in the steps that have been taken within individual departments that would lead you to believe that consolidation of authority, other than doing away with overlapping, would accomplish any of these things? Mr. PATTERSON. If there is a man responsible at the head of a service, he can overrule that man who is in charge of a project, and say: "I realize how desirable it may be from your point of view, to have everything under your command here." He can do it. As between the two separate Departments, it is impossible. It is impossible to avoid, because there is no one up at the top to say to the Army, if they are the offender, "No, you can't have that. Borrow those ships from the Navy. They already have them.” It takes a man at the post of proper responsibility to stop it. The trouble was, during the war, you did not have any such men. Senator BRIDGES. Mr. Secretary, what I mean is: You did not stop it within a single Department; did you? Mr. PATTERSON. It is a vice that exists in the Departments; that is true. Good control at the top will keep it in check, but it is an unending struggle, I will admit that fast enough, because from the point of view of the man who is doing this empire building, from his point of view, it is generally the right thing to do. The result has been and still is extremely onerous on the taxpayers. This has been through no fault of Mr. Forrestal, to whom unstinted credit should be given for carrying on a new task with vision, skill, perseverence, and rare administrative ability. He has been a good and faithful servant of his country through nine hard years-always selfless, courageous, equal to any emergency. His place in history is secure. There are three main shortcomings in the present law. In the first place, the Secretary of Defense does not have enough in the way of authority. He is not at the head of an executive department, in the sense that the Secretary of State is at the head of the State Department and the Secretary of the Treasury is at the head of the Treasury Department. The authority of the Secretary is also weakened by excessive powers reserved to the Secretaries of the three Departments-Army, Navy, and Air Force-and I know of cases where, if the Secretary of Defense issues an order, people down the line run to look at the law books and run to lawyers to see if he had the power to issue that order. In the second place, the present law does not give the Secretary of Defense enough help to carry on even the limited powers entrusted to him. There are no Assistant Secretaries allowed to him, and the number of special assistants is held down to three. In the third place, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have not functioned effectively. It has turned out as General Marshall 3 years ago predicted would be the case. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have no leader or chairman. They are a committee and the members speak for their respective services. The defect is a grave one, and the President, recognizing it, recently appointed General Eisenhower to act as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as chief military adviser to the Secretary of Defense. This was a necessary and prudent step, but if there is any warrant for it in law I have not been able to find it. The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead, Mr. Secretary; I will ask you a question about that later. Mr. PATTERSON. I will conclude in just a minute. The bill under consideration should overcome these defects. It will be of great advantage to change the name from National Military Establishment, whatever that may mean, to Department of Defense; to provide that the Department shall be an executive de partment of the Government; and to change the Departments of Army, Navy, and Air from executive departments to military departments or branches within the Department of Defense. These changes are covered in section 3 of the bill. It will also be of great advantage to provide, as is done in section 4, that the Secretary of Defense shall be responsible in full for exercise of direction, authority, and control over the affairs of the Department, and to eliminate the restrictive words in the present law as to his powers. I urge that the present clouds on this authority be cleared away and that he be granted the same broad charter that other heads of executive departments have always had. I deem it of prime importance that section of the bill will cancel the present invitation to the Secretaries of Army, Navy, and Air to go to the White House with complaints against the policies and practices of their chief, the Secretary of Defense. Whether this invitation is acted on or not, its presence in existing law is bound to damage the standing of the Secretary of Defense and to be subversive of his authority. There is no provision of law that gives permission to a subordinate official in the State Department to go to the President with complaints against the Secretary of State. Why should a different practice be sanctioned in the Department of Defense? Senator BRIDGES. Perhaps one of the greatest things that could have happened to this country would have been if somebody in the State Department had had the right to go over the head of the Secretary of State. We might not have done some of the most tragic things that have happened in our diplomatic history. If you use the State Department as an