two different staffs, or in the case of the Navy, three staffs, because the Commandant of the Marine Corps also has his Marine Corps staff, but I do not believe that the elimination of any one of those staffs, and the consolidation, essentially, of the team reporting to the service Secretary, and the service Chief is desirable. And the principal reason for that is that I believe that the service Secretary is looked to by the Secretary of Defense to administer the Department. He participates in the executive branch as a member of the administration, and he should have his own staff, it seems to me, to support him in carrying out those peculiarly civilian duties that are a part of his office. They should not duplicate what he can get from the service Chief's staff, but they need to be his own. The service Chief needs, I think, his staff for just the basic administration of the military side of the house. That is the reason why I do not favor the elimination of either of those staffs. I do favor, and we have done, a cutting down of many areas of overlap, and have reduced the numbers and the size of each of those staffs to the minimum, and, as I indicated in my statement, that has been going on over recent years. Mr. HOPKINS. Mr. Taft, I assume by your answer that you're basically in opposition to the thrust of the concept of reorganizing the military Departments. The other three areas, the unified and specified commands, the joint military personnel system, and the defense agencies, would they also I don't mean to imply that you're totally opposed to everything that they're putting up, but basically I'm saying to you, are you in opposition to the other three also, Mr. Taft? Are there any of the four concepts that you favor that have been presented thus far that you're aware of? Mr. TAFT. Well, I think, of the four concepts, I would say that I favored the strengthening of the personnel system having to do with joint military personnel and more encouragement of high quality people and more recognition in the personnel system of joint performance. On the question of strengthening the CINC's: I have indicated that I favor, generally, the strengthening of the CINC's. I would like to do this, not at the expense of the service chiefs and the service Secretaries, but in addition to preserving their roles to the extent we can. I have a model for that-what I have done in the resource allocation process where we have engaged the CINC's in that process very much more significantly in the past 3 years than was ever the case previously. It can be done. The question on the military side of the house is a more complex one of command authority, but we are looking at that. JCS has the review underway, and I think, as I indicated in my statement, our inclination is to strengthen the CINC's over where they are now. How that is done; how much of it is done; I would await the outcome of the JCS study. I think that's wise, but we're tending in that direction. So those two we would tend to support. On the defense agencies, I am not aware of any particular proposals beyond what is in the Senate staff bill, which is to strengthen the Secretary's supervision of those agencies, and to strengthen the JCS supervision of those agencies, and particularly, in regard to their preparedness for wartime and their ability to perform the support functions that they have to do in wartime, and I would support that too. So, three out of four. I guess we picked the wrong one to start with. Mr. HOPKINS. Thank you, Mr. Taft. I have a number of questions but my time has expired and in interest of my colleagues I'll-Mr. NICHOLS. Before I go, Mr. Kasich, let me ask the Secretary. It's imperative, I think, that we have as much information, and as much direction and guidance, as can be provided by the JCS study that you mentioned, and by the Packard Commission study. We expect to discuss this with Mr. Packard next week. Mr. TAFT. Yes. Mr. NICHOLS. In a session next week. I understand from the morning paper that there's some confusion involved in the Packard Commission study. I hope that gets ironed out, but we need to have that information. So I'm just saying to you, we would appreciate it if we could get any advance notice before that study comes that you're going to put out over there on the JCS. I'll make that request to the chairman, I presume, when he comes as well. Mr. TAFT. Yes, I think that we have asked the chairman to complete that study by June 30. The Secretary has asked him to do that. Mr. NICHOLS. June 30 is not going to help us, Mr. Secretary. Mr. TAFT. Well, what I was going to go on to say was that as to how it is going, I think you should definitely discuss that with the chairman and I'll encourage him to be prepared to respond to you on that point, and how he might tell you on a current basis what the thinking of the Chief is. Mr. NICHOLS. Thank you. Mr. Kasich. Mr. KASICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Taft. I have been concerned since we started into JCS reform with the area of lack of control by the CINC's in peacetime operations. The subcommittee is considering proposals that would allow some support and administration and other areas to be shifted to the CINCS, which would include, for example, joint exercises, command and control, joint training. I wonder what your reaction is to the establishment of some type of independent budget, some type of separate project, that would be managed by the CINC's that would include these kinds of areas. Mr. TAFT. Well, as I indicated, we have been reviewing this and have generally been tending to strengthen the CINC's participation authority in these different areas. We have given them a larger role in the resource allocation process, management of and participation in these types of decisions that you mentioned. I think that's been healthy for the process. A limitation that I have thought is important to observe is that we not set up the CINC's to do some of the things that—or, let us say, too many of the things that the services are already doing and have shown that they can do effectively. The CINC's are no different from anybody else. They have a lot of expertise, an important perspective, but a limited perspective. While they have jointness and global, and particularly regional expertise, they tend not to have global responsibilities as the service chiefs do. I don't want to have them required to be distracted from their current duties of war fighting capability by getting them all mixed up in areas where they can be supported from the services effectively. That's not going to help anybody to have them set up their own budget shops, their own training shops, and so on. You have nine more of them, one for each CINC's, and you still wouldn't be able to have a joint comprehensive approach to it because the CINC's simply wouldn't be able to bring that. Mr. KASICH. Well, first of all, in 1956, 1957, 1958, this President