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But, I have to tell you with all honesty, that if you relegate me to a position of little authority, and I am only a human being, I will also assume little responsibility. I urge you then, in whatever you do, please do not isolate the Chairman from his Chiefs.

How can we fix this? It is quite simple. To make it clear that the Chairman is empowered to act on behalf of the corporate body. And, quite to the contrary of what some have suggested, this is not meant to deny authority to the Chairman, rather it is meant to give the Chairman my proxy whenever he needs to use it to act on my behalf, when the time and circumstances so dictate.

My second point is the seniority of the Vice Chairman. He should be senior; but, should he be senior or junior to the Joint Chiefs of Staff? I think it is interesting to note that all of us who have served under the current Acting Chairman arrangement, feel quite strongly that he should be junior. Some who have not served under this arrangement, feel that he should be senior. I will not belabor this point; it has been debated enough-only to say that the further you isolate the Chairman from the corporate body and the corporate body from the Secretary of Defense and the Commander in Chief, the more this is going to be inimical to the best interests of the United States. And introducing another layer called a Deputy or Vice Chairman, or whatever you want to call him, could end in that result.

My suggestion or thoughts on the professional joint staff are quite simple. I would approach this subject with extreme caution for a lot of the very good reasons given here at this table today. There are grave dangers hidden in the creation of a cult of joint staff theoreticians, most without operational experience. The ultimate result could be bland and even perhaps dangerous advice. To me, you could create exactly what we all seek to avoid, a professional bureaucrat and a professional compromiser-one who is skilled in perfect syntax in the preparation of neuter position papers, and one whose future promotions could be influenced more by his slick presentations, fancy briefing aids, and ability to compromise, than by his substantive contributions to the system.

With the foregoing said, let me touch briefly on other subjects which may be of interest to the committee and were contained in your letter.

In my opinion, the integration of the service and secretariat staffs, which appears to be predicated on some fallacious cloak of economy and efficiency, would be manifestly wrong. The secretariat staffs are normally focused on higher level policy matters. Conversely, the service staffs carry out your directives more directly to organize, train, and equip our forces. Any attempt to integrate functions which may sound the same, but, in fact are not the same, could ultimately end up doing the one thing we do not want to do, and that is a disservice to those who serve us in the field, our troops.

It is my personal, Washington-level experience that our bureaucracy on the civilian side in Washington tends to look up or sideways, while the military tends to focus down more toward the troops. If you amalgamate these two orientations, in all likelihood they will eventually seek the lowest common denominator, which I

believe will serve neither the service Secretary, nor the service Chief as well as they are served today.

When you consider the authority of the commanders in chief of the unified and specified commands, remember that today, at this very moment, all the service components are under their operational command. Unfortunately, far too few go back to the definition of operational command, so they do not fully understand the authority that the CINC currently has. I think that it is important that you understand what operational command is, and let me quote from the definition: It is "those functions of command involving the composition of subordinate forces, the assignment of tasks, the designation of objectives and the authoritative direction necessary to accomplish the mission." And I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that it is a very broad license, no matter how you interpret it, for it gives a CINC who wants to exercise his authority, and who exercises it properly, all the authority he needs.

Based on the foregoing, the Secretary of Defense brings the CINC's to Washington four times each year, for presentations and discussions, as you have heard from my colleagues, on the defense guidance, the program, and the budget. In addition, last year, we had, for the first time in the history of our country, all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all of the 10 CINC's-commanders in chief-go to Newport, RI, where we participated jointly with the Secretary of Defense in a global war game. I think that is a significant milestone in our ability to work out national-level strategy and all of the problems attendant thereto.

I believe that you will find the majority of the CINC's, themselves, now-today-and I emphasize, today-are quite comfortable with their present role and the authority that they possess. This may not have been an accurate statement several years ago, but I truthfully believe it is today.

I have already taken far too much of your valuable time, Mr. Chairman, and for your forbearance, I am quite grateful. But, this is a vital topic, one which is deserving of our undivided attention, and quite frankly, as you can well guess, I have, for the past several months, thought of very little else.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. NICHOLS. Thank you, General Kelley.

