(6) Letter from Secretary of Defense Johnson, dated April 7, 1949, to chairman of Senate Armed Services Committee.

ADDRESS OF MARX LEVA, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE BEFORE THE JOINT ORIENTATION CONFERENCE OF THE NATIONAL MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT, APRIL 5, 1949

I see from the program that I am supposed to make a very brief speech, covering a very simple subject-a one-word subject, in fact.

I wouldn't want to make a liar out of the fellow who prepared the program, so I'll see how well I can fit 18 months of unification into 30 minutes of talk.

My review of the progress of unification up to the present time must begin, of course, with the Unification Act which Congress passed in 1947.

The 1947 act, to borrow a few terms from the law of domestic relations, consisted of a simultaneous marriage (joining the Army and the Navy in a state of more or less happy wedlock), a divorce (separating the Air Force from the Army), and twin births (creating the over-all organization known as the National Military Establishment, and creating the Air Force as well).

Up to the present time, the divorce of the Air Force from the Army has proceeded more smoothly than has the marriage of the Army and the Navy. It may be that the explanation for this situation can be traced to the fact that the Army, which greatly desired unification, was an overardent bridegroom— while the Navy was a most reluctant bride.

In any event, this somewhat peculiar military household which Congress set up in 1947, and the steps toward unification which have been taken in the first 18 months of the household's existence, are the subjects to which I intend to address most of my remarks today.

Some time ago, when I was first invited to address this group today, I accepted the invitation and said that I would speak to the general subject I have just outlined-that is, to the subject of the Unification Act which the Eightieth Congress passed in 1947-the good points of the act, the bad points of the act, and the amendments to the act which the Eighty-first Congress seems likely to adopt.

Since the date of my acceptance, however, Secretary of Defense Forrestal has resigned, and I should like, therefore, to vary my subject slightly in order to pay tribute to the progress toward greater security for the United States which has been brought about during the 18 months that Forrestal has served as this country's first Secretary of Defense.

You will note that I have mentioned "progress toward greater security for the United States," rather than "progress toward a greater degree of unification." We have made substantial progress in both of these categories-but I have deliberately drawn a distinction between the two, for I think it is important to bear in mind that the National Military Establishment is not an end in itself, but is instead a means to an end.

The National Military Establishment exists for only one purpose the security of the United States. A greater degree of unification is certainly one of the factors that contributes to greater national security. Let us not forget, however, that unification is merely a desirable means to an essential end. It is the end of greater national security, and not merely the means of the unification process, that has true importance.

Secretary Forrestal kept this fact in the forefront of his thinking. With great deliberateness and with infinite patience, he laid a solid foundation for unification-a foundation, as Secretary Johnson said to this group yesterday, on which others can now build with complete confidence.

In the course of laying this foundation, and in the course of making very substantial progress toward unification, Secretary Forrestal was adamant in his insistence that any step toward unification must "pay its way" by increasing, rather than diminishing, the fighting potential of the services.

It was this philosophy-rather than any feeling that the 1947 act was totally inadequate which determined Secretary Forrestal's approach to unification during the first 18 months that the Unification Act was on the books. He felt that the painstaking and back-breaking work of the first 18 months was a highly necessary condition precedent to the further and accelerated progress toward unification which the future will undoubtedly unfold.

In the field of unification, it is hard to picture progress graphically. Partially as a result of this difficulty, and partially as a result of a failure to publicize

adequately many of the forward steps that have been taken, some people are inclined to feel that very little has been accomplished in the first year and a half of unification. I can assure you categorically that people who feel or say that very little has been accomplished simply do not know the facts.

In just a few minutes, I shall try to outline for you some of the concrete steps that have been taken, in order that you may judge for yourself how solidly Secretary Forrestal has built the foundations of unification. First, though, I want to refer briefly to one of the outward manifestations of the progress toward greater national security that has been made.

The outward manifestation to which I refer is the increased strength and vigor which the countries of the North Atlantic community of nations possess today and which they have so strikingly illustrated by signing the North Atlantic Pact yesterday-a strength and vigor that are in marked contrast with the conditions that existed just 1 year ago. To my way of thinking, there are two principal factors which have led to this improved posture: One is the economic recovery of Europe, under the stimulus of the Marshall plan; and the other is the increase in the military strength of this country, under the stimulus of President Truman and Secretary of Defense Forrestal.

Just 1 year ago, our military strength was at the low point of its postwar ebb. In March of last year, our Army was down to less than 540,000 men; our Air Force was down to 365,000 men; and our Navy was down to 473,000 men.

