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Commission study. I hope that gets ironed out, but we need to have that information. So I'm just saying to you, we would appreciate it if we could get any advance notice before that study comes that you're going to put out over there on the JCS. I'll make that request to the chairman, I presume, when he comes as well.

Mr. TAFT. Yes, I think that we have asked the chairman to complete that study by June 30. The Secretary has asked him to do that.

Mr. NICHOLS. June 30 is not going to help us, Mr. Secretary.

Mr. TAFT. Well, what I was going to go on to say was that as to how it is going, I think you should definitely discuss that with the chairman and I'll encourage him to be prepared to respond to you on that point, and how he might tell you on a current basis what the thinking of the Chief is.

Mr. NICHOLS. Thank you.

Mr. Kasich.

Mr. KASICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Taft.

I have been concerned since we started into JCS reform with the area of lack of control by the CINC's in peacetime operations. The subcommittee is considering proposals that would allow some support and administration and other areas to be shifted to the CINCS, which would include, for example, joint exercises, command and control, joint training. I wonder what your reaction is to the establishment of some type of independent budget, some type of separate project, that would be managed by the CINC's that would include these kinds of areas.

Mr. TAFT. Well, as I indicated, we have been reviewing this and have generally been tending to strengthen the CINC's participation authority in these different areas. We have given them a larger role in the resource allocation process, management of and participation in these types of decisions that you mentioned. I think that's been healthy for the process.

A limitation that I have thought is important to observe is that we not set up the CINC's to do some of the things that—or, let us say, too many of the things that the services are already doing and have shown that they can do effectively.

The CINC's are no different from anybody else. They have a lot of expertise, an important perspective, but a limited perspective. While they have jointness and global, and particularly regional expertise, they tend not to have global responsibilities as the service chiefs do.

I don't want to have them required to be distracted from their current duties of war fighting capability by getting them all mixed up in areas where they can be supported from the services effectively. That's not going to help anybody to have them set up their own budget shops, their own training shops, and so on. You have nine more of them, one for each CINC's, and you still wouldn't be able to have a joint comprehensive approach to it because the CINC's simply wouldn't be able to bring that.

Mr. KASICH. Well, first of all, in 1956, 1957, 1958, this President who warned us about the industrial military complex said at the same time that the CINC's don't have enough control in the field. That was in 1958. I was 6 years old then. Now I've got to look back to what happened here with all these distinguished people that

produced this bible that we have in this subcommittee, this Georgetown Center for Strategic Studies report with Brown, Clifford, Laird, Schlesinger, Richardson, McNamara. Then I look at what Crowe; our present Chairman; Nutting; the head of the Readiness Command; and Rogers, probably the most distinguished public servant that we have in the military today, all of them saying we don't have any control out here in the field. I mean, the Congress actually has passed legislation to keep men in Europe because the services wanted to yank them out and Rogers said "I've got to have them over here."

Now, what you say is that we don't want to get these people doing budgets, and fooling around with these theoretical concepts. I fully agree with that. But when we're talking about joint exercises, command and control, and joint training, we're not talking about theoretical, problematic kinds of decisions they have to make. We're actually talking about letting them have more control over their day-to-day operations out there so they can carry out theirnot only their peacetime mission, but potentially be able to effectively carry out their wartime mission. They're saying "we don't have enough resources, we're not in the budget process, we're not in a variety of things. We'd like to have control."

So, I mean, don't you feel as though in these areas of joint exercises, command and control, and joint training, we could develop several budgets these people could control during peacetime?

Mr. TAFT. I think that they ought to have more authority than they do today. I limited my response because there is a line that has to be drawn, and it's drawn, I would agree with you, too tightly now; but that is not to say that it doesn't have to be drawn somewhere else. I would agree with you that more authority go to the CINC's. We have done that. Where we have had the opportunity and in the resource allocation process, I think we intended to do that as a result of the JCS study, but exactly where is a point that, at this stage, I'm not, without the JCS study, prepared to say is the best place to draw it, but more, yes.

