agreements that I would have had with either General Jones or General Meyer-as I say, I'm not precise as to which of them proposed what things would relate to this question of whether the Joint Chiefs of Staff should, as a body, be responsible for the development of the advice, the military advice, to the National Command Authorities.

I think they have tended to feel, as indeed reflected in the committee bill-and Mr. Skelton inade this very plain-it was so intended, to strengthen the individual presentation of views at the expense of the development of the corporate.

Now, the chairman made the point that the President had still opened to him to ask for the corporate views. Either it's a significant point, as Mr. Skelton says, or it isn't. I think the theory behind it I would tend to support, the corporate development and presentation of advice. The presentation of corporate advice is important to me, and I support that. I think General Meyer and General Jones tend to be more in Mr. Skelton's camp.

Mr. MAVROULES. Let me just try to follow up here a little bit.

You mentioned in your presentation, flexibility for the Secretary, and, of course, micromanagement that should not be allowed. Do you feel today that the Secretary has the flexibility to perform efficiently?

Mr. TAFT. I think that-

Mr. MAVROULES. And while we're at it, do you feel that Congress, for that matter, is in the process of micromanagement?

Mr. TAFT. I think that the Secretary, by and large, has the authority in title 10 that is necessary and sufficient to manage the Department. There are a large number of requirements that are placed on him; a large number of reports, some of which may be obsolete, I think are obsolete, that perhaps should not be required by the Congress. There are a number of restrictions on his authority that I would do away with, but, by and large, he has broad authority, and I would not restrict it further.

Mr. MAVROULES. How about micromanagement?

Mr. TAFT. I think that there is a tendency on the part of Congress to get involved in program details that, it seems to me, would be better left to the Department. I think that there is a tendency on the part of the OSD, which I run, to take too much of an interest sometimes in the very small aspects of program management and the sum of this, although each aspect of it is-tends to be, I'm sure is, well-intentioned, deriving from a felt need. The sum of it is that the program manager down there is beset by an excess of—

Mr. MAVROULES. Before we run out of time I have a very important question I want to ask you. You've answered the other two, and I appreciate that.

Have you read the report on the-we lost those young men in Beirut. Have you read the report from this committee, and also the President's committee? Have you read it carefully?

Mr. TAFT. I have read the Long Commission Report carefully although not, I should say, recently. And I have read some of your committee's

Mr. MAVROULES. I might suggest to you that you probably should read that in detail and find out exactly why Congress gets involved. We don't try to micromanage, Mr. Secretary, but why we're getting

involved is because of that abomination in Beirut and Lebanon, relative to the chain of command.

We talk about chain of command. We want to be specific. We want to be precise. We want to be sure it's done right. And if there was ever an abomination in my judgment—as I led the group, and that investigation-it was in that terrible incident in Beirut, Lebanon. Then you wonder why Congress gets involved. Then you wonder why we ask all the hard questions. Our concern-that's why we're trying to improve the system. That's what we need from you and from others, a little cooperation. We don't want to micromanage. We don't want to take the flexibility of the Secretary. We don't want to manage the system. We want to improve it. Therefore, I think the more that you and others cooperate with us, we can make it a better system.

Mr. TAFT. I would say, I think, that I acknowledged the reasons why you get involved, are well-intended, and well conceived in individual instances.

Mr. MAVROULES. The problem was there was no chain of command. I'm talking militarily now. Effective chain of command in Beirut, Lebanon, not one that you can show me, or anyone else. And then you wonder why Congress gets involved after a deep investigation that, in my judgment, I believe, is just fluffed off.

Mr. TAFT. Excuse me, Congressman, I didn't say that I wondered why Congress got involved. I do understand why Congress gets involved. I think I said I understood why they get involved. What I also said was, and you had asked me, whether you thought Congress was involved essentially in too many things, too great a level of detail. I think the sum of having gotten involved in perhaps a whole set of individual things at different times, for different reasons, has resulted, and the thrust of my comment was to program management principally, not to the military chain of command which you introduced there, but the very difficult atmosphere in which the program manager has to manage his program efficiently and effectively. That was the thrust of my comment.

Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Skelton.

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be with you today.

Mr. Secretary, we're talking about four things, as you know. The first deals with the CINC's. The second deals with joint duty. The third deals with melding the staffs, and the service Secretaries, and the service Chiefs. And the fourth, of course, is the joint agencies. In listening to you, and in looking at your comments today, we may be walking along the same path somewhat on three of those four areas.

Regarding the unified and specified commands, you say we share your concern for improving the manner in which the combat commanders prepare for performing their war-fighting mission.

Regarding the joint military personnel system, we have shared the committee's concern with a personnel impact surrounding joint duty for our military officers. În response to your direction, the Secretary forwarded on May 16, 1985, a report on our study to improve the capabilities of officers and joint activities.

It seems that we have a little falling out on the consolidation of military staffs and the secretariat. "The Department does not believe that the staff's, the service," et cetera.

And in the fourth area, dealing with defense agencies, you say there is, of course, still room for improvement in resource management operating relationships between the military departments, the defense agencies, and the specific and functional areas.

So, Mr. Secretary, we've been discussing maybe where we disagree, and maybe we ought to be looking at some of the areas where we do agree.

With that in mind, let's talk about the CINC's very briefly. We all agree that should push come to shove, and there be any type of war, the CINC's fight it, don't they?

Mr. TAFT. That's correct.

Mr. SKELTON. That's right. And these are the people that get the praise, the blame, or at least they have the responsibility, the duty of winning that war, is that not correct?

Mr. TAFT. Well, they, of course, report to the Secretary.

Mr. SKELTON. I understand that, but they win or lose the war? Mr. TAFT. They are the combatant commanders. They fight the

Mr. SKELTON. That's right. So, during wartime these CINC's, of course, have control of their component commanders, don't they? Mr. TAFT. Yes, they do.

Mr. SKELTON. What's wrong with them having control of those component commanders, and having such an arrangement during peacetime?

Mr. TAFT. Well, as I mentioned, I think that they should have more control over them.

Mr. SKELTON. All right.

Mr. TAFT. How much more, what the terms of a new JCS Pub. 2 should be, we have not yet arrived at, and I think—I would like to wait for the JCS.

Mr. SKELTON. You mentioned that the CINC's have a limited perspective, which I'm sure is limited to their area. But they also should know, if they have to fight tomorrow instead of 6 months or a year from now, where ammunition should be stored. They ought to have say-so in that, shouldn't they? And they also ought to have at least the ability to recommend a certain type of trained people, certain type of airplanes, rather than basically what the services send them on a limited take-it-or-leave-it basis. And then comes wartime when they put on a different hat, and they own all these assets, and the ammunition may be in the most vulnerable spot, the ships may be in the wrong place, may have the wrong kind of mix of trained people. Don't you think they ought to have really more to say early on?

Mr. TAFT. This basically bears on the question of how we spend our money, for what type of training, for what type of equipment, and I have felt very strongly that the CINC's should participate more broadly than was ever the case in the past in those types of decisions, and they do so.

Mr. SKELTON. So maybe we're closer together in that area than others would have us?

Mr. TAFT. I should say that probably, and I'm the champion of the CINC's in this process. I have drawn them in a lot more than any of my predecessors have. And so in calling attention to their shortcomings on the global side, and I would also bring out, I think, on the R&D side, they would tend to be less aware, familiar with the requirements of, say, the year 2000 that we must be preparing for than they are familiar with ammunition and capability of troops today. That will be more their focus. This is another limitation that we need to offset by bringing in people with that con

cern.

Mr. SKELTON. Now, let me ask you, what independent research organization is being employed to conduct this study on the establishment of a joint duty career specialty?

Mr. TAFT. I'll have to provide that to you.

Mr. SKELTON. Would you, please?

My basic question is why couldn't you all do it? Why couldn't you folks do it rather than farm that out somewhere?

Mr. TAFT. I'm not familiar with the background except there is a study underway.

