A subsequent study, under the auspices of the Secretary of the Navy, resulted in the Eberstadt report of September 1945. This report opposed the single department concept and recommended three coordinate departments of Cabinet rank. Coordination among the three was to be provided through interdepartmental committees, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Committee arrangements to provide links with the civilian departments were also stressed, including a proposal for a national security council to link military and foreign policy.

The President made proposals to Congress in December 1945 that were similar to the Eberstadt program, with the major exception that the President favored a single department of national defense. Debate in Congress was inconclusive during the following months, but an event of major importance occurred in the consolidation in each House of Congress of the committees concerned with the armed services. This was a part of the general reorganization of the Congress itself in 1946; had it not occurred, the prospects for unification of the executive agencies would have been impaired.

Agreement was reached between the Secretaries of War and the Navy in January 1947 on support of legislation which met with the President's approval. This cleared the way for the National Security Act of 1947. Debate on the legislation was highly acrimonious, and its course throughout was stormy.

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The act established an organizational entity known as the National Military Establishment, headed by a Secretary of Defense, and including the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, together with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Munitions Board, and the Research and Development Board. The legislation provided that the three departments should be administered as individual executive departments and that "all powers and duties relating to such departments not specifically conferred upon the Secretary of Defense shall be retained by each of their respective secretaries." The authority vested in the Secretary of Defense was granted for the most part in general terms, while the authority of the service secretaries remained detailed and specific. The Secretary of Defense appeared to be viewed more as an assistant to the President than as head of an executive establishment. The statute provided that he was to assist the President "in all matters relating to the national security."

The Hoover Commission commented in its report on the subject that the act of 1947 had set up "a rigid structure of federation rather than unification" and observed that "in direct proportion to the limitations and confusions of authority among their civilian superiors, the military are left free of civilian control." The Commission recommended that the authority of the Secretary of Defense be strengthened.

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This was done in the National Security Act Amendments of 1949. The Department of Defense replaced the National Military Establishment and was constituted as an executive department. The Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force were designated as military departments within it. This ended the confusion as to the legal status and attributes of the National Military Establishment, which had contained three executive departments but was not one itself. The Secretary of Defense became the beneficiary of the general statutes as to the powers of heads of executive departments, while the service secretaries lost Cabinet status and were clearly subordinated to the Secretary of Defense. The Joint Chiefs of Staff retained its corporate status and its relationship to the President as his "principal military advisers," but was provided with a full-time statutory chairman, and was made more clearly subject to the authority and direction of the Secretary of Defense. The function of the Secretary in relation to the President was rephrased as that of assisting "in all matters relating to the Department of Defense."

The military departments retained their separate identity, but were to be administered under the direction, authority, and control of the Secretary of Defense. There continues to be much reliance upon committee arrangements for coordination among them, but the Office of the Secretary of Defense has become established as the element that holds the whole machine together under the secretary, balancing the military centralization under the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The legislation of 1947 and 1949 was unique in many respects. It marked one of the few occasions on which large-scale reorganization has been successfully legislated. Congress was unwilling to proceed by delegation of authority for reorganization to the President; the major issues were political and in the opinion of Congress it was necessary that they be handled through the processes of legislative decision. The legislation, moreover, was much broader than military unification. It also created the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Resources Board, agencies which have become established as new units in the Executive Office of the President. The statutory provisions as to the respective purposes of these agencies made it clear that the basic objective of the legislation was a comprehensive program for the national security, and that the provisions relating to unification were intended primarily to be contributory to that basic objective.

NEW UNITS IN THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE

PRESIDENT

The Executive Office of the President has existed as an organizational entity since 1939, when it was created by a reorganization bringing together a number of existing units and somewhat redefining their

functions. Several units then assigned to it have since disappeared; the White House Office proper and the Bureau of the Budget have been the principal permanent elements. The reorganization plan also provided for an Office for Emergency Management in the Executive Office of the President to facilitate administrative activities that might be necessary in the event of an emergency.

During the Second World War, the number of agencies technically within the Executive Office was greatly increased, but most of them were located in the Office for Emergency Management and were there primarily for purposes of administrative convenience. The Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion was in a different category; along with its predecessor, the Office of War Mobilization, it occupied a central position as a Presidential agency in the development of the mobilization and reconversion programs from 1943 to 1946.

The first postwar unit to be added to the Executive Office was the Council of Economic Advisers. The Council was established by the Employment Act of 1946, and has been concerned mainly with the problems of the domestic economy of the United States. Increasingly, however, it has been drawn into wider considerations both foreign and domestic in its efforts to formulate annually the economic program to be recommended to Congress by the President.

As previously noted, the National Security Act of 1947 provided for a National Security Council, a Central Intelligence Agency, and a National Security Resources Board. These did not officially become a part of the Executive Office until 1949, but meanwhile functioned in effect as such.

