The asterisk line represents various channels through which the unified commander influences, to whatever degree, the resources (including forces) to be provided to his command-and how the forces are to be organized, trained, and equipped, and how they are to be employed in operations. Most of these asterisk channels are now through the JCS.

Another way for the CINC's influence to be exercised is through the commanders of the forces assigned to his operational command. (In this light, the dotted and dashed lines are equivalent to asterisks.)

The asterisk line also represents the channels, other than the dotted line of operational command, through which the CINC influences the responsiveness of his subordinate commanders to his operational command.

This chart is an idealized picture. The specific units of the forces under unified operational command are always changing; ships and Marine Corps units of the fleets and squadrons of tactical air forces come and go. There is also in the United States a pool of Service forces many units of which, although not assigned to a unified command day-to-day, are earmarked for one, two, or more of them. This complicates the relationships between the unified commands on one hand and the Services on the other.

The above chart shows the lines of the CINCs' influence. The CINCs' influence goes through this asterisk line which involves the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are very critical to it. Mechanisms have to be set up through which the CINCs' influence can be meaningfully felt, but it is essential that those commanders concentrate on the forces' employment. However, employment and resources for employment can't be separated so they have to have mechanisms through which they can influence the support, administration, logistics, resources, but not manage them.

Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Oettinger.

Mr. OETTINGER. If I might add a point there to talk about the bureaucratizing of the chiefs, and so on, is I think demeaning some of the problem, and suggests that the action of the CINC's_only takes place at the moment of battle. Some of this, as General Cushman says, is preparation, including I might say, a doctrine.

Years ago when the telegraph was first invented and somebody said Maine could talk to Texas, my New England forebears arose and said, "But what would Maine have to say to Texas?" We spend a great deal of money and effort providing the technical means for communication among components. But if those components have nothing to say to one another, because the doctrine that they follow is incompatible, and even if they could talk they can't come to terms, we have a problem. The CINCs' influence may be 10 years ahead, may be 5 years ahead, may be 3 years ahead on doctrine, so that when there is a radio, somebody has got something to say to the other guy. It is not something to be sneered at as if it were simply bureaucratic hornswoggling.

Mr. NICHOLS. General, would you give the CINC's the right to select their subordinate commands and other key subordinates?

General CUSHMAN. This is an option that is available. It has pros and cons. Right now the CINC has very little influence over his people. Generally speaking, they are provided as senior commanders. The CINC gets a message that they are coming. He is not asked if he wants them. In our study we go into that as item No. 6 in this matrix, and we have three options.

In our study, we take the viewpoint that any significant movement beyond the present condition will require a combination of legislative and executive action.

The chart below tells that story. Judgment Option I is, in general, “continue along the present path."

One of them says leave it alone. They are satisfied. And there are quite a few people that think that is a pretty good option.

Another one is to give the CINC's additional means to influence the selection and performance of key personnel. That is to say, give them approval authority, give them selection authority, give them court-martial authority, give them the position on the selection boards. That is kind of a modest change.

Then there is a major change. Give the CINC additional means to influence the selection and performance of key personnel sufficient to raise his influence on key members of his operational chain of command to be at least equal to that of the Service. At the present time the Service is the main influence on the operational chain of command. To raise the level of influence of the CINC's to equal that would require them to be given very substantial authorities.

For example, you might specify and these are just options-that each officer in a senior command position in the joint operational chain of command will understand that his prospects for advancement will be influenced by what his seniors in the operational chain think of the responsiveness to them. Or you could have the CINC's report periodically to the Secretary of Defense. These are all options.

I think every one of these options that I list here would move the influence in that direction, and to put them all in there would be a very substantial change. I for one think that something, some kind of change, is required.

The level of change, of course, has got to be worked out by this committee and the Congress. Some of it may not require legislation.

Mr. NICHOLS. Have you had a chance to look at the Packard Commission's report?

General CUSHMAN. I have.

Mr. NICHOLS. Do you generally support it?

General CUSHMAN. Yes, sir, I do. I think the combination of the Packard Commission, the work of the House of Representatives and this committee, and what is happening over in the Senate, is creating a landmark year in matters of defense organization. Something very fundamental is going to come out of all this.

Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Barrett, do you have a question?

Mr. BARRETT. General Cushman, you have a detailed discussion in your statement about the Joint Tactical Command, Control and Communications Agency.

General CUSHMAN. Yes, I do.

Mr. BARRETT. Could you go into that a little bit more? It indicates the pulling and hauling and shoving between OSD and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and it seems to indicate that it took years to come to an agreement that was not satisfactory in the end.

General CUSHMAN. Well, command and control of theater forces involves all the Services. Communications and other equipment of the Services is bought and paid for by the Services and designed by the Services. All too often it doesn't fit the equipment of other Services. You know the story. The Secretary of Defense and his office decided that something ought to be done about this. It is a complicated technical job. So then back in 1983, the Deputy Secretary of Defense sent a memorandum to the Secretaries of the military departments and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and said, "Establish a joint agency for managing this tactical command and control." A few months later the draft was developed. It took 9 months of negotiations before the DOD directive established the Joint Tactical C3 Agency, about a year before the directive came out, and it finally got going toward the end of 1984.

There are some very key issues that the Services got involved in. One is to whom it should report. The Office of the Secretary of Defense said that it should report to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for C3. They said that cross-service program control could be effectively achieved no other way. But the JCS insisted that it report to them. And for very good reason; nothing is more clearly a military matter or a more fundamental military operation than command and control.