Mr. KASICH. Do you support the amendment that was added to the House bill, Mr. Taft, that provides that the Chairman of the JCS shall submit budget proposals and recommendations after receiving input from the CINC's to be used as an additional option to the Secretary of Defense to play off against the service POMs in terms of giving them additional advice so that he can make intelligent budget decisions? Do you support that particular amendment?

Mr. TAFT. I think I have a better system right now, as a matter of fact, which provides that the CINC's themselves individually without going through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, come directly to me with their comments on the service POMS, and to the entire Defense Resources Board, in fact, at the beginning of the program review, and they participate personally, as does the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the deliberations of that board, and comment directly on the service POMS. I think, frankly, that's better than filtering those views through the Chairman.

Mr. KASICH. I think the frustration Mr. Skelton expressed, probably better than I can, is that you're trying to say you like what you're doing, but let's talk about the guts more.

Everybody in this town, everybody around the world, these distinguished gentlemen, have said that they don't have any input in the budget decisions-that the services make all the decisions. The CINC's, and the JCS, and all-they really don't have any legitimate involvement. And they might go up to testify a couple of times a year, but they really are not having the impact on the old budget decisions. Those are being made by the services. But you are saying that that, in fact, is not true. You're happy with the current way in which we make budgets. Isn't that correct?

Mr. TAFT. I am telling you that I know that that isn't true, and that if you would listen, as I'm sure you will have the opportunity to do, to the CINC's today, and this process has only been in effect for the last 3 years, and in this last year we changed it to allow greater participation by the CINC's than in the year before that. And I think that you will find that the CINC's will tell you today, none of them part of this group because they're on active duty still, that they have an opportunity to come and to speak to the Defense Resources Board, to submit issues to the Defense Resources Board and to participate in the discussion of those issues when they are taken up by the Board; they are right there. Anybody who says that they don't participate doesn't know what's going on today. They know what did go on, and it did. I grant you that. That's why we made these changes. But the CINC's are in the process.

Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Kasich, will you yield just 1 minute?

You portray the system as having changed, and it's working great now, and you've got new regulations, new guidelines. Would you object to putting those guidelines in law?

Mr. TAFT. I'm talking about resource allocation, the budget development process. I think it has been proposed to me, and I have agreed. General Rogers, in fact, one of the CINC's, proposed that I put this process into a directive in the Department, which is the most you can do in the Department to assure and institutionalize the process as we have it today, because he was apprehensive that it might not persist.

I think, Mr. Chairman, you and I have discussed before the desirability of enacting statutes to assure the maintenance of good practice after you and I have gone on to our reward. And I have said, and I would say again in response to this, that I think that that's not a desirable practice because it will reduce flexibility. But it does not represent a difference over substance.

Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Mavroules.

Mr. MAVROULES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'm not going to get into the intricate part of what we're proposing here, but I'm going to ask just a couple of questions.

No. 1, do you disagree with General Meyer and General Jones on recommendations they have made?

Mr. TAFT. I certainly have some disagreements with them. I have disagreed, and I should be more familiar with this than I am as to which of them suggested which, but I believe there was one of them, I think General Meyer, who suggested, for example, that we needed a joint military advisory committee of retired four stars to replace the JCS, which was reflected in an early version of the Senate staff bill. I disagreed with that proposal. I think that dis

agreements that I would have had with either General Jones or General Meyer-as I say, I'm not precise as to which of them proposed what things would relate to this question of whether the Joint Chiefs of Staff should, as a body, be responsible for the development of the advice, the military advice, to the National Command Authorities.

I think they have tended to feel, as indeed reflected in the committee bill-and Mr. Skelton inade this very plain-it was so intended, to strengthen the individual presentation of views at the expense of the development of the corporate.

Now, the chairman made the point that the President had still opened to him to ask for the corporate views. Either it's a significant point, as Mr. Skelton says, or it isn't. I think the theory behind it I would tend to support, the corporate development and presentation of advice. The presentation of corporate advice is important to me, and I support that. I think General Meyer and General Jones tend to be more in Mr. Skelton's camp.

