I am very confident, however, Mr. Chairman, that you have got our attention to the extent that the eight recommendations that we made in our 1985 report are geared exactly to do that, to enhance the stature of people assigned to the Joint Staff.

You can't get outstanding fellows all at once. We can't do everything first, but we started in 1985 to get on with the task of doing exactly what you say, and that is to get rid of this myth that an assignment to a joint billet is the kiss of death or the end of the road, because even though it may have been in the past, in some cases, I am absolutely convinced that it will not be in the future. The thrust of your bill, and the thrust of your interest, will make it so, and you have a perfect opportunity-you can ask us, what are the promotion rates 6 months from now or a year from now or 2 years from now, and you've got a chance to ask us how we are doing.

Mr. NICHOLS. General, General Vessey, I believe, in his testimony last year suggested that the cap be removed on the number of individuals on the Joint Staff.

How do you look at that?

General CHAVARRIE. I think the cap should be removed, sir, and I think it should be left to the Chairman and to the Secretary of Defense to decide what the number should be.

Mr. NICHOLS. I notice in the paper this morning some comments on the Senate bill. I have not found any ground swell from the Pentagon supportive of that bill.

I notice they make some recommendation for overall reductions in the Pentagon.

General CHAVARRIE. I noticed that coming over, sir.

Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Barrett, do you have any questions?
Mr. BARRETT. Yes, sir; I do.

General, first, you indicated that a jont subspecialty might create an adversarial relationship in the Officer Corps.

General CHAVARRIE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARRETT. We have doctors. Doctors get special pay, special promotion rates. And we have lawyers, nuclear submariners, Army rangers, Air Force pilots, Air Force Headquarters Staff officers. All of these groups are considered separately, in different ways, that is, as compared to the joint subspecialty, which would include almost all of those groups.

I don't see the distinction between a joint subspecialty on the one hand, and all of these other groups that do, from time to time, or all the time, receive special consideration.

General CHAVARRIE. I think part of the answer is, there is a feeling, it is a feeling that is difficult to articulate, Mr. Barrett. I would say that there is a difference between a group of lawyers, or a group of doctors and dentists-that is not quite analogous to a joint specialty.

I guess it could be the natural relationships that a fighter pilot has with a bomber pilot or a helicopter pilot and a fixed-wing pilot. It is hard to put your finger on it, but if somehow or other, the perception becomes a cadre of people who are promoted differently, and looked at differently, that it might engender some sort of adversarial connotation.

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Mr. BARRETT. Another question, General-we have had testimony since 1982 about how the joint side is getting better. If you go back in that testimony, you can find that it refers back 10 or 15 years.

Someone testified that Admiral Zumwalt solved the joint officer problem for the Navy back in the early 1970's. Admiral Holloway, in 1982, testified that he took care of that problem in the mid1970's.

Admiral Hayward testified in 1982 that he had taken care of it then and just recently Admiral Watkins has said now he has taken care of it.

I wonder if these things, the identifier in an officer's file, will take care of a very significant problem-and we have substantial testimony that the problem is there, it continues, and the information is that it will continue in the future.

General CHAVARRIE. Those are the wrong people to have taken care of it. The person to take care of it is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We have a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who will take care of it.

It is this cultural change that has to occur, but there needs to be very strong leadership from the top in order to press this need of cultural commitment that is going to be joint. And you cannot do it necessarily in the service.

It has got to be from higher, not only from the service level.

Mr. BARRETT. If it is the Chairman that has to take care of it, and the Chairman has very few authorities in the law, do we not need to put some things in the law to give the Chairman more responsibility so he can take care of it?

General CHAVARRIE. That is exactly right. If you will recall, those eight recommendations in the 1985 report, the OSD report, does exactly that. We can't give the Chairman any authority, in our report, but in our report we spelled out eight ways in which you could enhance the career of joint officers, and we think doing it in a very positive way.

What that study needs, and those recommendations need, is a lot of push from the hierarchy. I daresay that the pressure on the positive side from this committee, the push that it is getting, in my over 30 years, I can just see the momentum shifting.