The National Security Council has the function of advising the President on the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security. Specifically, it is directed by law (1) to assess and appraise the objectives, commitments, and risks of the United States in relation to our actual and potential military power, and (2) to consider policies of common interest to the agencies concerned with the national security. The Council has the further function by law of directing the Central Intelligence Agency, which reports to the President through it.

The National Security Council is in effect a committee of the Cabinet under the chairmanship of the President. Its statutory membership consists of the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the National Security Resources Board. Other participants are added or subtracted in the President's discretion as circumstances require. The flow of work through the Council consists of policy discussion and of the drafting, debating, revising, and eventual adoption of a series of policy papers, each of which contains recommendations proposed for the approval of the President. The Council is assisted by an executive secretary and a staff.

The National Security Resources Board consists of a full-time chairman and of the members of the Cabinet other than the Attorney General and the Postmaster General. In 1950 all powers previously vested in the Board as a whole were transferred to the chairman. The Board has had the responsibility for advising the President on the economic and industrial aspects of security planning, both directly and through the National Security Council. With the recent creation of the Office of Defense Mobilization, the overriding authority of that Office appears in some respects to have superseded that of the Board. The staff unit known as the Harriman Office originated in June 1950, when the President announced his intention to appoint Mr. W. Averill Harriman as his special assistant in connection with certain matters requiring "the integration of the various interests of the departments and agencies concerned with the development of Government-wide policies related to our international responsibilities." Mr. Harriman and his staff are located administratively in the White House Office, but differ from other parts of the President's personal staff in their identification with a particular function or area of government, namely, foreign affairs. The task of the group appears to be to exert a broad initiative by participating actively in the processes of policy formulation and implementation at the highest levels, particularly on matters in the field of foreign affairs that require the active cooperation of two or more departments or agencies.

GOVERNMENT AND RELIEF IN OCCUPIED AREAS

At the end of the Second World War, the United States found itself faced with occupied area responsibilities that were new, difficult, and unwelcome. These responsibilities were soon found to be requiring expenditures at the rate of more than 1 billion dollars annually and the employment of overseas civilian staffs that at one time numbered more than 20,000 Americans and many more local employees. The job was in part military, in part diplomatic, and in part governmental in the general sense. It was necessary to preserve the military position and to maintain law and order, to make plans for the eventual restoration of peace through the negotiation of appropriate treaties, and meanwhile, in conjunction with the interested allies, to carry on the processes of civil government, the distribution of relief, and the restoration of economic life. It was furthermore desirable, so far as possible, to promote the reorientation of the populations concerned in the hope that they would eventually be able to resume an independent national status without becoming threats to world peace. These populations aggregated more than 200,000,000 persons in Germany, Austria, Trieste, Japan, Korea, and the Ryukyu Islands.

The United States found itself ill-prepared governmentally for its occupied area responsibilities. Agreement had not been reached

among the major departments concerned on workable policies, and negotiations with the interested allies were difficult. Nevertheless, the quadripartite arrangements for the administration of Germany and Austria were agreed upon with France, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, the United States was made executive agent in Japan for the Far Eastern Commission, and responsibilities for Korea were divided between the United States and the Soviet Union.

When hostilities ended, the Civil Affairs Division of the Army and the various theater commanders were carrying on military government operations in the field on behalf of the United States. The War Department was responsible for the direction of affairs, insofar as responsibility was not decentralized to the field, but had taken the position throughout the war that the Department of State was responsible for developing policy for civil affairs, military government, and occupied areas. On August 30, 1945, the President issued an Executive order confirming the responsibility of the Department of State for the determination of occupation policy. A few months later consideration was given to the possibility of also transferring responsibility for administration, but the Secretary of State resisted the move, feeling that the responsibility was one for which his department was ill-equipped.

For several years a situation continued in which the Department of State was responsible for policy; the War Department and the successor Department of the Army were responsible for carrying out policy and for all phases of administration; and the officials having authority in the field were expected to exercise appropriate discretion when unable to obtain workable instructions or useful advice. The Hoover Commission found the situation unsatisfactory when it reported early in 1949, but opposed transfer of administrative responsibility to the Department of State.

The situation changed for Western Germany with the creation of a government of limited powers under the occupation statute. Late in 1949 administrative responsibility in regard to Germany was transferred from the Department of the Army to the Department of State, and a civilian high commissioner was appointed under provisions defining his relationships to the President as well as to the Secretary of State. A year later, similar responsibilities with respect to Austria were transferred to the Department of State.

Occupation government may soon come to a close in western Germany, Austria, and Japan, since active consideration is being given to treaties of peace. In Korea the process was completed in August 1948 with the establishment of the Republic of Korea and the opening of a diplomatic mission.

With the outbreak of hostilities in Korea the United States again acquired liberated area responsibilities not unlike those it had pre