example, it is a pretty sorry example you are using for over the period of years the record is not one to be proud of. If some of the people down there, the real fundamental Americans, who were not woozy-minded and allowed the Communists to pull this over their eyes and had been able to get wise, we might have had a different world today. Mr. PATTERSON. I am practicing law. I would hate stenographer running around to some of my clients and I was making a poor job of their case. You run an office, too. How would you like to hav dinates running around telling people at large that that you ought to run your office better than you do? I submit it is absolutely subversive of good order an istration to provide and encourage subordinates to go who is supposed to be directing their work, with g plaints, and various controversies. Senator BRIDGES. That is based on the principle of the top. Mr. PATTERSON. If that is so good, why don't you the other departments? You don't provide for the of the Treasury to go to the White House and say th of the Treasury is incompetent. Senator BRIDGES. But no departments except the State Department and the Department of the Armed Services can affect perhaps the existence of this Republic. The CHAIRMAN. Except the Attorney General. Mr. PATTERSON. Don't you think the head of each executive department believes himself to be in that position? Senator BRIDGES. I think undoubtedly that is true. Mr. PATTERSON. The Secretary of the Treasury is an important person. Senator BRIDGES. I don't want to interrupt you, but the point you make when you use the State Department for an illustration-someday history is going to put an awful black blotch over some of the people in the State Department. Mr. PATTERSON. I can't agree with you. Senator BRIDGES. And I can't ask you to, of course. The CHAIRMAN. All right, Mr. Secretary. Mr. PATTERSON. It is also of value to eliminate the Secretaries of Army, Navy, and Air from the National Security Council, leaving the Secretary of Defense as the sole representative of the armed services on the Council. This will strengthen the position of the Secretary of Defense. Also, it seemed to me all along that four votes for the armed services in that Council was altogether too many votes, and there you have the interesting situation of three subordinates voting against their chief on that Council. Very illuminating. Second, as to providing the Secretary of Defense with assistants. The bill, in section 5, creates the post of Under Secretary of Defense and the posts of three Assistant Secretaries of Defense. I understand that by other legislation Congress has already made provision of an Under Secretary of Defense. The provision of three Assistant Secretaries will equip the Secretary with personnel of sufficient position to enable him to carry his responsibilities. The Departments of Army, Navy, and Air each have four officials in secretarial status, a point mentioned by Senator Lodge-a Secretary, Under Secretary, and two Assistant Secretaries. The total number for the Department of Defense, if this bill is passed, will be 17. I remember the joke they had going the rounds about vice presidents. One of the large New York banks, in the flush days of the 1920's, had a number of officials, and the joke concerned two men meeting on a golf course who got into an argument on one thing and another, and of course it had to do with finances, and one said, "I think I ought to tell you, I know what I am talking about; I am vice president of the X Trust Co." The other man said, "The hell you are? I am, too." You will get a condition where the 17 Secretaries won't even be acquainted with one another. I suggest that this is a top-heavy condition and that two posts in each of the three Departments of Army, Navy, and Air should be abolished. The dispatch of business would not be impeded. Third, as to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The bill, in section, creates the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to be the head of the Joint Chiefs, to take precedence over all other officers of the armed services, and to act as principal military adviser of the President and Secretary of Defense; and the Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief is dropped as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Of course, that latter provision is a good thing. The position of Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief was an anomaly, a historic accident, of course, invented for a very good purpose indeedinvented by General Marshall to bring about the organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-couldn't have had it without that; and it had to have two generals and two admirals. Since the war was over, a week after the surrender of Japan. there was a request that the committee plan for the military defense of the United States. I know when I left the War Department 2 years later the President had not yet received a plan. The CHAIRMAN. They couldn't agree on it? Mr. PATTERSON. They had a mass of memoranda, but they couldn't agree on it. For 2 years he didn't get that plan, and he should have had it in 2 weeks. That is what I mean when I say that they are on dead center. I strongly support these provisions. The creation of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to be highest in rank in the armed services and to serve as principal military adviser of