I think the momentum is shifting, and the sentiment is there, and people now understand that joint is important, and I know that you have heard it before, and I wish that I could-I wish I could express to you the feeling that I have over my experience working in both service and joint billets, 16 years in various assignments, NATO, SHAPE, OSD, that the shift is there.

I hope I am not proved wrong 5 years from now, but I think when you are here 5 years from now, Mr. Barrett, you will see that. It needs pressure, and you are putting the pressure where it is, and the proof of the pudding will be next year. When witnesses come back and you say here is your promotion list, here is the promotion list in Joint Staff and services, in the air staff or in the different staffs, here is what the statistics were.

Now, tell me what the statistics are this year, and if they are not any better, that is when you can get somebody. Give it a chance to work, and I am not going to say 5 years, but I will say 1 or 2 years.

And you can change this perception, and you've got all the leverage in the world to do things the next year, or the next year.

The only thing that worries me a little bit, Mr. Barrett, is when you shift organizations and you say, well, here is a new organization chart, a new wiring diagram, let's put these people under this new organization, well, fine.

A year later, you find out that was a total disaster, and you say, OK, I'll change. I am going to put this box under this fellow and that is fine, but you can't do that to people's careers, because we've got certain individual career paths and this business has to be a little more evolutionary.

My sentiments are in this direction, but this is something that has to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. You can't say put that organizational box there, and that is the way it is, because we are talking about people, careers that are underway, careers that are beginning, some are ending, and so this personnel business has to be done in a more measured way. I think that you are not doing it in a measured way, but we must be mindful that we are talking about people now, and not just wiring diagrams.

Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Hopkins.

Mr. HOPKINS. General, this subcommittee is being driven by a time line.

General CHAVARRIE. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOPKINS. The chairman is trying to do his best to keep us in line with that. I was interested by your remarks of 30 years' experience, and the chairman and I are now working on a final bill, not a perfect bill.

We continue to search for an informed bill, not necessarily an emotional one, we continue to work to try to make it as perfect as it can.

With the legislation that we are now looking at, the areas we are looking at, not the JCS bill, that is already gone, but the other four areas, and your 30 years of experience, what is the worst thing about this-if you could pick something out and say you are headed in the wrong direction right now, this is something you need to examine very closely-what would that be?

General CHAVARRIE. Speaking personally, on the basis of my experience, I would say that a dramatic shift of a joint subspecialty, as we are talking about in terms of personnel, might be a bad thing. I think in the long run, it is not a bad thing. In the long run, it is good, but to do it dramatically and in a nonevolutionary way is a bad thing.

The second thing I would say, and this is a little bit out of my purview, what do I think the worst thing is? I think combining of the military department, civilian and military staffs, is a bad thing, and I think that because we want to ensure that the people that are down underneath all of us look up to something.

They look up to the chiefs of a service to be their spear carrier. He is the guy that represents them all, and to in any way diminish the position of the chief of a service, I think would be a bad thing, and I am not saying that the bill would, but it might if you do that combination, never even any question about the civilian control aspect.

That is a given; it's not even in our lexicon. Civilian control-we don't even think about that-it is given, so that is no danger. Combining those two would be a bad thing.

Mr. HOPKINS. Some of us, General, sense-and I don't mean this in a personal direction, please, I hope you understand that-some of us seem to sense that the military sometimes, perhaps unconsciously, says, we are going to be here for a long time, and Secretaries are going to be here not as long, Members are not going to be here as long, we will outlast you. So it is easier for us to say well, we respect the civilian control, but the truth of the matter is, they are really not in control.

Does that have anything to do with this bill at all?

General CHAVARRIE. No, sir. That certainly is not my feeling. I can tell you, I work for the Secretary of Defense, and for Mr. Cox, and there is not any question in my mind who is in control, and I think there isn't any question in any military officer's mind about who is in control.