Mr. MAVROULES. Let me just try to follow up here a little bit.

You mentioned in your presentation, flexibility for the Secretary, and, of course, micromanagement that should not be allowed. Do you feel today that the Secretary has the flexibility to perform efficiently?

Mr. TAFT. I think that-

Mr. MAVROULES. And while we're at it, do you feel that Congress, for that matter, is in the process of micromanagement?

Mr. TAFT. I think that the Secretary, by and large, has the authority in title 10 that is necessary and sufficient to manage the Department. There are a large number of requirements that are placed on him; a large number of reports, some of which may be obsolete, I think are obsolete, that perhaps should not be required by the Congress. There are a number of restrictions on his authority that I would do away with, but, by and large, he has broad authority, and I would not restrict it further.

Mr. MAVROULES. How about micromanagement?

Mr. TAFT. I think that there is a tendency on the part of Congress to get involved in program details that, it seems to me, would be better left to the Department. I think that there is a tendency on the part of the OSD, which I run, to take too much of an interest sometimes in the very small aspects of program management and the sum of this, although each aspect of it is-tends to be, I'm sure is, well-intentioned, deriving from a felt need. The sum of it is that the program manager down there is beset by an excess of—Mr. MAVROULES. Before we run out of time I have a very important question I want to ask you. You've answered the other two, and I appreciate that.

Have you read the report on the-we lost those young men in Beirut. Have you read the report from this committee, and also the President's committee? Have you read it carefully?

Mr. TAFT. I have read the Long Commission Report carefully although not, I should say, recently. And I have read some of your committee's-

Mr. MAVROULES. I might suggest to you that you probably should read that in detail and find out exactly why Congress gets involved. We don't try to micromanage, Mr. Secretary, but why we're getting

involved is because of that abomination in Beirut and Lebanon, relative to the chain of command.

We talk about chain of command. We want to be specific. We want to be precise. We want to be sure it's done right. And if there was ever an abomination in my judgment—as I led the group, and that investigation-it was in that terrible incident in Beirut, Lebanon. Then you wonder why Congress gets involved. Then you wonder why we ask all the hard questions. Our concern-that's why we're trying to improve the system. That's what we need from you and from others, a little cooperation. We don't want to micromanage. We don't want to take the flexibility of the Secretary. We don't want to manage the system. We want to improve it. Therefore, I think the more that you and others cooperate with us, we can make it a better system.

Mr. TAFT. I would say, I think, that I acknowledged the reasons why you get involved, are well-intended, and well conceived in individual instances.

Mr. MAVROULES. The problem was there was no chain of command. I'm talking militarily now. Effective chain of command in Beirut, Lebanon, not one that you can show me, or anyone else. And then you wonder why Congress gets involved after a deep investigation that, in my judgment, I believe, is just fluffed off.

Mr. TAFT. Excuse me, Congressman, I didn't say that I wondered why Congress got involved. I do understand why Congress gets involved. I think I said I understood why they get involved. What I also said was, and you had asked me, whether you thought Congress was involved essentially in too many things, too great a level of detail. I think the sum of having gotten involved in perhaps a whole set of individual things at different times, for different reasons, has resulted, and the thrust of my comment was to program management principally, not to the military chain of command which you introduced there, but the very difficult atmosphere in which the program manager has to manage his program efficiently and effectively. That was the thrust of my comment.

Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Skelton.

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be with you today.

Mr. Secretary, we're talking about four things, as you know. The first deals with the CINC's. The second deals with joint duty. The third deals with melding the staffs, and the service Secretaries, and the service Chiefs. And the fourth, of course, is the joint agencies. In listening to you, and in looking at your comments today, we may be walking along the same path somewhat on three of those four areas.

Regarding the unified and specified commands, you say we share your concern for improving the manner in which the combat commanders prepare for performing their war-fighting mission.

Regarding the joint military personnel system, we have shared the committee's concern with a personnel impact surrounding joint duty for our military officers. În response to your direction, the Secretary forwarded on May 16, 1985, a report on our study to improve the capabilities of officers and joint activities.

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