who warned us about the industrial military complex said at the same time that the CINC's don't have enough control in the field. That was in 1958. I was 6 years old then. Now I've got to look back to what happened here with all these distinguished people that produced this bible that we have in this subcommittee, this Georgetown Center for Strategic Studies report with Brown, Clifford, Laird, Schlesinger, Richardson, McNamara. Then I look at what Crowe; our present Chairman; Nutting; the head of the Readiness Command; and Rogers, probably the most distinguished public servant that we have in the military today, all of them saying we don't have any control out here in the field. I mean, the Congress actually has passed legislation to keep men in Europe because the services wanted to yank them out and Rogers said "I've got to have them over here.” Now, what you say is that we don't want to get these people doing budgets, and fooling around with these theoretical concepts. I fully agree with that. But when we're talking about joint exercises, command and control, and joint training, we're not talking about theoretical, problematic kinds of decisions they have to make. We're actually talking about letting them have more control over their day-to-day operations out there so they can carry out theirnot only their peacetime mission, but potentially be able to effectively carry out their wartime mission. They're saying "we don't have enough resources, we're not in the budget process, we're not in a variety of things. We'd like to have control." So, I mean, don't you feel as though in these areas of joint exercises, command and control, and joint training, we could develop several budgets these people could control during peacetime? Mr. TAFT. I think that they ought to have more authority than they do today. I limited my response because there is a line that has to be drawn, and it's drawn, I would agree with you, too tightly now; but that is not to say that it doesn't have to be drawn somewhere else. I would agree with you that more authority go to the CINC's. We have done that. Where we have had the opportunity and in the resource allocation process, I think we intended to do that as a result of the JCS study, but exactly where is a point that, at this stage, I'm not, without the JCS study, prepared to say is the best place to draw it, but more, yes. Mr. KASICH. Do you support the amendment that was added to the House bill, Mr. Taft, that provides that the Chairman of the JCS shall submit budget proposals and recommendations after receiving input from the CINC's to be used as an additional option to the Secretary of Defense to play off against the service POMS in terms of giving them additional advice so that he can make intelligent budget decisions? Do you support that particular amendment? Mr. TAFT. I think I have a better system right now, as a matter of fact, which provides that the CINC's themselves individually without going through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, come directly to me with their comments on the service POMS, and to the entire Defense Resources Board, in fact, at the beginning of the program review, and they participate personally, as does the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the deliberations of that board, and comment directly on the service POMs. I think, frankly, that's better than filtering those views through the Chairman. Mr. KASICH. I think the frustration Mr. Skelton expressed, probably better than I can, is that you're trying to say you like what you're doing, but let's talk about the guts more. Everybody in this town, everybody around the world, these distinguished gentlemen, have said that they don't have any input in the budget decisions-that the services make all the decisions. The CINC's, and the JCS, and all-they really don't have any legitimate involvement. And they might go up to testify a couple of times a year, but they really are not having the impact on the old budget decisions. Those are being made by the services. But you are saying that that, in fact, is not true. You're happy with the current way in which we make budgets. Isn't that correct? Mr. TAFT. I am telling you that I know that that isn't true, and that if you would listen, as I'm sure you will have the opportunity to do, to the CINC's today, and this process has only been in effect for the last 3 years, and in this last year we changed it to allow greater participation by the CINC's than in the year before that.And I think that you will find that the CINC's will tell you today, none of them part of this group because they're on active duty still, that they have an opportunity to come and to speak to the Defense Resources Board, to submit issues to the Defense Resources Board and to participate in the discussion of those issues when they are taken up by the Board; they are right there. Anybody who says that they don't participate doesn't know what's going on today. They know what did go on, and it did. I grant you that. That's why we made these changes. But the CINC's are in the process. Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Kasich, will you yield just 1 minute? You portray the system as having changed, and it's working great now, and you've got new regulations, new guidelines. Would you object to putting those guidelines in law? Mr. TAFT. I'm talking about resource allocation, the budget development process. I think it has been proposed to me, and I have agreed. General Rogers, in fact, one of the CINC's, proposed that I put this process into a directive in the Department, which is the most you can do in the Department to assure and institutionalize the process as we have it today, because he was apprehensive that it might not persist. I think, Mr. Chairman, you and I have discussed before the desirability of enacting statutes to assure the maintenance of good practice after you and I have gone on to our reward. And I have said, and I would say again in response to this, that I think that that's not a desirable practice because it will reduce flexibility. But it does not represent a difference over substance. Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Mavroules. Mr. MAVROULES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm not going to get into the intricate part of what we're proposing here, but I'm going to ask just a couple of questions. No. 1, do you disagree with General Meyer and General Jones on recommendations they have made? Mr. TAFT. I certainly have some disagreements with them. I have disagreed, and I should be more familiar with this than I am as to which of them suggested which, but I believe there was one of them, I think General Meyer, who suggested, for example, that we needed a joint military advisory committee of retired four stars to replace the JCS, which was reflected in an early version of the Senate staff bill. I disagreed with that proposal. I think that dis |