Today is April 5, 1949; 1 year ago on March 25, 1948, Secretary Forrestal appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee in order to testify in support of the President's program for increasing our military strength. Because his words have been so fully borne out by the events of the intervening year, I would like to read a brief excerpt from Forrestal's testimony on that occasion. On March 25, 1948, he said:

"Consider what we will put in jeopardy through a continuing failure to place ourselves in ready strength. We made a tremendous effort and great sacrifices to win the war in which the fighting stopped 21⁄2 years ago. We must not run the risk of losing that great investment in liberty by failure to prepare now to resist another effort at universal conquest-because that is what the fall of freedom in Europe will mean.

"It is my belief that if we make it plain and clear that the United States will not tolerate the destruction of the western civilization of Europe we shall have peace. Not a peace, I believe, through long and exhausting war that will waste our manpower and our resources. But peace because, for once in world history, an aggressor will be forewarned of our determination backed up by our strength.

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"We need a strong Air Force, capable of striking sustained blows far beyond the peripheral bases which we now hold; an Air Force capable of the air defense of our homeland and our protective bases and capable of seeking out and destroying an enemy that might impose war. Such an Air Force requires more aircraft and more manpower than we have today in readiness to meet the lightning war of tomorrow.

"We need a ground force to protect our air bases from hostile attack, which it takes much more than airplanes to resist. We need a ground force to seize and hold more distance bases-should the attack fall upon us-in order to take the war to the enemy and not suffer its ravages here in America. Such bases, as well as our great cities here at home and our key production centers, require antiaircraft protection, which is provided by the Army. And a strengthened Air Force will require enlargement of those Army elements which service and support its operations.

"We need a Navy capable of defending the necessary sea lanes of the world from submarine attack, of developing antisubmarine warfare, of insuring the sea transportation of our manpower and our logistical supplies and equipment to distant points, and of assisting both attack and defense through air-sea power and amphibious operations."

Since the date 1 year ago when he gave the testimony from which I have just quoted, Secretary Forrestal has presided over a substantial increase in our military strength. The Army, from its low point of 540,000, has increased 30 percent and has topped the 700,000 mark; the Air Force has increased 15 percent, to approximately 420,000 men, and the Navy has increased 10 percent, to approximately 530,000.

What, then, has been the consequence of this increase in our military strength, coupled with the solid fact of a Europe well on its way to economic recovery?

In order to visualize what has happened, take yourself back to the world of 1 year ago. In March of 1948, there were grim forebodings about the outcome of the impending Italian election, scheduled for the following month. A few days earlier, Jan Masaryk had leaped to his death from a third-story window in Prague. France was torn by internal dissention. Throughout the remainder of Europe hunger and fear were laying the foundations of despair. Where do we stand today, 1 year later?

Today there is hope in western Europe, in place of despair, in the place of hunger, there is food; and in place of fear, there is the courage of free peoples to band together to protect their lives and liberties against the threat of aggression.

Much of the improvement that has taken place in the past year is attributable to the work of Secretary of Defense Forrestal, and I wanted to take advantage of this occasion to express my own deeply held conviction that if we succeed in attaining our long-sought goal of world peace, one of the principal architects will have been James Forrestal, first Secretary of Defense of the United States. Turning now to the subject I had originally intended to discuss, let me tell you about some of the specific steps that have been taken in connection with the unification of the armed forces.

One of the most recent steps-and a step that has been widely publicized-was the directive that was issued on March 17, consolidating the public information activities of the three military departments.

This public relations directive, which was one of Forrestal's last official acts as Secretary of Defense, had been thoroughly discussed by him with his successor, and both were in complete agreement as to the desirability of this additional step in the unification process. The advisability of this step had been under consideration for some time, and a number of preliminary moves in that direction had already been made such as the establishment on October 10, 1947, of the Public Relations Advisory Council, the creation on July 19, 1948, of the Office of Public Information, and the opening on August 11, 1948, of a consolidated press room, staffed by representatives of all three services.

The field of public information is similar to the field of legislation as far as the need for central control is concerned. It is also similar to the field of the military budget in this regard. But while the three fields are similar, they are not identical and each therefore requires an organizational pattern best designed to assure central control in its particular field. The Office of Public Information is now the sole agency for the National Military Establishment at the seat of government for the dissemination of information to media of public information, to civic organizations, veterans associations and other civilian groups, with the exception of the Congress of the United States, which is served by the Office of Legislative Liaison-an office which I will discuss in just a moment.

