Late in December 1941, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill met with their military advisers in Washington to plan a coordinated effort against the Axis powers, the two leaders established the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) to carry out the strategic direction of the Anglo-American war effort. British representation on the CCS consisted of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the First Sea Lord, and the Chief of the Air Staff. These officers comprised the Chiefs of Staff Committee, which had been meeting as a body for almost twenty years. Since the United States had no comparable group, the US officers whose posithe US officers whose positions and duties were closest to those of the members of the Chiefs of Staff Committee formed the US portion of the CCS. Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall represented the Army; Navy representation was shared between Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold R. Stark and Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief, US Fleet. General Henry H. Arnold represented the Army Air Forces but remained subordinate to General Marshall.1

Though never formally designated by the President or any other authority, the US representatives on the CCS became the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They held their first formal meeting as the JCS on 9 February 1942. Thereafter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff assumed responsibility for the planning and strategic direction of the US war effort. A supporting organization and procedures were gradually developed to assist them in carrying out their responsibilities.

General Marshall saw the need for an impartial presiding officer, free of service responsibilities, to guide JCS deliberations and act as their spokesman with the President. Late in February he proposed that former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William D. Leahy, then serving as ambassador to the French government at Vichy,

become "a single Chief of Staff for the President to have over both Army and Navy." Roosevelt resisted the idea, telling Marshall, "You are Chief of Staff."2

In March after Admiral Stark departed for a post in London, Admiral King became Chief of Naval Operations as well as Commander in Chief, US Fleet. Marshall became concerned that King would resent the Army's having two representatives on the JCS to the Navy's one. Again he urged the President to appoint a naval officer as chairman for the JCS. This time Roosevelt agreed. When Leahy was recalled to Washington for diplomatic consultation, Roosevelt asked him to serve as special military adviser and presiding officer of the JCS. Subsequently, Roosevelt decided upon the title "Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States." Admiral Leahy reported for duty on 20 July 1942, and the President announced his appointment the next day.

Leahy later wrote that his most important function as Roosevelt's Chief of Staff was maintaining daily liaison between the President and the JCS: "It was my job to pass on to the Joint Chiefs the basic thinking of the President on all war plans and strategy. In turn I brought back from the Joint Chiefs a consensus of their thinking." To carry out his responsibilities, he maintained offices in the White House as well as the War Department Building and the Pentagon. Leahy and the JCS operated throughout the war without any formal directive or terms of reference from the President. Roosevelt avoided issuing formal guidance in order to preserve the flexibility of the JCS and to extend their activities as needed.

Despite Leahy's appointment, Marshall remained the President's principal military adviser; his imprint was upon the Europefirst strategy and the decision to make a crossChannel attack the supreme Anglo-American effort in 1944. Nevertheless, Leahy was an

active participant in CCS debates on strategy. In November 1943, when the British proposed setting the stage for the cross-Channel attack by pressing the Italian offensive, attacking Aegean islands, bringing Turkey into the war, and supporting Balkan partisans, Leahy pointedly asked the Chief of the Imperial General Staff whether he believed that these conditions "would ever arise unless the Germans had collapsed beforehand."

Leahy has been characterized as "a handler of business" but "never the conscience of the JCS in the White House...." His seniority solved what might have been an awkward

problem of precedence for other JCS members, and, when chairing meetings of the CCS, he exercised "a "a sometimes surprising restraint upon other [US] members of the Committee." Moreover, his reputation protected the President against accusations of undue influence on the direction of the war by civilian advisers. However, Roosevelt did not always take Leahy's advice. At the 1945 Yalta Conference, for example, the President asked Leahy to attend all meetings on political issues. But, despite the Chief of Staff's reservations about the agreement reached

there, Roosevelt believed that no better arrangement was possible."

Early in the presidency of Harry S Truman, Leahy's views on policy carried greater weight. His influence when the United States considered the terms for Japanese surrender in August 1945 contrasted with his lack of influence on Roosevelt at Yalta. Leahy's view that Truman should agree to preserve Japan's imperial institutions subject to the authority of the Supreme Commander Allied Powers prevailed over the advice of Secretary of State James Byrnes that the President should demand unconditional surrender without qualification."

After the war, Leahy sought to restrict the JCS role in foreign policy. Late in 1946 during the civil war in China between nationalists and communists, two JCS committees drafted a recommendation to support the nationalists "by all means short of actual armed intervention." Leahy rejected the paper on the grounds that the JCS possessed "no authority or right" to communicate with their civilian superiors "on any subject that is not exclusively military in its character and purpose."