I appreciate all of your comments. Let me say that I have read, not once, but twice, each of your letters that were addressed to Senator Goldwater, addressing the Senate bill.

It seems to be a common thread that runs through all of these letters, including letters from the Secretary, for that matter. Each of you expressed some concern about combining the staffs; each of you have concern about the Deputy Chairman, that he not outrank any of the Chiefs, and that he not replace you in filling the Chief's chair when he is not there.

I understand that argument. I frankly think it is a good argument that you make, the service issue you give. Then you express some concern, and this is particularly strong in each of your letters, that the Chiefs themselves not be squelched, that their views not be suppressed in any way.

Let me say to you, that although this bill has left the House, and is over on the Senate side, let me assure you that it was not the

intent of this committee to squelch any view, and if we have done that, I am willing to take another look at it. We thought we had included sufficient language in this bill, which I read into the record yesterday, that would do that. But, if there needs to be further language-I am open to look at that, and I say that to all of you gentlemen.

Let me pose a question that I closed the subcommittee hearing on yesterday, and I am not aware of this criticism. One of the senior Members of the House has come to me with his intent to offer, probably, an amendment on the floor, which would say, by law, that the Chiefs had to advise the Secretaries on all matters that took place in the meetings of the JCS. I cannot imagine that not being done. And, I say I have never heard any complaints. I am not aware of any differences between the Secretaries and the Chiefs. Would someone fill me in on that? Where does that criticism come from? Where did he get that, General Wickham?

General WICKHAM. Let me just cover that, sir. I think the other Chiefs will speak for themselves on this matter. I do share with Secretary Marsh things that go on in the tank. Do I share 100 percent? No. There are some things that are of a joint operational nature that are restricted to only a few people by order of authority above me, and I abide by that. I do go out of my way to fill in the Secretary. He is my boss, by law the civilian control of all things that affect the Army. If there is something in the joint arena very covert that affects the Army, I tell him, and I get the authority to do that.

The issue with the service Chiefs and the service Secretaries is a fundamental one that your committee is wrestling with. As I said earlier, there was wisdom when the Congress made a bifurcation and said, civilian Secretary run the service Department, using the military Chief as your subordinate. That assures good provisioning of the forces. Then the Congress, in its wisdom, said I want a joint arena to handle operational matters. The National Command Authority was established from the President to the Secretary of Defense through the Chiefs and the Chairman to the Unified Commanders. The service Secretary is not in that chain, and I think that that leads to good operational advice and decisionmaking for the National Command Authority. Were we to bring the two together, then we might just as well have the service Secretaries sitting around the table with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I do not think you are going to get pure military advice that way.

I think you have got the best of both possible worlds with the structure we have now. The law is sound, and, if you start fooling with the law, I think you are going to merge and blur the wisdom that Congress, in its own right, a few years ago decided on.

Admiral WATKINS. I share those views, Mr. Chairman. In our organization within the Navy, we have specifically tasked, in terms of reference, our three-star operational Deputy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to keep the Secretary of the Navy informed on all operational matters that we discuss down there, save those that we are precluded by higher level from doing.

We think it works well. When the Secretary is not getting a full briefing on intelligence, operations of the Navy, operations of military forces that could impact on his service, then he lets us know

that. We are constantly briefing him, every day, on these matters, and we keep nothing from him. On the major issues, I discuss those with him personally, following each JCS meeting. So, we certainly try our best to keep him fully advised of all matters, because, after all, it is difficult to separate the two chains. They are integrally tied, because when you train, you equip, and you outfit forces to do jobs, which is his responsibility as well as mine, it impacts on the way we may employ those forces. There is a link between them and we set up a provision right in our procedual rules within the Navy to make sure that he is kept advised.

Mr. NICHOLS. Let me pose a question here, and I have never heard this complaint from any of the Secretaries, you understandI want something on the record for it, in case we do this. Is this higher authority that you talk about, is that in law?

