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tary departments or Under Secretaries is the chance to get a better man to do the job. Outside of that, I think you could call them most anything.

Senator SALTONSTALL. What would be the function of the Assistant Secretary of Defense? I don't quite visualize that.

Secretary ROYALL. They would be on a functional basis. You would have one to represent the Secretary of Defense in the matters of procurement. You would have another one to represent him in the matter of personnel. You would have another to represent him, perhaps, in the matter of research. Another in budget. You should have one, perhaps, to represent him in strictly military matters.

Senator SALTONSTALL. But you said Secretary of Defense, Under Secretary of Defense, and an Assistant Secretary of Defense. Secretary ROYALL. I said three or more Assistant Secretaries. Senator SALTONSTALL. I beg your pardon. I didn't understand. The CHAIRMAN. Any other questions, gentlemen? We don't want to tie the Secretary up.

Senator HUNT. I have one question.

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead.

Senator HUNT. Don't you think, Mr. Secretary, it would be somewhat difficult to get the type of man from civilian life to come in and accept one of these positions as either Secretary of the Army, or the Navy, if they lost that designation?

Secretary ROYALL. I said that a moment ago, that the only argument in favor of calling them Secretaries was your argument; and that I did not differ with the bill as now drawn, which makes them Secretaries of military departments. I have no objection to that phase of that bill, though that differs slightly from my original recommendation.

Senator KNOWLAND. Mr. Secretary, this morning I don't think you went in, at least very extensively, into this question of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Secretary ROYALL. I didn't discuss it at all.

Senator KNOWLAND. I would be interested in getting your viewpoint as to just how you visualize in an ideal set-up the functions of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or the Chief of the Joint Chiefs or whatever he might ultimately be termed in the law.

Secretary ROYALL. I believe in the bill exactly as it is written, and it is almost the same as I recommended last September. The CHAIRMAN. You mean the pending bill?

Secretary ROYALL. The bill as now written, yes. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be the senior ranking military officer in the entire Military Establishment or Department of Defense. He should be the principal military advisor to the Secretary of Defense. He does not exercise command in the sense that such term is ordinarily used, because the joint Chiefs of Staff is advisory and not an administrative body, but the chairman has two duties:

He presides at the meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and does the other functions a chairman ordinarily performs. He then, after they have discussed the matter, presents to the Secretary of Defense his opinion, and I assume if there were any differences, he would tell the Secretary of Defense in frankness that there were, but he is a man the Secretary of Defense leans on for military advice.

Now, this thing of leaning on three people for military advice is one of the greatest administrative absurdities that has ever been foisted on this country.

The CHAIRMAN. It is like leaning on a conservative, a radical, and a middle-of-the-road man for political advice, is it not?

Secretary ROYALL. That is why today we are in worse condition to meet an emergency situation than if we had no unification, because then we had only two chiefs of staff for the President to talk to and now we have three reporting to the Secretary of Defense. We have sharp lines drawn on aviation, and no civilian is intelligent enough to sit there and listen to three folks argue with each other and not have anyone to rely on. If the Secretary of Defense picked out the Chief of Staff of the Army to rely on, there would be dissension throughout the ranks of the others.

He has to have a man to rely on, and he ought to have the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff as that man.

Senator SALTONSTALL. Mr. Secretary, did you really mean what you said there, that we are worse prepared today than we were 2 years ago?

Secretary ROYALL. Yes, sir; we would be better off if we had never had unification-no doubt about it in my mind, not the slightest doubt. The CHAIRMAN. In other words, you haven't got unification. That is your point?

Secretary ROYALL. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. You just straddled from one system toward a new one without keeping either one.

Senator JOHNSON. You make the point that not only can the President talk to all three, but the legislation now in effect is an engraved invitation for all three to talk to him.

Secretary ROYALL. Well, of course, you can't run anything the way you have it written now.

I will tell you another thing, which I think this bill will remedy. The Army has a different situation than either one of the other departments. We have very important civil functions, and there is some legal doubt as to whether the Secretary of Defense has any jurisdiction over occupations, the civil functions of engineers, and the Panama Canal.

Voluntarily I told the Secretary of Defense that I didn't care what the law said, that I recognized him as my boss on those matters as well as anything else, and that is the way I have run it. But this is an absurdity in the Army worse than it is anywhere else. I would report directly to the President if I followed the line of the statute about occupation, and I could tell the Secretary of Defense it was none of his business. That is my interpretation of the statute. We didn't run it that way because the Army, as you know, supported unification wholeheartedly in every way.

The CHAIRMAN. In the eyes of the public the Secretary of National Defense has authority, but in reality he has no authority at all, he is only a liaison man?

Secretary ROYALL. He is not even a liaison man on the civil func tions, I don't believe, under the law.

Senator CHAPMAN. Mr. Secretary, do you think that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in advising the President and the Secre tary of Defense should be required by a provision of the law to com

municate to him not only his own views, but the views of the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when they disagree?

Secretary ROYALL. Well, if we get to the point where you have got to write that much detailed procedure in the statute, I think we had better quit writing statutes. That is the trouble here.

The last time this bill was prepared, you tried to meet every little breeze that blew, and you just can't do that. You have got to rely on having good men in those positions who do their duty. You can't make such a man, by telling how you are going to write the minutes or the phraseology of what he is to say to the Secretary of Defense, you can't do that.

Senator CHAPMAN. I wanted to get your opinion on that because that question was raised a few days ago and discussed with some of the other witnesses.

Senator KNOWLAND. Normally wouldn't the Chief of the Joint Staffs, if there was a considerable division in the Chiefs, in reporting to the Secretary of National Defense mention that, because that would be a rather important piece of information?

