Mr. MAVROULES. I have one question here, and it is quite general.

Should the chairman control the Joint Staff, and do you think the procedures for allowing the other members of the JCS to give advice are sufficient in the House bill?

As you well know, the Senate bill will specify the military chain of command, and we do not. Can you comment on that, please?

Mr. KESTER. I think very definitely, and without hesitation, that the Chairman should control the Joint Staff. They should work for the Chairman and not the corporate body. I think that is important. I note that there has been some backpedaling here and there, and I am sorry to see that. That is one of the fundamental reforms that has had wide acceptance in recent years, and I definitely believe he should do that.

Mr. MAVROULES. I have one other question.

I think perhaps you are correct when you stated we should not offer legislation. Of course, it is always a danger. What specific office created by Congress do you find objectionable?

Mr. KESTER. I think, for example, in my view there are too many Assistant Secretaries of Defense right now. We got it down to seven. I think it is up to-it depends whether you count people at the Secretary level-I think it is up to 14. I ask you not to hold me to that.

Mr. MAVROULES. Mr. Skelton said 10. Mr. Lally said seven. It has gone up.

Mr. KESTER. There is always a little wiggle room in these things. It has gotten to be more than it used to be, no question. Substantially more.

I don't think there needs to be that many. We set about abolishing some of these offices, and there was legislation passed that came out of this committee originally, back in 1978, which did away with the second Deputy Secretary of Defense, set up an Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and at the same time did away with some Assistant Secretary provisions.

Mr. Weinberger came back and asked for more Assistant Secretaries, and then I believe that as it finally emerged from the Congress, he got more than he asked for.

I don't believe in specifying the duties of the Assistant Secretaries. I think what is important and essential changes from time to time, and the problems of a particular administration may be different from those of another.

I have for many years believed we should not have an Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs; we should not have an Assistant Secretary for Reserve Affairs. I know many people disagree on that point. Those are positions that should be working through the Assistant Secretary for Manpower.

And we had one Assistant Secretary for Manpower and Logistics. I noticed Mr. Weinberger has now carved that up again. The job Secretary Larry Korb used to have has now been carved up, disemboweled, and spread all over the third floor of the Pentagon. I don't think that that is a good idea.

I think you need to have-if you don't have some of these things integrated at the Assistant Secretary or Under Secretary level, then all of the unresolved questions find themselves on the desk of

the Secretary of Defense. And however able a Secretary of Defense is, he can only do so much in the 26 or 27 hours a day that he works.

Mr. SPRATT. Thank you very much for the excellent testimony; and not only that, for your thoughtful and diligent preparation of it. I, particularly, will study it.

I have to leave, and I don't have any further questions. I believe you were the writer of the Stoessel Commission report.

Mr. KESTER. Yes, sir.

Mr. SPRATT. You did an excellent job. It is one of the best white papers, if you can call it that, I have read in a long time.

Thank you for your testimony.

Mr. KESTER. Thank you, sir.

Mr. MAVROULES. Mr. Skelton.

Mr. SKELTON. Very quickly. We do appreciate your coming over today. The Antonelli report that came forth on the defense agencies, was that not done at your behest? Do you remember that?

Mr. KESTER. I think that came out slightly after my time. I think it was started when I was there.

Mr. SKELTON. It is quite good, and, actually, I am using that as a handbook to look at the agencies, quite honestly. And I, in all probability, will have a bill go in shortly that is tougher than the one that we have already introduced.

Thank you.

Mr. KESTER. I think the agencies definitely need to be looked at. As I say, they started out in a sensible fashion, probably, with Secretary McNamara saying there is duplication of effort among the services, let's put some of these activities together, and that probably makes sense.

But what happens when you set up too many of these things is that no one really has jurisdiction over them. I think the essential thing on these, that I would look for, is that each of those agencies should have some kind of a big daddy there at the secretariat level to check up on what they are doing.

Mr. MAVROULES. Mr. Kester, we have a number of questions to be put before you, but during your testimony you answered them all. So, therefore, I don't have any other questions at this point. I will ask staff if they do.

Mr. BARRETT. I have no questions.

Mr. LALLY. No questions.

Mr. MAVROULES. I want to thank you very much for taking the time. It is very important testimony, very helpful.

Mr. KESTER. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[The bills, H.R. 4235, 4236, and 4237 are on pages 893, 905 and 912.] [Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned subject to the call of the Chair.]

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE,

Washington, DC, Tuesday, March 11, 1986.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:02 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bill Nichols (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NICHOLS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ALABAMA, CHAIRMAN, INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. NICHOLS. The subcommittee will come to order. This morning, we continue our investigations into the restructuring of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And we are pleased to have with us a member of the Packard Commission, former Under Secretary of the Navy, James Woolsey. Mr. Woolsey is an attorney who has combined the practice of law with a distinguished record of public service.

After completing his studies as a Rhodes scholar, Mr. Woolsey graduated from Yale Law School. He served, in between occasional stints as a practicing attorney, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as an advisor on the National Security Council staff, and as general counsel to the Senate Armed Services Committee. From 1977 to 1979 he served as Under Secretary of the Navy. Although he has now returned full time to the practice of law as a partner in Shea & Gardner, he has found time to serve as a key member of two most important Presidential commissions in recent memory, the Scowcroft Commission and the Packard Commission.

So Mr. Woolsey, we regret that you could not be with the Packard Commission when they testified last week, and we are honored to have you before this committee this morning.