Admiral WATKINS. No, sir, I think what the Chief of Staff of the Army was referring to, is that we have some very highly sensitive and compartmented programs which are controlled very, very cautiously by the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council. We are not all in every program. We have to be very sensitive within the services as to who is in what program. Many of those discussions are at a very high level down there and we do not share those views outside, unless it happens that our service secretary is one of the persons cleared into that program. Mr. NICHOLS. General Gabriel.

General GABRIEL. We handle it essentially the same way the Army and the Navy do. The Air Force has never had any problem with this that I know of. We do have our Assistant Vice Chief of Staff brief the Secretary whenever we have meetings and on anything of importance that he should know about. He does know. Any time there is movement of forces I personally brief him. So, I do not think you will hear any complaints. I think it is working the way it is supposed to.

Mr. NICHOLS. Good. General Kelley.

General KELLEY. I will make my answer very simple. If there is a problem, Mr. Chairman, this is the first I have ever heard about it. Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Hopkins.

Mr. HOPKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, let me thank each of you for coming here, and certainly I want you to know that I have nothing but great admiration and respect for each of you and your contribution to our society.

We are placed here in this subcommittee on a pretty tight line. We have got to have whatever we are going to do with this bill, by March 12. I said yesterday, and for your benefit, I will repeat it again today-not any reflection on this staff or any other members of this subcommittee-I want to make a right vote.

But, I have to tell you very candidly, I do not know if I can be ready by March 12: The vastness of this subject, the inexperience that I have in your field, to be able to do what I think is in the best interests of this country.

We may not always agree; we have had disagreements in the past. I have disagreed with you; you have disagreed with me. But that is what ultimately this whole system is all about, so that you and I can preserve that, the right to disagree.

When I look at this situation here, and at some of the players involved that I have great respect for, from the other body as an example, Senator Goldwater and Senator Nunn, they are not exactly those that can be put in the "wimp" category; and yet they disagree with your testimony here today. They want to make some changes.

What is their motive? I mean, why is it that people of their stature, with their experience, are so set, in your opinion, on wanting to make these changes? General Wickham.

General WICKHAM. From your experience in this House this important House, you know that good men will disagree, and good men are disagreeing. That makes your job incalculably more difficult, and that is why I would urge that you move with care, and move slowly. There are major changes that are being proposed. I have read the whole Locher Report. The whole Senate Armed Services Committee report of 700 pages. I have done my homework, all the Chiefs have. The weight of our argument is: move very cautiously. We are not here as "wimps," or trying to argue for preserving the status quo, so much as we are trying to apprise you that great progress has been made. We are fighters. We are provisioners of fighters. We understand our business, and we are trying to give you the best of our advice. If the Congress in its wisdom wants to listen to people that are not involved in fighting and building fighters, the Nation will suffer.

Mr. HOPKINS. Let me, if I may just follow up on that, General Wickham, because it seems to me that in the reading that I am getting, the Senate Armed Services Committee has really used the Grenada rescue operation rather extensively to illustrate some of the shortcomings of the, perhaps present, management structure. They state that incompatible radio equipment caused Army forces on the ground to be unable to call for support fire from Navy ships off the shore; several reports cite troops entering combat without needed vehicles; planners of the operation were not aware that Americans were located in two separate locations until after the landing.

Let me give you one softball then. Will the changes that they recommend-would they have prevented any of these things?

General WICKHAM. No. They would not. All of those things that you speak of, Mr. Hopkins, are derivative largely of hasty operations. We did that very quickly for a good reason. It was basically done within 1 week or 10 days, and it was highly restricted in terms of who would have access to the knowledge, because we did not want to jeopardize soldiers. We did not have complete intelligence on the island, and could not get people in there in time to give us the intelligence. So we put a substantial force in there to minimize risks to the people we were trying to free, and the people that we were trying to use force with.

The command and control problems we experienced are a function of modernization. Not all of the services and their units had the new Vinson-secure devices. Had we known we were going to do this operation, we would have jury-rigged it and had the secure devices down there. So, these were practical considerations. Operations like this that are going to be hastily done for good and sufficient operational reasons are going to have some difficulties. We

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