Secretary ROYALL. I think he would normally do so, unless circumstances might arise where there had been so much dissension that the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn't resolve anything-and that is not without precedent. Then he might be so hopelessly confused by what was said and done that he wouldn't contribute anything by reporting on it, and there have been times when that would have been the case.

Therefore, I don't think you ought to tie him down to that, but I cannot conceive of a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff not reporting the full facts to the Secretary of Defense. I know there have been occasions when General Bradley and I have differed about policies. Of course, I have authority to control and I do control as far as the Army is concerned, but when it is a matter of such importance that it must, in my opinion, be discussed with the Secretary of Defense, I always tell him of the conflicting views and I think any administrator should do the same thing, but I would hate to have written into the law that every time I present a matter to the Secretary of Defense, I have to tell him about everybody in the Army who differed with me in reaching that conclusion. It would take up a lot of time and impair the efficiency of administration.

Senator SALTONSTALL. Mr. Secretary, might I just go back and reiterate one remark, which I certainly didn't think you meant and I certainly don't want you to mean, so far as I am concerned, when you say we are worse prepared today-you mean we are worse prepared administratively today? Today actually we are better prepared for the defense of our country than we were 2 years ago; is that right?

Secretary ROYALL. We are worse prepared than if we had not had unification.

Senator SALTONSTALL. But we are better prepared for the defense of our country?

Secretary ROYALL. We are worse prepared for the defense of the country than if we had never had unification. In other words, if we had continued the Army and Navy, in my opinion, we would have been better prepared today than we are. Now, either way, with or without unification, we would have improved in our preparedness.

Senator SALTONSTALL. And we have improved?

Secretary ROYALL. We have improved.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like the record also to show that you feel we would be even better prepared than either one of the two alternatives you have alluded to if we had had the complete unification a

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Senator KNOWLAND. I have just one other question, Mr. Chairman, relating to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. There has been some considerable discussion in the committee as to the advisability and desirability of having a tour of duty as now the Army has for the Chief of Staff and the Air Corps has and the Navy with the Chief of Naval Operations. In other words, a 4-year tour of duty, which, of course. can be less than 4 years, but to give some rotation in the office. Would you think that desirable, undesirable, or not a question of great moment as far as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is concerned?

What some of us have felt is that if you got a good man in there, there would be a natural desire to continue him. You might continue him for 4, 12, 16 years, and there is some value in bringing new blood in and getting a fresh point of view.

Secretary ROYALL. I agree.

Senator KNOWLAND. Therefore, if you put, as you have, a tour of duty on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, there wouldn't be any hard feelings when the change did come after a reasonable period of time.

Secretary ROYALL. I forget what the statute states about the tour of duty of the Chairman.

Senator KNOWLAND. It makes him a member with no time limitation. Secretary ROYALL. I didn't realize that, but I agree with your view on that entirely. I think you ought to have an outside limit. You might want to have some way, in the case of emergency, of extending it. Senator KNOWLAND. In wartime.

Secretary ROYALL. In wartime; but I would say a 4-year limit should be the limit. But I don't think you ought to give him a vested interest in it for 4 years.

Senator KNOWLAND. Not to exceed 4 years. That is all I have.
The CHAIRMAN. Any more questions, Senator Chapman?

Senator CHAPMAN. No questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Johnson?
Senator JOHNSON. No questions.
The CHAIRMAN. Senator Hunt?
Senator HUNT. No questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Saltonstall?

Senator SALTONSTALL. No questions.

The CHAIRMAN. We are very much obliged to you, Mr. Secretary. You have given us a very strong and a very forthright statement which we are sure will be very helpful.

The committee will stand adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 12: 45 p. m., an adjournment was taken.)

NATIONAL SECURITY ACT AMENDMENTS OF 1949

THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1949

UNITED STATES SENATE,
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a. m., in room 212, Senate Office Building, Senator Millard E. Tydings (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Tydings, Byrd, Chapman, Johnson of Texas, Kefauver, Morse, Baldwin, and Knowland.

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order.

We might as well begin, although some of the members of the committee are not here as yet. The chairman will take the liberty of making a few remarks for the record that will be cogent.

Mr. Eberstadt, the committee is most happy to have you with us again, to give us the benefit of your opinion in the matter of steps to improve the military budget and the mechanics of its preparation and execution.

For the benefit of the record I should like to review events which lead up to today's meeting and Mr. Eberstadt's appearance here at this time.

Mr. Eberstadt was the second witness heard by the committee in connection with S. 1269, the 1949 amendments to the National Security Act of 1947. He appeared on March 29 at the special request of the committtee. His detailed knowledge of the development of the 1947 act, together with his very active participation in the work of the Hoover Commission as head of a special task force dealing with the military, give him a most comprehensive background of detailed personal knowledge which has been of great value to the committee.

During the course of his testimony on March 29, Mr. Eberstadt observed that "There will be no substantial advances in the field of economy until military budgetary procedures and fiscal policies have been overhauled from top to bottom." At that point Senator Byrd asked Mr. Eberstadt if he could prepare specific amendments to S. 1269 in accordance with the Hoover report, covering this matter of greater economy and efficiency within the Military Establishment.

On that basis Mr. Eberstadt accepted this most difficult committee assignment, and proceeded to the task of working up some language, to be included as an amendment to S. 1269, and which would actually do something about this objective concerning which there has been so much talk but so very little action.

I have followed Mr. Eberstadt's progress through the staff member assigned to assist with this project, and I would like to say that the amount of detailed work and coordination that Mr. Eberstadt has put

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