Then OSD countered and said, "Let's have it report not to the JCS but to the Chairman." But this is a crucial issue to the Service chief members. They would not agree to that, because they wanted to have a say. They wanted to have it come under the standard JCS system, flimsy, buff and green, and they wouldn't give up that method of deciding even the most technical and detailed issues of command and control. So now the JTC3A reports to both the ASD(C3I) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As to its jurisdiction, they watered that down so it doesn't have a very strong jurisdiction in joint architecture.

As to who would task it, they solved that problem by saying it took signatures by both the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Č3I, and the JCS to task it. Without both signatures, tasking instructions were invalid.

And then finally as to the resources, that agency has had a good deal of difficulty getting resources.

That is a very critical agency, and the performance of that agency, and the difficulties it has had, underscores the point that I made earlier, which is that command and control, management of command and control, is singularly inappropriate for a committee. It takes someone to arbitrate these issues who doesn't have to sit down and negotiate them. It is a key point.

Mr. OETTINGER. May I add something to that?

Mr. NICHOLS. Yes, sir.

Mr. OETTINGER. General Cushman spoke of this, in response to Mr. Barrett, as a complicated technical problem. It is a complicated technical problem. But underneath the technical complexities there remain doctrine, roles, missions, actions. I remember some 25 years ago, when I first became involved in some of these matters, doing a study for the White House that involved a committee of what was then the U.S. Intelligence Board, a precursor of the intelligence community staff, where there were people wrestling, in much the manner that General Cushman has described, with whether certain common elements of the intelligence community should be carried on 60 or 80 punchcards.

This was archaic technology. This issue was tied up with what looked like a complex technical problem for a couple of years. But the underlying issue had nothing to do with the complex problems. It had to do with what do they have to say to one another and do they want to talk to one another.

I want to underscore everything that General Cushman has said, but, also to urge you whenever you see a technical problem to look beyond the technical problem to what is being solved by the technical means.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you.

Mr. NICHOLS. Let me ask you one further question, General. The subcommittee has before it a number of proposals to examine the role, responsibilities, the conduct, I guess, of the defense agencies, DLA, the communications people, and so forth and so on. Last week the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Mr. Donald Latham, said that we ought to break up the Defense Communications Agency only if we were encouraged by the example of the AT&T divestiture. Would you agree with that? What is your idea on the agencies?

General CUSHMAN. I would prefer not to deal with that. Although I know something about those agencies, I am not your expert witness on that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. NICHOLS. I appreciate that. Mr. Lally.

Mr. LALLY. I have no questions.

Mr. BARRETT. Dr. Oettinger.

Mr. OETTINGER. I should point out, as you have read into the record, I am a member of the Scientific Advisory Group of the Defense Communications Agency, but I am speaking entirely on my own personal view here. For many years, military procurement of the most elementary communications took place through recourse to the private carrier who carries 90 percent of military communications in the continental United States, or more. There has to be someplace that pulls all the threads together. The very notion of communications requires the pieces to be brought together someplace. If it isn't the Defense Communications Agency, it has got to be someplace else. It is a little bit like Voltaire's statement about God, "If He did not exist, He would have to be invented."

The essence of command, control, communications, and intelligence, like the essence of the brain, is to pull the pieces together. Somewhere there has to be something that pulls it all together. It need not be that specific agency, but something in the defense establishment has to be able to pull it together.

Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Barrett, do you have further questions?

Mr. BARRETT. I have one more question, Mr. Chairman, and that is in response to something that Dr. Oettinger said in his remarks. For years we were criticized here for concentrating on organizational matters. Many witnesses have come before us. Those who generally oppose reorganization have said that it is people that count. If you have good people you can make any organization work. And so we are, in their view, up a blind trail. Your remarks address that somewhat. Would you like to respond to that allegation?

Mr. OETTINGER. Yes. I think that there are three pieces. I think your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, to these hearings, recognized you need things, you need the systems, the hardware, and so on. You need good people. But if they are not properly organized, there are limits to what good people can do in organizations that are out of kilter. And over the last 25 years, most of the civilian organizations that I am familiar with have made their brains over, many times some of them in response to the changing world.

Yes, good people are essential. Yes, good people can make do in a pinch with a less than optimal organization. But to say that organization is not important is as dumb as saying that people are not important or equipment is not important. They are all essential ingredients. If one of them is in bad shape, OK, the other can compensate for it. But you can't have a system where you have got too many of them out of kilter too far, and that is why I think it is so essential to adjust all the components.

We are not talking about revamping everything in every direction, or extremist views. We are talking about adjusting balances among the hardware, the people, and the organizational structure they fit in.

Mr. NICHOLS. Thank you very much, gentlemen. We appreciate your patience. We are indebted to you for being with us here this afternoon.

General CUSHMAN. Thank you, sir.

Mr. NICHOLS. The final witness this afternoon will be Gen. John Vogt, U.S. Air Force (retired) and former Commander of the Allied Air Forces in Europe. General Vogt served a distinguished career in many joint assignments. He also served in command positions in Vietnam.

General, I wish you would tell us-I don't have your entire biography here a little bit more about your career and experiences that give you some perspective on the issues that we are addressing today.

STATEMENT OF GEN. JOHN VOGT, U.S. AIR FORCE (RETIRED), FORMER COMMANDER, U.S. AIR FORCES EUROPE, AND FORMER COMMANDER, ALLIED AIR FORCES EUROPE

General VOGT. I would be very happy to, sir. Altogether, I had some 11 years in the Joint Staff, either as the Air Force chief planner or as a staff member of the JCS organization. Among those assignments I was the Chief of Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I was a director of the Joint Staff.