Leahy was less effective in asserting his views on budget priorities. He agreed with Churchill's 1946 "iron curtain" address with

its somber warning about Soviet hegemonic aims and Stalin's contempt for military weakness. But Truman kept a tight ceiling on military spending. In October 1948, when the Service Chiefs deadlocked over how to allocate the military's $14.4 billion budget, Leahy suggested simply distributing money among the services and telling them, "This is all the money you can have. Do the best you can with it." The Service Chiefs refused, believing that they should establish priorities among missions rather than impose percentage cuts. When they could not agree about priorities, civilians made the final budget decisions.

Thus, on issues affecting important service interests, Leahy had little influence.

Postwar Reorganization and a Temporary Appointment

Just as Admiral Leahy retained his position after the end of World War II, the JCS also continued without change in the early postwar years. Meanwhile, the question of the postwar organization of the armed forces became the subject of intense and sometimes acrimonious debate. The Army sought a single department of defense with one chief of staff while the Navy wanted a loose confederation of services. The National Security Act of 1947, the so-called "unification" law, represented a compromise. In addition to creating a National Military Establishment under a Secretary of Defense who was granted limited powers, it gave legal sanction to the JCS and established the Air Force as a separate service. With respect to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the act specified their responsibilities; it also authorized the Joint Staff and designated as JCS members the Army Chief of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Air Force Chief of Staff, and the Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief "if there be one." The qualifying language reflected an understanding between the President and congressional leaders that Admiral Leahy would continue to hold the office as long as Truman desired but that no successor would be appointed."

The National Security Act entered into force on 26 July 1947, and President Truman named James V. Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense. Forrestal expected to run a small coordinating, planning, and integrating office rather than a sizable operating one. But he soon found that repeated disagreements among the Joint Chiefs over roles and missions, allocation of funds, and basic strategy

forced him to become "more of a commander than a coordinator."10

To deal with this situation, Forrestal in the spring of 1948 asked General Omar N. Bradley, the Army Chief of Staff, to act as his "principal military adviser" in somewhat the same capacity in which Leahy served the President. But Bradley declined. When the JCS deadlocked over allocation of funds, Forrestal had to make budget decisions himself. Accordingly, in his first annual report he recommended designating a "responsible head" for the JCS, one to whom he and the President could look for the best staff assistance on those matters for which the JCS corporately were responsible." Implementing that recommendation would require changing the National Security Act.

As a temporary expedient, Forrestal asked General Dwight D. Eisenhower, recently retired as Army Chief of Staff, to serve for a short period as presiding officer of the JCS. Eisenhower agreed, and on 11 February 1949, in anticipation of Leahy's impending departure on 21 March, Truman announced Eisenhower's temporary appointment as both principal military adviser and consultant to himself and Forrestal and as presiding officer of the JCS.

Between February and June, Eisenhower presided over twenty-four JCS meetings. He proposed sets of force levels that were dubbed "Ike I" and "Ike II,” but the services were unable to bring their combined request within the budget limits that Eisenhower set. Then President Truman lowered the fiscal ceiling, making agreement even harder. Late in March, Eisenhower became ill and thereafter played a much less active role. However, before relinquishing his duties in mid-July, he recommended restoring funds for strategic air power because he believed that nuclear bombardment should be the linchpin of US military strategy.12

Creation of the Position of Chairman

Meanwhile, examination of a more permanent solution to management of the JCS proceeded. In February 1949 the Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, headed by former President Herbert Hoover, called for a JCS chairman appointed by the President, though not from among the Chiefs, to preside over JCS meetings. On 5 March 1949 President Truman called upon Congress to convert the National Military Establishment into an executive department called the Department of Defense. His proposal included granting the Secretary of Defense added authority and providing him with military and civilian staff assistance. In addition, Truman asked for a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take precedence over all other military officers, be the principal military adviser to the President and Secretary of Defense, and perform such other duties as the President or the Secretary might prescribe.13

Senator Millard E. Tydings (D, MD), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, introduced a bill to implement the President's proposals. At the outset of the hearings on the bill, Secretary Forrestal stressed the need for someone to whom the President and the Secretary could look for "the organization and evaluation of military judgment." Since each of the Chiefs directed a particular service, the problems that were common to all must be organized and JCS deliberations focused by an officer "who has a full-time preoccupation with that duty." Appearing as a body, the Joint Chiefs supported creating the position but asked for a prohibition against the Chairman's exercising command over either JCS members or the services. They wanted to prevent having "a single chief of staff" and to ensure that the services retained control of their own