the President and the Secretary, will furnish the President and the Secretary with expert professional opinion above the level of a particular service. The addition of the Chairman, answerable as he will be to the Secretary, will infuse vigor into the work of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and will lift their deliberations above the rivalries of the various services, rivalries that have kept their activities on dead center ever since the war. Some will say that the Chairman will be partial to the service from which he is drawn. I do not believe that the risk of that is considerable. All of us would trust General Eisenhower in the post. There are plenty of other Regular officers in the services who could be counted on to be free from bias. In conclusion, I have no doubt that other and weaker measures will be suggested for your consideration, and I have no doubt that the two old bugbears, damage to service morale and jeopardy to civilian control, will be dusted off once more and paraded before you. Those objections are invariably interposed whenever an improvement in organization of the armed forces is proposed. I am reminded of the invention of the conoidal bullet a hundred years ago, and of the protest made by Sir William Napier against adoption of it by the British Army on the ground that it would hurt the pride of the infantry because it would make them "long-range assassins." According to the opinion of Sir William Napier, they had rather be killed by a conoidal bullet shot by the enemy than to have one in their own guns, because the pride of the infantry was involved. Does anyone seriously believe that the pride, prestige, and morale of any soldier, sailor, marine, or airman will be destroyed or injured by making the Department of Defense an executive department, or by giving the Secretary of Defense adequate authority, or by creating the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? As for civilian control, the bill before you will strengthen rather than weaken it. The bill will clear away existing doubts as to the authority of the civilian at the head of the Department, and it will give him three additional Assistant Secretaries, civilians also, to help him in exercise of his powers. Where is the man on horseback who is to ride over him and his civilian assistants and then over the President and over this committee and over this Congress? I recall that the same argument about loss of civilian control was made 46 years ago, when Congress passed the bill creating the post of Chief of Staff of the Army. He would be the strong man who would impose militarism on a free people. The idea was fantastic then, and it is fantastic now. The bill before you will bring unified authority and unified responsibility in the management of the armed services. It will serve the interests of the men with the colors because good management is a prime factor in success, and the men who follow the colors are more concerned with success than are any of the rest of us. And it will serve the interests of good government. That completes my statement, sir. The CHAIRMAN. I want to say this, Mr. Patterson: This is one of the most reasoned and best-supported arguments I have heard presented before this and/or any other committee. I am very grateful to you for it. Are there any questions? Senator BYRD. No questions. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Bridges. Senator BRIDGES. I have a great many questions, but time is too short. I admire the Secretary's stand over the years for this thing he is advocating today, and I agree on the objectives which he attempts to seek. There are two things that bother me. One is having some way to give to our country the benefit of the judgment of those in the services and not have it throttled at the top, and too great a concentration of power. I want the men to have enough power to do the job right, but not too great a concentration of power, which would be dangerous in the case of a great national emergency, when a bad mistake of judgment would be of great injury to the country. In the war, Mr. Secretary, you ably presided over one department. You know that the Navy Department and War Department perhaps did not agree on the conduct of the war in the Pacific. Mr. PATTERSON. The Navy was probably right 50 percent of the time. I am willing to concede that. Senator BRIDGES. Suppose you had it completely Navy-dominated or Army-dominated? Probably, if the Navy had dominated, you would not have been so successful in your European operations. Perhaps, if the Army had dominated, you would not have been so successful in your Pacific operations. But, as a result Mr. PATTERSON. One of the greatest military geniuses, Clausewitz, said, "It is better to have action, even if wrong, than no action at all." The CHAIRMAN. Make an estimate and then take action is an old military precept, is it not? Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir. I can give plenty of examples, too, which are convincing to me that you run no risk at all from creating this post of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is similar, but in a much bigger way than the job of Chief of Staff in the War Depart ment. General Marshall was Chief of Staff. He came from the infantry. I could go to him and get a good judgment in some controversy between the infantry and the Corps of Engineers. I was not afraid he |