We don't even think about civilian-military control, it is almost not in the lexicon as I said. I think enough officers, and most people, are educated enough and realize that this country of ours has been around a long time, and will be a lot longer, and there is no question about the allegiance of an officer when he raises his hand and takes the oath.

I don't see any problem about-we are going to be here and the civilians come and go, and we are going to run the place. That is more of a myth, sir, if I may.

Mr. HOPKINS. Mr. Chairman, if I can ask a couple more questions.

I would like to have your impressions, and I don't know if you have already covered this, I would like to have your comments on the Defense Logistics Agency. There is a bill in to abolish it totally. I would like to have your comment on what improvements might be made there, and then I would like to know, is the joint identifier a well-thought-out career pattern for all four services, or just a computer identifier in the record? And your thoughts also on another piece of legislation that would codify people from the Department of Defense who have to come over here and continuously report to some 47 different committees.

There is a bill in to limit the oversight to the Armed Services Committee, the Appropriations Committee, and the Budget Committee. I would like to have your thoughts on that, too.

General CHAVARRIE. As far as DLA is concerned, I am afraid I am not-I probably wouldn't be a good judge of that. I have never been in it. I know it is awfully big, and one of the thrusts of the legislation, as I recall, and I didn't pay that close attention, but I think it is that somehow or other, there has got to be better oversight, not only over DLA, but the other Defense agencies, and I personally agree with that.

I think there should be more oversight, not necessarily from here, but within the Department of Defense. It doesn't mean there is not any now. It just means that it might be better.

Sir, on the identifier, we talked a bit about that just before you came, since that is the thrust of the hearing, and my comments. I can sum them up in saying that we would like to try this identifier

first-it was initiated last year-see how it goes before we institutionalize a separate cadre of people that we would call a joint subspecialty group which comes in and is continually taking a specific part of joint billets.

We need some cross-fertilization, a new pilot to come into the new staff. We need a new commander to come in, a new tank driver, a new intelligence officer. It feeds the joint business.

Cycling people in and out, even though it initially might be very good, is, in the long run, not productive; but what the identifier does is final. You have got our attention in Defense in saying this is an important job to do. An officer in a joint billet is an important fellow, and probably more important than the service staff. I personally believe that, because of my experience. An outstanding officer in a joint billet can do more good or more harm than an outstanding officer in a service billet. The responsibilities placed on joint officers in many staffs overseas, for example, NATO, means that he or she has to be good, bright, and has to have it right.

That is what is important. You have our attention. The identifier as a precursor of what ultimately could become a joint subspecialty, the identifier gets us going down the road so we can be deliberate about doing the right thing.

On codifying the question, sir?

Mr. HOPKINS. There is a bill in to limit the oversight of the Department of Defense to 3 committees, rather than having to report to 47 subcommittees and committees. I believe the bill limits it to three committees. How do you feel about that?

General CHAVARRIE. Generally, it would be a good thing. I don't know that we might limit it just to those three committees, and I can't make a judgment on that. It is true that we have too many committees to whom we report, and almost anybody that has a passing interest can ask for reports, and ask for hearings, and that is not a bad thing.

I mean, that is the American way, and if the Congress wants it that way, that is good enough for me personally. But as a matter of efficiency, there could be fewer committees to whom we report.

We look at those committees, as you say, Armed Services, Appropriations, and Budget, that is to whom we look really, but I am not against all the others. That is just part of our system, and we generally manage to make it, but it certainly would be more efficient if we didn't have quite so many committees we had to report to. Mr. NICHOLS. General Chavarrie, let me ask you some questions related to staff promotions, assignments, and so forth.

I have these written down, and there are four questions. Should the joint side have a voice in service promotions?

General CHAVARRIE. It is a tough one to answer, Mr. Chairman. Should the joint side have a voice? I think the answer to that is yes.

Mr. NICHOLS. All right, should a joint representative sit on service promotion boards?

General CHAVARRIE. I think not, no sir.

Mr. NICHOLS. Why not?

General CHAVARRIE. The promotion system-are you talking about a joint representative, someone from another service?