In connection with the public relations directive-and in connection with the difficulties that have been overcome in putting into effect all the other steps toward unification that have been taken in the past 18 months-it is important to bear in mind that the Army and Navy have 150 years of tradition behind them, as individual executive departments of the Government. It is also important to bear in mind, as I mentioned earlier, that the Unification Act created a third department, the Department of the Air Force.

One of the earliest unification measures to be put into effect, and one of the most successful, was the consolidation, into a single air line, of the separate air transport activities formerly conducted by the Air Force and the Navy. The new organization, known as MATS-the Military Air Transport Servicerepresents a consolidation of the old Air Transport Command and the old Naval Air Transport Service. The consolidated air line, MATS, has already proved its worth by making an outstanding contribution to the success of the Berlin air lift.

A more recent step was the completion of a Uniform Code of Military Justice. This code, which has been submitted to Congress by Secretary Forrestal, represents a long forward step in the direction of two important goals: First, a code that will be uniform for the personnel of all the services, and second, a code that will be both modern and just.

A similar measure is the proposed military pay legislation which Congress is currently considering. Back of this proposed legislation stands a year of study by a highly competent civilian advisory group, convened by Secretary

Forrestal expressly for the purpose of making a comprehensive study of military pay and retirement-a field that had not been exhaustively reviewed since 1908.

Another study, conducted by an interdepartmental group under the chairmanship of Assistant Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray, has provided us with a comprehensive and up-to-date plan for strengthening our Reserve forces-something that has been badly needed for years.

To turn from the field of studies to the field of action, mention might be made of the work of the Munitions Board in coordinating the procurement activities of the three services. At the present time, more than 80 percent of the total dolla volume of military procurement is being handled on a coordinated basis, under assignments of responsibility which the Munitions Board has made. Under these procurement assignments, for example, the Air Force buys all photographic material for all three services; the Army buys all basic foods for all three; and the Navy buys all solid fuels for all three.

Mention should also be made, I think, of the military command set-up under unification. At the present time, unified commands have been set up in all overseas theaters in which we have major troop elements. The unified commander, regardless of the uniform he wears, commands all three services in his theater. Examples are: the Alaskan theater, under Air Force command; the Pacific theater, under Navy command; and the Caribbean theater, under Army command. The unified commands are a responsibility of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As you know, General Eisenhower is currently serving as presiding officer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-and I would say that the service of General Eisenhower in this capacity in and of itself represents still another forward step in the unification process.

The roles and missions of the three services, as defined by Secretary Forrestal after lengthy sessions with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at Key West and Newport, represent another of the links in the unification chain. The definition of these roles and missions was an essential step in the process of preparing an integrated budget for the National Military Establishment as a whole-something else that was done this year for the first time in our history as a Nation.

We have also prepared a legislative program for the entire Military Establishment-and this, too, represents a "first." This legislative program, which was formulated in its entirety before Congress convened, consists of those items which the Secretary of Defense has approved for submission to Congress. The completion of this program by Secretary Forrestal's office has enabled us to go forward with our legislative program promptly, and in an orderly manner. The vehicle through which we handle our legislative program-the Office of Legislative Liaison-represents the establishment of central control over legislation as the end-product of a year of evolutionary development in the legislative field.

Earlier, I mentioned the consolidation of air transport activities, through the creation of MATS. The Air Force has been assigned responsibility for this consolidated operation. Similarly, several months ago Secretary Forrestal ordered that central control over all ocean transport would hereafter be vested in the Navy. This may seem like a simple and obvious solution-but the fact of the matter is that the Army has been operating more than 400 ocean-going vessels.

To round out the transport picture, last month Secretary Forrestal ordered that common-use land transport in the United States be consolidated under the Army-another step that may seem obvious, but one which required several months of preliminary study, not to mention the months of effort that it will take to put it into effect.

To a degree, I feel that I should apologize for giving you this long list of illustrations-but I know of no other way to give you an equally clear picture of the magnitude of the problem with which we have been dealing.

Accordingly, let me give you a hurried list of some other items. Ticking them off quickly, I would name these:

1. The establishment of a Personnel Policy Board, designed to work out uniform personnel policies for the three services.

2. The establishment of a weapons systems evaluation group, designed to give factual study to the capabilities of various weapons-thereby getting this subject out of the arena of controversy.

3. The establishment of a unified public information office, under a civilian director already referred to above.