[The following information was received for the record:]

INDEPENDENT RESEARCH ORGANIZATION

The House Armed Services Committee, in its Report on the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 1986, tasked the Department to employ an independent research organization to study the advisability of establishing a joint duty specialty and related issues. A $100,000 appropriation was authorized by Congress to conduct the study. Separate in-house studies on this subject were, in fact, accomplished by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Services, and were included with our May, 1985, report mentioned earlier in this testimony. The committee apparently desired further analysis of this issue from an independent source.

Mr. SKELTON. OK, sir. Are you also familiar with the fact that the British have a joint warfare school where all the services send their officers, where they learn to work, plan and think together? Are you aware of that?

Mr. TAFT. Yes.

Mr. SKELTON. I would hope that you folks would take a good look at that. It might be a good place from which to start.

The that's all here. Thank you.

Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Secretary, let me talk to you just a little bit about this staff business.

We have about 400 officers on JCS staff over there. And we continue to hear from time to time from witnesses that an assignment to JCS staff is the kiss of death. Nobody wants to go to the staff, particularly a hard charger who has stars, stripes, somewhere in his vision someday. He gets away from his branch, and he's sort of lost, and promotions don't come about.

One of the services in testifying before us some time previously, I believe, frankly admitted that they were not able to send their best officers to staff duty, that they had, because there are commitments around the world, needed those best officers on-as line officers and duty officers.

I'd like to know specifically what changes are being made in that particular department. I guess one thing that concerns me is it appears that the changes in the law that we passed in 1984 have been ignored. One of those changes required the selection of joint offi

cers by the JCS Chairman from the list of nominees submitted by the military departments. And yet the committee received a letter, which I will put into the record later, indicating that they really do that when they want to on some sort of a selective basis rather than the way we had set out in the 1984 bill.

And I wonder if you'd just discuss that a little bit because some thought is being given to trying to upgrade that staff duty. I think you would agree with me that it's tremendously important duty, and we ought to do everything we can to try to make it seem more important, appear to be more important, or certainly is more important to an officer that would be assigned there. It's not the kiss of death.

Some have suggested that perhaps we ought to set up a second MOS. Perhaps there's an infantry branch officer, an artillery branch, an engineer officer in the Army. He might have a second branch, and that would be staff duty. And over the years he'd go to various schools that would equip him to be a keen, bright, sharp staff officer. I'm not married to that, but that's one of the suggestions that's come to the committee.

Also, it's been suggested that we ought to do something to be certain that these officers on staff duty are not overlooked for promotion.

And I just wondered if you have any ideas on that. I believe you concur with me that that's an important issue, and that both the Senate and House committees ought to look at that in whatever bill we're preparing.

Mr. TAFT. Well, Mr. Chairman, I do agree with you that it is a very important issue. Some of the steps that we have taken, I have set out in my statement. I agree with you also that we need to take at least those steps to improve the quality of the people nominated for these joint positions, and to assure they're connected because of the point you mentioned, to assure that when they return to their service that they're not penalized, or suffer because they haven't been checking a different box.

Mr. NICHOLS. Let me ask you, do you share with me that perception? You've been in the Pentagon. You're an old rat in the barn over there. You've had staffs come and go. You've managed them. Is that your perception?

Mr. TAFT. I have certainly heard that said, and I guess all I can say is that we work very hard-because OSD duty is frequently said to suffer from this same liability-to counter it. We look after people who go back to the services, if we can, to make it clear that if they did a good job for me, for instance, or for the Secretary of Defense, that we consider that to be extremely important, and that the Army, or the Navy, or the Air Force, should consider it to be extremely important also.

Mr. NICHOLS. Well, now beyond just putting that in his efficiency report while he served with you, what further are you doing to try to see that this man not be passed over by virtue of the fact that he was away from his branch and he may have been forgotten over the 3 or 4 years that he served?

Mr. TAFT. Well, I think that the main thing you can do in this area is to watch the progress of these people. If they are good people that we get from the services-no matter the fact that