STATEMENT OF JAMES WOOLSEY, MEMBER, PRESIDENT'S BLUE RIBBON COMMISSION ON DEFENSE MANAGEMENT; FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

Mr. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to be invited back. I might just say a few introductory words, if I might, about the thrust of the Commission's recommendations as I see them, particularly pertaining to the four bills, H.R. 4234 through 37, that are before your committee now.

Let me say, first of all, that particularly during the 3 years that I was the general counsel of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the early 1970's, and since, I have been especially impressed by the useful role of this committee, the House Armed Services Committee, and its subcommittees in the constitutional process of making rules and regulations and conducting oversight of the defense establishment.

I think that many of the most useful hearings that have been held over the years-thinking back to some of the Investigations

Subcommittee work on the M-16 rifle and the rest-have come from this committee. I want to say that particularly because I want to emphasize that I feel a strong sense of support for the Congress and for both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees' roles in the process of overseeing and legislating with regard to the armed services.

I do think, however, that there are some points that need to be made about the pending legislation, in particular its level of detail. I have had the benefit of reading John Kester's fine and scholarly testimony that was presented to you, I believe, yesterday. There are several general points that I want to make about the legislation somewhat along the lines that he made.

First of all, you have before you 45 pages of rather detailed legislation in these four bills. I believe that the country has been wellserved over the last number of years by the comparatively sparse nature of the title 10 provisions with regard to the Department of Defense, compared with the extraordinarily detailed regulation of many other Government departments and agencies. That is not to say that changes should not be made. And indeed, I agree with the major thrust and general direction of the legislation that you have before you. But there are several caveats that I would like to suggest.

First of all, I think that many of us who have been interested in reform of the military and defense structure over the last several years have seen, have talked about and have written about the importance of enhancing the role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the role of the joint combatant commanders and the like, because of what has come to be a very strong emphasis in peacetime on the role of the individual military services. I believe that there is good justification today for beginning to move, and move rather solidly, in the direction of jointness, to put it briefly. But I believe that those steps ought to be taken in such a way as to ensure that we do not establish in the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and in the Joint Staff a rival for the Secretary of Defense.

This is why I had originally suggested that the legislation-now passed by the House and before the Senate-enhance the role of the Chairman to be the principal military adviser to the Secretary of Defense, but not to the President. I did not intend by that suggestion to denigate the role of the Chairman at all, but rather to stress that I thought that his increased power and authority should principally come at the expense of the individual military services, not at the expense of the Secretary of Defense.

In the Packard Commission, we discussed this issue at some length. In our report, we decided to include a key word in order to emphasize the point that we did not believe that the Chairman should have his role enhanced at the expense of the Secretary of Defense. That was to describe the new role of the Chairman as the principal uniformed military adviser to the President and to the Secretary.

I believe that the word "uniformed" is crucial. This is because the word "military" standing alone might suggest to some future Chairman, I think certainly not this one, at some future time some overall role of rivalry which I would not want to see exist.

I also think that the word "supervises," as John Kester pointed out yesterday—in the legislation that has been passed and in H.R. 4234-with respect to the Chairman's role should be sacrificed to some other word for the reason that Mr. Kester stated. The Taft memorandum issued earlier in this administration, when Mr. Taft was general counsel of the Department of Defense, could be read as interpreting the word "supervises"-if it is passed in legislation and attached to the role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-as creating a single overall uniformed military commander of American Armed Forces. I do not believe that would be wise. Along with John Kester, I also have serious doubts about its constitutionality. There are two other general areas in the legislation that you passed, and also that which is before you which I believe require serious consideration, and in many ways may be more important than some of the organizational proposals in the four bills before you. These two areas were emphasized to a greater or lesser extent by the Packard Commission. They are civilian personnel, the civilian personnel system, and reform in the Congress itself.

With respect to the civilian personnel system, we proposed that the Navy China Lake experiment-which has significantly stripped away major parts of the detailed civil service requirements for managing scientists and technical personnel, scientists and engineers-be enhanced to include senior acquisition personnel, in order to introduce a good deal more flexibility into civilian personnel management.

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I apologize to my friend and today's witness for interrupting his testimony. This is one of those mornings where you have to be three places at one time. But I do want to ask a question before I leave.

Mr. WOOLSEY. Surely.

Mr. SKELTON. I would like to ask you about the proposal for a Deputy Chairman, and having him in essence No. 2 with the full powers of the Chairman when the Chairman is off to Europe, or Singapore, or whatever.

Mr. WOOLSEY. I agree with that proposal, Congressman Skelton. I believe that it would be a better system for the Deputy Chairman to be the Acting Chairman in the Chairman's absence. But I would want the Secretary of Defense to be able to decide that issue. And if he should want to set up a rotation or some other system because of the way that he wanted to manage the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs, I would leave that flexibility open to him. But I believe that as a matter of policy that the enhanced role of the Deputy Chairman to serve as Acting Chairman is the preferred solution.

Mr. SKELTON. Thank you.

Mr. WOOLSEY. The civilian personnel system, Mr. Chairman, I believe is quite inadequate at the present time, and is one of the greatest rigidities and one of the greatest barriers to the successful management of the Department of Defense. I would not propose to talk longer about this issue this morning, but simply to suggest that in the future, and during consideration of this legislation, that the types of reforms of the civilian personnel system that we discussed in the Packard Commission report be given a high priority.